1. Marriage and Family
Unit 1 Religion and Life

2. Changing attitudes to marriage and family life
Sex before marriage is more common due to the availability of contraception and young people are educated to have safe, healthy relationships than told not to have sex.
Homosexual relationships are more accepted. Equality laws have meat it is easier to be openly homosexual and to now marry.
Many couples now live together (cohabit) rather than marry. Most married couples live with their partner first.
There are more unmarried mothers., some cohabiting with a partner. In addition there are more single-parent families as divorce is more common, and more re-constitute families as divorcees choose to remarry.
Only a minority of marriages take place in church. Divorce is more common. The 1969 Divorce laws made it cheaper and easier to get a divorce. Also women today are not prepared to accept unequal treatment from men.

3. Sex Outside of Marriage – Christian Attitudes
Pre-marital sex. The Bible says that fornication ( a word often used to describe pre-marital sex and promiscuity) is sinful.
Procreation. Christianity teaches that sex was given to humans by God to have children and children should be brought up in a Christian family. Therefore sex should only take place in marriage.
Adultery. Sex with someone to whom you is not your husband or wife is wrong for Christians. It breaks your wedding vows to be faithful and the commandment, ‘Do not commit adultery’.
Cohabitation. The Church of England only accept a sexual relationship between two people committed to a long-term relationship, and accepts couples may live together before marriage, but they expect them to marry when starting a family.
Exodus 20:14 ‘Do not commit adultery’

4. Sex Outside of Marriage – Muslim Attitudes
Pre-marital sex. Sex before marriage is forbidden by the Qur’an. In Islamic unlawful sexual relations is called zina, this includes pre-marital sex.
Procreation. Islam teaches that the primary purpose of sex is for the procreation of children and children should only be born in a family where a mother and father are married.
Adultery. Men and women should not commit adultery as men are not allowed to be alone with women other than their wives in case they are tempted.
Crime. Adultery is punishable in the Qur’an, the man and the woman both receiving 100 lashes of a whip.
Hadith, ‘Let no man be in privacy with a woman who he is not married to, or Satan will be the third’

5. Divorce – Christian Attitudes
Re-marriage
Roman Catholic Church  
Protestant Churches  
Roman Catholic Church
The Roman Catholic Church does not allow divorce, and therefore re-marriage is a form of adultery (as you are still married to your first husband or wife). A couple may legally separate.
The reasons for this is:
Jesus taught that divorce is wrong.
A marriage makes an agreement with God that cannot be ended by people.
A couple may under special arrangements have an annulment, meaning that the marriage was not valid from the beginning. This is not a divorce.
Protestant Churches
Most Protestant churches think divorce is wrong, but allow it if the marriage has broken down. Many of them allow divorced people to remarry, but questions are asked of why the previous marriage failed.
The reasons for this is:
Jesus allowed divorce if a partner committed adultery.
It is the lesser of two evils to allow divorce than keeping the couple together.
Christians allow forgiveness and a new chance if they are truly sorry for what has happened.

6. Divorce – Muslim Attitudes
Divorce and re-marriage are allowed in Islam.
Some Muslims think marriage should be for life:
Muhammad reported said that divorce is the most hateful of lawful things.
Most marriages are arranged by parents, so there is parental pressure for it not to end.
Muslims are taught on the Last Day they will be judged, including on how well they treat their children. Divorce can harm children.
The Qur’an teaches that families should try to rescue a marriage during the three month waiting period (iddah) and therefore avoid divorce.
Some Muslims think divorce should be allowed:
The Qur’an allows divorce. There are rules concerning the terms of the iddah, custody of children and care for the divorced wife.
The Shari’ah therefore allows divorce.
It is the lesser of the two evils for a couple to divorce than force a couple to continue to live together
Marriage is a contract in Islam. The contract includes what happens if the couple divorce.

7. Homosexuality – Christian Attitudes
Homosexual relationships
Homosexual
Homosexuality – Christian Attitudes 
Roman Catholic Church 
Fundamentalist
Protestant    
Liberal Protestant
Roman Catholic Church
It is not a sin to be homosexual, but homosexual sexual relationships are wrong. The Roman Catholic Church asks homosexuals to live without any sex.
The Bible clearly condemns homosexual sex.
Sex is meant to be creative and it is impossible for homosexuals to have creative sex.
People cannot help their sexual orientation, but they can control their sexual activity.
Fundamentalist Protestant
Homosexuality is a sin. They believe that there should be no homosexual Christians and prayer can help change someone’s sexual preference.
The Bible clearly condemns homosexuality in both the Old and New Testament.
Christ can remove all sins, including homosexuality.
Liberal Protestant
Lifelong homosexual sexual relationships are acceptable, but homosexual relationships cannot be equal to Christian marriage. Church leaders may be homosexual, but cannot have a homosexual sexual relationship.
the Bible needs to be updated to reflect modern knowledge and science about homosexuality.
Christians should believe in love and acceptance.
Christians should be honest and denying your homosexuality is dishonest and could be hypocritical.

8. Homosexuality – Muslim attitudes
The majority say homosexuality is wrong:
Homosexuality is condemned by the Qur’an.
The Prophet Muhammad condemned homosexuality in several hadiths.
Primary aim of sex is to have children and this is not possible for homosexual sex.
Marriage is between a man and a woman and is the only lawful form of sex, therefore homosexual sex is wrong.
A minority say homosexual is acceptable:
Islam is meant to be a religion of tolerance, not hate.
God created all people and loves them as he created them.
Science shows that people are born homosexual, therefore God must have made them homosexual and wants them to be homosexual.

9. Contraception – Christian Attitudes
Roman Catholic Church 
Protestant Churches 
Roman Catholic Church
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that sex is a gift from God as a source of pleasure for married couples (unitive purposes) and creating a family (creative purpose). Parents should have sex responsibly to have a family when they want to have them by using natural family planning.
Artificial contraception is wrong, because:
It separates the unitive and creative purposes of sex.
Some contraceptives have be abortive.
It encourages sexual promiscuity, broken families, divorce and sexually transmitted diseases.
Protestant Churches
Most Protestant Churches believe that natural and artificial contraception can be used to restrict the size of the family and not simply to stop having children altogether.
Christianity is about love and justice and contraception improves women’s health and raises families’ standard of living.
God created sex for unitive purposes. Contraception just allows the purpose of sex is to be separated.
There is nothing in the Bible that forbids the use of contraception.
It is better to combat AID? HIV by using condoms than by expecting everyone to follow Christian rules about sex and marriage.

10. Contraception – Muslim attitudes
Some Muslims say contraception is wrong:
The Qur’an says ‘you should not kill your children for fear of want’, therefore you not stop having children if you are worried you cannot afford them.
Allah created sex for procreation and therefore is against Allah’s wishes.
They are opposed to abortion and some contraception can be abortive.
They believe it is the duty of Muslims to have large families.
Some Muslims say contraception is acceptable:
The Prophet Muhammad allowed the use of coitus interruptus as a means of contraception, when the man removes his penis before ejaculating.
The Qur’an teaches that God won’t place extra burdens on his followers, such as a large family.
If pregnancy is likely to result in a woman’s death, then contraception must be allowed otherwise it is a form of suicide.
Muslim lawyers agree contraception is different from abortion.