FROM EXCLUSION TO INCLUSION: MARRIAGE FOR ALL St Mark’s Centre for Radical Christianity - Sat. 22 nd March 2014

FROM PATRIARCHY TO EQUALITY: THE CHANGING FACE OF MARRIAGE – SESSION 1 1. Some social trends since ‘From Patriarchy to Partnership’ – Eight Pictures of Marriage 3. Marriage for Same-Sex Couples? 4. Making Chastity Sexy 5. ‘Marital Values’

1. Some social trends since 1960 Reliable contraception, allowing separation of sexual pleasure from the duty of procreation Increasing separation of sex from marriage Increasing separation of marriage from parenthood Changes to marriage: from hierarchical to companionate marriage Some transformation in relations of gender:-

1. Some social trends since 1960: i) Marriage Reliable contraception, allowing separation of sexual pleasure from the duty of procreation Increasing separation of sex from marriage Increasing separation of marriage from parenthood Changes from hierarchical to companionate marriage

1. Some social trends since 1960: ii) gender ‘private sphere’ no longer a feminine domain Women are a majority in UK universities (and departments of Theology) Equal pay: access to top jobs ‘Successful’ women won’t be submissive in church and home

1. Some social trends since 1960: iii) the full visibility of sexual minorities Homosexual Law Reform Act (1967) Same-sex partnerships and marriages Intersex and transgender people who don’t fit into binary sex categories New emphasis on identity and self-definition

1. Some social trends since 1960: iv) Families 40+% of marriages end in divorce Several family forms, not just one Family duties negotiated, not pre-assigned 1.9 million lone parents with dependent children in the UK in million couples cohabit

Eight Pictures of Marriage

Eight Pictures of Marriage: i) A Communion of Persons In Trinity, Persons are not sexed; Are co-equal; Each makes the other what s/he is Domination is impossible

Sameness and Difference among Persons

Eight Pictures of Marriage: ii) A Gift of Bodies ‘This is my body, given for you…’ mimesis

Eight Pictures of Marriage: iii) A Covenant Calvin’s idea Foedus (Vatican II) Opposite of ‘contract’ Dominance, ownership, calculation, obsolescence have no place in it

Eight Pictures of Marriage: iv) An Image of the New Covenant Christianity is a covenant Consortium totius vitae ‘This is my blood, the blood of the covenant’ (Matt.26: 28) Marriage a mimesis

Eight Pictures of Marriage: v) A Mutual Ministry Only sacrament requiring a woman to be present! Administered by the couple to one another In the presence of God, the chief witness Blessed by the priest

Eight Pictures of Marriage: vi) A Union of Heart, Body and Mind ‘one flesh’? Whose?! Without hierarchy? A ‘union of persons’? Neither dependence nor independence: mutual interdependence

Eight Pictures of Marriage: vii) An Anticipation of the End! ‘ Nuptial mysticism’ Symbols of the end of time derived from marital union

Eight Pictures of Marriage: viii) the best basis for families On every comparable basis children raised by biological parents do better Empirical evidence now supports classic Christian concensus Parenthood a sharing in God’s being and acting

How might same-sex couples share in this marital theology?

Equal Marriage? 1. Communion of Persons? 2. A Gift of Bodies? 3. A Covenant? 4. An Image of the New Covenant?

Equal Marriage? 5. A Mutual Ministry? 6. A Union of Heart, Body and Mind? 7. An Anticipation of the End? 8. The Best Basis for Families? 9. [An Ascetic Discipline?]

4. Making chastity sexy A cardinal theological virtue Sexual restraint, not always abstinence Conduct appropriate to ‘situation in life’ (including marriage!)

What values to Christians assign to marriage?

‘Marital Values’? Christians value marriage for the values it upholds: Love; Unconditional commitment; Mutuality/reciprocity?

‘Marital Values’? But marital values are also found outside marriage: And inside marriage they are often lacking