Jerusha_Girl said:
I think marriage is sacred. Really no getting around the sacred nature of marriage.
I think viewing practical and mundane human affairs as sacred is a big part of the problem.
I don't think marriage is sacred. I think it is a practical arrangement that works well because of how our societies are structured today. It works, but it is a sacred thing. As our societies change and evolve, we may also need to revise and modify the institute of marriage to make it work better.
Marriage has been around in different cultures long before many religions appeared. Many historians believe that marriage started as a political and/or business tool. Different families, tribes, communities would establish or strenghten their relationships by offering their daughters to another family in a legal contract. Back then women didn't have much say in anything anyway.
This hardly seems how a sacred tradition would begin.
In the future, as our societies change, marriage may not be such an essential part of our society. raising children can become an institutional work. Looking at how popular daycares are today, I would say we are already on that path. This is not better or worse, it's just different from what we are used to.
Marriage like most other human traditions is not a sacred or divine thing. Also, like many other human traditions, traditional marriage can live out it's usefulness as the world changes.
Believing in the sacredness of marriage will only make us less flexible and make the transition more painful. Then again, change has never been easy especially for many religious who see change in apocalyptic and good-vs-evil terms.
MB.
