On Marriage

Preliminary: Intrinsic Terms of Love Free Faithful Fruitful Total

Love as Faithful Love that is fully committed to another Commitment that guides all other actions To pledge fidelity in marriage is to pledge stability In other words, to pledge fidelity in marriage is to pledge commitment to another in each and every moment of one’s life, regardless of passing feelings

Love as Free Love that is not controlled or manipulated by another person of by disordered desires Rooted in the interior freedom that results from knowledge of truth and goodness Derives from the practice of the virtues In other words, love is free insofar as it rooted in the virtuous life

Love as Total Love that holds nothing back Embraces all dimensions of our being Embraces the dimension of time To pledge totality in marriage is to pledge permanence to another. Makes sense of the vow “until death does us part.”

Love as Fruitful Love that is life-giving Is ecstatic in the sense the presses beyond oneself, and so opens up to the possibility of compassion, of suffering for another Open to new life in the natural realm Open to newness of life in the spiritual and emotional realm Bearer and giver of love as memory

Applications If love (eros)... embraces all dimensions of existence, and… is intrinsically free, faithful, fruitful, and total, and… is rooted in human nature… then it follows that love is expressed as free, faithful, fruitful, and total across all dimensions of human existence

On the Fruitful Aspect of Love in Human Unions All authentic love is fruitful or ecstatic, meaning that it presses beyond those who are united This ecstatic dimension is present in intellectual unions, emotional unions, spiritual unions, and bodily unions

On the Fruitful Aspect of Love in Human Unions This aspect is expressed… In intellectual unions like scholarship communities, through openness to intellectual insight and discovery In emotional unions like friendship (philia), through openness to richer depths of companionship and concern In spiritual unions like religious communities, through openness to richer depths of sacrifice and communion with God And in the bodily union of marriage, through openness to new human life

The Union of Marriage Marriage is a union of persons But unlike other human unions, marriage is a comprehensive union of persons To call marriage comprehensive is to say that it involves a total gift or sharing of lives and resources

Presuppositions of Marriage as Union of Persons To call marriage a union of persons is to necessarily raise the question of what a person is In the integral conception, the human person is a unity of body and soul In most dualist conceptions, the human person is reduced to a mind alone or the conscious and desiring aspect of the self In the integral conception, the body enters into the definition of the human person In the dualist conception, the body does not enter into the definition, and thus is regarded as a subpersonal reality

Application of Conceptions of the Human Person to Marriage Conjugal Conception Presupposes the integral conception of the human person As a union of persons, marital union necessarily includes bodily union Because it involves bodily union, gives rise to understanding why male- female polarity is essential Revisionist Conception Presupposes the dualist conception of the human person As a union of persons, marital union does not include bodily union, for the body does enter into the definition of the human person Because it does not involve bodily union, male-female polarity is not essential

Marriage as One-Flesh Union Sometimes it is called organic bodily union It is called organic, because in bodily union, spouses are able to become one organ or single reproductive principle We can digest by ourselves and breathe by ourselves because we have organs sufficient to perform these functions without aid of another individual We cannot reproduce by ourselves, however, because we are one only one-half of the necessary organ or reproductive principle

Marriage as Two To say that marriage involves organic bodily union helps to clarify why the male-female polarity is essential to marriage Organic bodily union is exclusive to the male-female dyad, and so makes clear why marriage is specific to two and two alone If marriage, however, is defined in terms of emotional union, this conception cannot make clear why marriage essentially two and two alone. Emotional union as the union specific to friendship is not limited to two

Marriage: Covenant or Contract Covenant Terms are received Terms like exclusivity, fidelity, indissolubility and eros are intrinsic Permanent in that it mirrors God’s undivided and undividable commitment to Israel Pledge of permanence flows from eros’ goal of infinity Adult preferences subject to terms of marriage Contract Terms are made Terms like exclusivity, fidelity, indissolubility, and eros are extrinsic Temporary and Malleable Just as eros and permanence are considered extrinsic, so too is link between them considered extrinsic Marriage subject to terms of adult preferences

Marriage, Memory, and Embodied Difference Our bodies are a sign of our openness to the future and our link to the past The vocation to love inscribed into sexual difference and the personal body itself involves individual persons in the unfolding of history and the generations. Bodily union provides a “pre-history” for all of us In recognizing one’s origins in the sexual difference of one’s parents, one is able to understand that his or her existence was already written into their love and destined from within it