howard@cyb-eng.UUCP (Howard Johnson) (08/15/85)
> >In article <1761@reed.UUCP> purtell@reed.UUCP (Lady Godiva) writes: > NO SHE DOESN"T!!!!! > >>> Marriage from a christian's standpoint ... When summarizing, summarize! It seems to me that this discussion is losing it's focus. If I can remember back far enough, the original title of this posting dealt with the commitment marriage partners make as to it's permanence. [ As an aside, I've shortened the subject line, trimmed the references line to indicate where I picked up on the discussion (after I stopped reading), and I'll try to stick to the the topic of commitment in marriage in this article. ] There is a very good reason why marriage partners vow to make their marriage permanent: children need the attention of their parents in order to develop those traits which society acknowledges as valuable and good. A child's happiness, self esteem, trustworthiness, etc. depend on that attention. Both parents are responsible for providing their children the opportunities for learning how to be "good." Yes, the purpose of marriage is to provide companionship. And marriage is good even if no children are present. But an important role of the children is to help their parents, and one way they can help them is to encourage them to make the effort to stay together so that they can all provide each other with companionship. Life is difficult enough without trying to live through it alone. I recognize that people make mistakes. I also believe that people with various degrees of differing personalities provide differing degrees of "compatability." In *most* cases it is possible and desirable for marriage partners to overcome these differences (certainly more than the 50% or so who manage to do so today). My brother has been through a divorce and has since remarried. We grew up in a large, religious family which has managed to stay together over the past 29 years, and our expectations of marriage are similar to what we experienced in our parents' marriage. My brother had known his (first) new bride for two months when he proposed to her. Because she had medical difficulties with pregnancy, she had compensated by pursuing a career in law enforcement. They realized that because their goals differed enough and that they each felt strongly enough about their own developed goals that it was inadvisable to try to remain together. They could have avoided this marriage if they had known each other better before they were married. The fact that they had no children contributed to this decision. My brother and his second wife just had their first child last week (on the 6th). Now he and his wife can have the kind of marriage that they and their children deserve. Now there two basic ways to do something wrong: through ignorance and through defiance. But that's not within the scope of this article, is it? -- Howard Johnson, Cyb Systems, Austin, TX, cyb-eng!howard@ut-sally.ARPA