Sunday Sermon - August 3, 2014: Marriage or Matrimony?

"Nowadays love is a matter of chance, matrimony a matter of money and divorce a matter of course.

-- Helen Rowland (1875-1950, journalist and humorist

Is it going to be marriage or matrimony?  The two words are used interchangeably these days.  But, should they be and are they really the same?  Some would say not, and I am inclined to agree.

For Christians, entering into the "estate of holy matrimony" requires the ceremony be performed by a member of clergy, preferably in a church.  The union in this case is sanctified, made holy, as the couple believes their vows were made not only to each other, but to God.  Is it any wonder that the Christian faith frowns on divorce?  You not only lied to each other by not keeping your vows, you have also lied to God.

"I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate - it's apathy.  It's not giving a damn."

-- Leo Buscaglia (1924-1998), author and motivational speaker

Marriage, on the other hand, relies on a government form, a marriage certificate.  Because the marriage certificate is a recorded government form, proving the union between two people that have made "vows" or promises to each other, it becomes a legal contract in a court of law which the allows either the right to sue the other for breach of contract.  Why in the world would one want to get married?  It also conveys a number of other civil rights like taxes, estate planning, and right to make decisions if the spouse in incapacitated and the like.  And there is always the fact that living with someone for a number of years conveys the right of "common law marriage" on the couple where you may not have a legal piece of paper proving marriage, but the legal argument can be made that, for all intents and purposes, you enjoyed all the rights and privileges so you deserve the same considerations, especially in divorce.

"If we take matrimony at it's lowest, we regard it as a sort of friendship recognised by the police."

-- Robert Louis Stevenson

When it comes to ending a marriage, whether you enter into the estate of holy matrimony or marriage, you have the same rights, in a civil court, to lose your ass.  In the estate of holy matrimony you have the added treat of burning in hell for lying to God.  Better if you have a civil marriage, right?

Using this argument, not wanting to risk lying to God, for having a civil marriage is like taking out life insurance.  Life insurance is a way for you to bank on the fact that you will die which is like going to a casino and, instead of gambling you just hand them over a check when you could put that check in the bank and plan on never dying.  If you don't die, all of the money and any dividends are there for retirement.  In the same light a civil marriage for the wrong reason is banking on the fact that you will be getting divorced and don't want to risk God's wrath.  I have bad news for those that go this route, God also believes in the legalities of civil union and common law marriage rules.  The intent exists so you're still going to be screwed, in every way except one.

"They say all marriages are made in heaven, but so are thunder and lightning."-- Clint Eastwood

For all intents and purposes marriage, holy matrimony, handfasting, Kiddushin, and any number of other words used for the ceremony, are simply words used to verbalize the deep feelings two people have for each other and their desire to spend the rest of their lives, on this plane of existence, together.  The legal contract notwithstanding, if you do not have a deep understanding of love, in particular the love for this one individual, as being the most important "till death do us part" event in your lives, do not marry this person!  Most certainly don't have children with them.  It will be a disservice to your partner, yourself, and to the children that will suffer for your selfishness.

"Perfect love is rare indeed - for to be a perfect lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain."

-- Leo Buscaglia

Nowadays, "divorce is a matter of course."  This statement was made by Helen Rowland before her death in 1950.  Contrary to popular press and belief, divorce is really on the decline.  As with everything based on statistics, it is all in how you manipulate the numbers to achieve your agenda.  While researching the numbers for this post I came across a much more important statement about those numbers and decided that the numbers really aren't that important other than to note they are, and have been, in decline.  The information I came across is a sobering reality in this country, and one that infects more than just minorities and those of low income or on welfare.  This is slowly becoming an epidemic eroding the American family and our society. Please, if you pay attention to nothing else in this post, understand the following paragraph.  Do not just read it, read it and understand it.  It is a sobering statement on who we have become and what we are doing to our children.  I feel for the children at the border, but this is about our home and our kids.  How can we hope to help others when our own house isn't in order?   

So, here is the sermon for this week: 

These numbers are not set in stone, and divorce rates mask entirely the social costs of failed marriages and broken families. For example, without a doubt, the so-called "feminization of poverty" includes, not only unmarried or never married single women struggling to raise their children as solo mothers, but also many divorced woman who are now struggling to manage as single custodial mothers. The children of these women often grow up in environments where the father is an occasional visitor or absent entirely. So often the children of divorce are at risk. An avalanche of data and statistics demonstrate "a wide variety of negative behavioral and education consequences" to children growing up in fatherless homes. Children from fatherless homes account for 63 percent of youth suicides, 71 percent of the pregnant teenagers, 90 percent of the homeless and runaway children, and 70 percent of the institutionalized juveniles. They account for 85 percent of the children with behavioral disorders, 80 percent of rapists, 71 percent of all high school dropouts, 75 percent of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers and 85 percent of all youths in prison. Using these numbers to study productively the impact of divorce on real people living real lives calls to mind a remark attributed to Albert Einstein, who said, "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." 

--  http://www.divorcesource.com/ds/main/u-s-divorce-rates-and-statistics-1037.shtml

In the final analysis, for me, what you call it is not at all important.  The ceremony is just that, a ceremony.  It is meaningless other than to announce to those around you of your intent to wed an individual for life, give an excuse to waste untold thousands of dollars you can't afford on cake your fat friends don't really need to eat, drink mass quantities of alcohol your liver really doesn't need to process, and provide your friends a venue where they might hook up with some sweet thing they can spend all night lying to.

Marriage is the promise between two people, regardless of sexual preference, to dedicate their total love and the rest of their lives to each other, come what may.  If you had the ability to marry without a piece of paper proving it, would you?  Does the paper prove your love, or do you?

Marriage or matrimony?  If you're not a theist, then marriage would seem to fit.  Get a prenup and a license.  If it doesn't work out, hey, no harm no foul, right?  After all, non-theists are more intelligent, so they would have us think.  Wanna bet who has the highest divorce percentage?  We might have to manipulate the numbers a bit.

I leave you with a final thought:

"Still it is true that many same sex couples want nothing more than to join society as fully integrated socially responsible family-centered taxpaying Little League-coaching nation-serving respectably married citizens.  So why not welcome them in?  Why not recruit them by the vanload to sweep in on heroic wings and save the flagging and battered old institution of matrimony from a bunch of apathetic ne'er-do-well heterosexual deadbeats like me?"

-- Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Note:  As always, even the Sunday sermon are just thoughts to provoke response.  If the response is nothing more than it made someone think, then this has been a good day.  Feel free to discuss your views and offer others an equal chance to respond.  A day without thinking is a day comatose.  Wake up! My wishes and prayer that all of you have another glorious Sunday in paradise!