In today's world, is marriage still relevant?

by Rabbi Aron Moss from Chabad.org
Rabbi Moss teaches Kabbalah, Talmud and practical Judaism in Sydney, Australia.

Unlike a hundred years ago, a couple today can live together without getting married. What are they missing?

Marriage is more relevant today than ever before in history. Marriage used to be a given. Now it is a choice. All the old arguments for marriage have fallen away, and we are left with only one true reason to get married. We can finally get married for the right reason.

What were once good reasons to get married are largely irrelevant today. Here are four classic reasons to get married:

1. So we can live together. As you pointed out in your question, this reason no longer applies to the many couples who live happily together without getting married.

2. So we can have children. Again, it is possible to have children and be wonderful parents without getting married.

3. To make a solid commitment. That's a charming one. We are getting married to make it harder to walk away from each other. How romantic.

4. To make our relationship official. You could achieve that by placing an announcement in the newspaper saying, "We are now official." You don't need a caterer to serve gazpacho soup in a ballroom just to make it official.

So what are we left with? If not to live together, to start a family, to make a commitment or to make it official, why get married?

There's only one reason.

Marriage makes a relationship divine. Getting married means that something bigger than both of you is bringing you together. A wedding achieves something that simply can't happen otherwise -- G-d is introduced into the relationship.

Until they are married, a couple's commitment to each other is a human commitment, with all the limitations of being human. We can't see the future, we can't know what may change and what may eventuate, and we make mistakes. The chuppah elevates the commitment beyond human limitations. The blessings made under the chuppah invoke G-d's name upon the couple, and bring G-d into the union as a partner. You are married not just because you chose to be, but because G-d has said so.

Without a chuppah you can have love, commitment and family -- but it isn't holy. Only by standing under a chuppah and marrying according to tradition does your union become sacred. Only after the wedding is your love blessed with the divine imprint of eternity.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~More~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Social Scientist: Biblical Marriage Matters,

Freedom Depends on the Family
By Mary Rettig

from Agape Press

A sociologist and writer says America cannot afford to say no to traditional marriage. Brad Wilcox, co-author of The Meaning of Marriage: Family, State, Market, and Morals (Spence Publishing, 2006), believes how U.S. society defines marriage can affect everything from the nation's economy to its citizens' individual rights.

Wilcox, a sociologist from the University of Virginia, is encouraged to note that 19 U.S. states have adopted pro-traditional marriage amendments to their state constitutions, and nine more states will vote on similar issues this November. He says marriage relates to every aspect of a nation's life, whether social, economic, or political.

"We know that the success of marriage has a lot to do with how children turn out and has to do with things like criminal activity, teenage pregnancy and child poverty," Wilcox observes, "so if we're concerned about things like crime rates, teenage girls getting pregnant, and kids living in poverty, then we should be concerned about the health and the strength of marriage."

The sociology expert says strong families directly correspond to a strong economy, low crime, and low government interference. On the other hand, he asserts, weak families result in a weak economy, high crime, and other social problems that result in a welfare state and undermine a Republic form of government. Hence, failing to keep American families strong will be detrimental in several ways, he insists.

"Our liberties and our freedoms depend in a large part on our capacity to govern ourselves," Wilcox notes. "If people cannot govern themselves -- if families cannot govern themselves -- the government has to step in to take up the slack," he says.

"Our tradition in the United States has been to stress the limited character of government, the limited nature of government, and to really emphasize the importance of individual liberty and freedom," the author asserts. But as families break down, he continues, government grows and endangers America's representative form of government as well as the freedoms and opportunities that her citizens have come to associate with the American way of life.

That is why traditional marriage must be upheld, Wilcox insists. When marriages fail, the sociologist explains, people are more likely to fall into poverty, whether through divorce or illegitimacy. And when that happens, he says, the state often ends up having to pick up the tab through welfare programs, and American independence and liberty are undermined.

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