"This love is above all fully human, a compound of sense and spirit. It is not, then, merely a question of natural instinct or emotional drive. It is also, and above all, an act of the free will, whose trust is such that it is meant not only to survive the joys and sorrows of daily life, but also to grow, so that husband and wife become in a way one heart and one soul, and together attain their human fulfillment."
These words are from Humane Vitae written by Pope Paul VI in Paragraph 9. We all know the views of the church and marraige, but in case you didn't know, they have a strict policy when it comes to being together in a state of holy matrimony. Basically it says to love your partner, and only them for all time to come and that the act/feeling/emotion of 'love' is human. You and your partner share everything, you trust one another, you love one another, you don't cheat (huge emphasis on this mainly because if you cheat then you're marriage will fall apart, etc), and that the main thing you're supposed to do is make babies. The Pope outlines that marriage is between husband and wife and that marriage is assumed to be between a man and a woman, in which they assign gender roles to the subjects in question.
The Pope (and all the people who back him up and share the same ideas) argues that marriage is happy, marriage is eternal, and that everything is going to be okay in the end, it also entails that you're going to find someone who's going to follow these rules, and see 'marriage' the way he sees it. The Pope says that no matter what you will be happy with someone else...which says a lot.
The problems with the way the Pope thinks comes in many forms/thoughts/ideas. One, that you are heterosexual, I mean, what if you're not? In his letter he doesn't define 'husband' and 'wife' as being a male and female, neither does the Bible...but by him excluding this thought he also excludes the idea of marriage between a male/male and female/female. He makes no room for 'love being of free will' like he states, free will happens for everyone and if you fall for someone of the same sex and want to be married well then you're screwed. Two, he makes a huge assumption that your partner is perfect and doesn't come with baggage or anything. He doesn't say what to do if your partner isn't an angel like the way your partner should be, if they cheat on you, if they give you an STD/STI, if they break your heart, if they're mean to you, if they beat you up, if they rape you, if you're not compatible (like if you're betrothed)...etc. The Pope spells out what marriage should be like without including all of the logistics/life things that could happen along the way. All of these things are psychological/identity/social problems. Like what if you don't fit the 'perfect angel partner' that he outlines does that mean your damned? What if you get married and find out you're just not right for each other are you damned eternally?
The consequences of this are quite plain, everyone tries to live up to this perfect standard that doesn't exist. It compiles everything from guys wanting to be all muscles, girls wanting to be skinny and pretty, identity crisis' with your sexuality, how you look to other people, you worry about what other people may think of you, you worry if you're doing things 'right' or if you're doing them 'wrong' and what this means to your culture/ideas of the afterlife??? Then you're thinking about what to believe in and who you should believe in...
The Pope and his ideas of marriage can be thought of deeply and interestingly. You can literally tear his idea of marriage apart and apply the cultural aspects of 'marriage' and what it means to people. People change and as a result culture does as well. Right now marriage means to be in love with someone with a fair chance of being divorced (people are always cheating). 50 years ago marriage meant saving yourself for the partner that you're going to marry with divorce being a last resort. Things are definitely changing.
Your second paragraph about what the Pope argues is very interesting to me. He argues that marriage is happy, eternal and will be okay in the end, but he is so wrong. Due to human life, culture has changed today, and around 50% of marriages end in divorce. Many people marry for the wrong reasons, are not happy for over half of their marriage, and this result in them not lasting. Your comment about husband and wife not being specified as male and female is also very interesting to me because this is something i never noticed. Husband and wife are not defined with sexes, therefore, how can we state a male must be a husband and a female must be a wife, if this is not stated anywhere?
ReplyDeleteI love that you state that nowhere does it say that a husband needs to be a male and a wife needs to be a female, because this is so true! The only problem with this is that to the priest, marriage is closely tied with reproduction and that sex or intimacy should not interfere unless you are going to produce a child. This is where you can see the conflicting sides between homosexual/heterosexual marriage in the eyes of the church. Clearly, today in practice most couples are marrying for love and not for reproduction purposes. But in the eyes of the pope it is the opposite and male/male, female/female marriages will not result in a child, adding to the whole homosexual conspiracy within the church. Marriage is defined so differently by the Pope than the American Culture, thus making it even less relatable to what is happening now in culture.
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