Student Notes 2010C

THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE

Bibliography

Pope John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, Paulines, Nairobi, 1981.
Pontifical Council for the Family, Preparation for the Sacrament of Marriage, Paulines, Nairobi, 1996.
Benezeri Kisembo, Laurenti Magesa & Aylward Shorter, African Christian Marriage, Paulines, Nairobi, 1997.
Benezet Bujo, Plea for Change of Models for Marriage, Nairobi, Paulines, 2009.
John Burke, Catholic Marriage, Paulines, Nairobi, 2006.
John Burke, Marriage Annulment, Paulines, Nairobi, 2007.
Mary Kibera, Love and Conflict in Marriage, Paulines, Nairobi, 2007.
Michael Lawler, Marriage and the Catholic Church, Collegeville, Liturgical, 2002.
Theodore Mackin, The Marital Sacrament. New York: Paulist Press, 1989.
Alan Loy McGinnis, The Friendship Factor, St Paul’s, Mumbai, 2008
James & Evelyn Whitehead, Marrying Well: Stages on the Journey of Christian Marriage. New York: Doubleday, 1984
Mercy Oduyoye & Musimbi Kanyoro, The Will to Arise, (esp. articles by Musimbi Kanyoro & Anna Nasimiyu Wasike and other articles on marriage), New York, Orbis, 1992. H. Norman Wright & Wes Roberts, Before You Say ‘I Do’, Eugene, Harvest House, 1997.
Saying I Do, New York, Paulist, 2006.
Today and All the Days of Your Life, Archdiocese of Saint Louis, Liguori, 2002.
William Blum, Monogamy Reconsidered, Nairobi, Gaba Publications, 1989

Chapter One OLD TESTAMENT

Genesis

• Sacredness - rooted in the creation narrative – Gen 2:18-24.
• Preservation of husband’s clan
• Children are regarded as a blessing and a gift from God.

Family Affair
• Marriage was a family affair that was arranged by fathers for their children.
• Scriptures say little about marriage customs and nothing about ceremonies since marriages were private affairs.
• Generally monogamous. Most Israeli men had only one wife.
• Polygamy tolerated (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob).
• Adultery forbidden by the Torah.
• Women had few legal rights and were seen as the property of their fathers or husbands. Adultery is wrong because it violates the property of father or husband. Even the Ten Commandments placed coveting a neighbour’s wife on the same footing as coveting his goods (Ex 20:17).

Monogamy
• Prophets present the faithful love between husband and wife as ideal and they see Yahweh’s faithful love for Israel in this context.

Hosea
• Waiting for Gomer, as Yahweh waits for Israel.
• Perception of husband’s love for wife as image of Yahweh’s love for Israel.

Other Prophets
• The imagery of husband-wife becomes the basic way in which prophets depict the relationship between Yahweh and Israel (Hos 2, Is 54.4-5, Jer 2.2, 3.20).
• Ezekiel 16: Yahweh’s love for Israel is like of a husband who loves his wife but is deserted by her.
• Song of Songs: Extols ecstasy of love
• Tobit 6-8: The perfect marriage is one of love between husband and wife.
• Sir 25-26: Dangers and Rewards of Domestic Life.
• Proverbs 5-7, 31: The virtues of the perfect wife.

Divorce
• While Malachi 2.16 denounced men who divorced their Jewish wives to marry foreigners, divorce was an accepted way to end an unhappy marriage.
• Adultery: Dt 20:22-24.
• Only husband has right to it. A woman desiring divorce had to request his husband for it.
• Remarriage accepted, except for wife to her first husband
• Dt 24:1-4 – ‘A man could give his wife a written note of dismissal if he found in her something indecent’
• Shammai: Adultery. Hillel: Displeasure of husband.

Yahweh is a merciful God who remains faithful to his people. The husband-wife relation becomes in the prophetic writings an alternative to the king-subject relation. The use of this imagery began to alter the understanding of the relationship between married people.

Yahweh Significance: The meaning of God in his relationship to humans became part of the meaning of marriage, and marriage became capable of explicitly signifying and revealing this God. So just as Yahweh loves Israel, husbands are to love their wives. It gives a richer significance to marriage; the personal aspect and fidelity are stressed and the woman is to be respected and loved as a person.

Chapter Two JESUS CHRIST

Kingdom of God
• Everything seen in light of the Kingdom of God
• Mk 12:25 – no marrying in Heaven.
• Lk 14:20, 17:27, Mt 24:38-39 – Concerns of marriage superseded by Second Coming.

Divorce
Divorce and Remarriage = Adultery (Mt 5:31-32, 19:3-12, Lk 16:18, Mk 10:1-12).
Permanent and Indissoluble Marriage.

Porneias
‘Except on the grounds of porneias, unchastity,’ Mt 5:32.
• Softening of Jesus
• Separation without remarriage for adultery
• Generally accepted as referring to an incestuous union, which was forbidden (Lev 18:6-18) and would nullify the marriage (Acts 15:20, 29.
Jesus gives New Significance to Marriage - Eph 5.32 – This mystery has many implications; but I am saying it applies to Christ and the Church.

Chapter Three NEW TESTAMENT

• Perhaps, the only real difference between Christian marriages in the NT and the rest of society was that of attitude. The Eschaton was expected, so marriage was seen as provisional. Paul prefers celibacy, giving one a focus on preparation for the end-time. He advised people not to make changes.
• Missionary Ideal Affirmed: Leave all for Kingdom of God.
• Marriage was never condemned.
• Messianic Period described as a Wedding Feast
• Slaves free to marry citizens.
• Divorce & Infidelity was Rejected by Christians.

Covenant: Ephesians 5:21-33 – Married Christians are to love in a way that reflects the covenant between Christ and the Church. Ephs 5:32 – “This mystery has many implications; but I am saying that it applies to Christ and the Church.”
Mystery was translated as Sacrament, which led Augustine to see marriage as a Sacrament. Paul lays the foundation for seeing marriage in personal terms, in terms of its being an outward sign of the loving union of Jesus and his bride, the Church.

I Corinthians 7 – Contract: The exchange of mutual rights and obligations. Paul was the first to set down equal rights for men and women – the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights and likewise the wife to her husband.

Pauline Privilege: When a non-Christian is baptised and his/her spouse will not live at peace with him/her, then the Christian can obtain a divorce and be allowed to remarry.

Pastoral Epistles – Household Codes: Church leaders are to be successful in marriage and family life and be faithful to their wives. Younger widows are advised to remarry (I Tim 5.14). Husbands are to treat their wives with consideration because they are equally heirs to the life of grace (I Pet 3.7)

Chapter Four EARLY DEVELOPMENT

Patristic Period

• Civil Weddings. For first three centuries, marriage was a family affair and the Church had little or nothing to do with it. For marriage the Roman government required mutual consent.
• No religious ceremony was deemed necessary.
• Church Blessings were developed as time went on.
• Pope Nicholas I in 866: Marriage by mutual consent was accepted as valid.
• For first 1200 years, no Church ceremony. With Trent, 1563, the presence of a priest was demanded.
• The first ecclesial obligation was that in certain cases, particularly in the case of the clergy, permission had to be received from the bishop to marry.

Three Severe Pressures
1. Gnosticism: The body and sexuality are evil. The only way to live ‘spiritually’ was to be celibate.
2. Bible: Sex is really ‘Plan B.’ Plan A was a God given design where Adam and Eve lived in perfect unity and harmony that either did not require sex, or, if it did, was under perfect control at all times. The evidence was there; sex was the first act recorded after the fall and the Fathers sensed that humans do not control their sexuality; it has an unruliness and an irrational energy of its own. This was seen as an evil curse, a punishment, a come-down from Plan A.
3. New Testament: Jesus was celibate and his disciples left everything to follow him (Mk 12.35). John the Baptist and Paul were also celibate. In heaven, there is no marriage. Paul spoke of marriage as medicinal; it is a lawful remedy for concupiscence; it is better than burning (I Cor 7.9).

Procreation justified sex and marriage. Society and the Church needed children. Sex was justified because it brought children into the world. Besides God commanded us to increase and fill the earth, Gen 1:28, and infertility was seen as a curse. Paul says a woman will be saved through child-bearing, I Tim 2:15.

Augustine
• He saw marriage as good, but was ambivalent, if not negative, about sex. He saw our sexual desires as an unfortunate effect of original sin. Sexual intercourse itself is not sinful but concupiscence, the sexual appetite gone out of control. A man who is too ardent a lover of his wife is an adulterer. He also presented marriage and sexuality as good because they were created by a good God (I Tim 4.4). However, the interpretation of his teachings presented a negative view on sexual intercourse.
• The Values of Marriage: Fidelity of the Spouses to each other, The Procreation and Nurturing of Offspring, and Being a Sacrament, the visible sign of the invisible union between Christ and the Church (Eph 5.32).


Control, Sacrament, Ceremony, Contract & Consent 500-1450

Control – After the barbarian invasions, the local pastor was virtually forced to take over the work of the city hall, verifying marriages, registering marriages and keeping records. Once the Church was involved in the marriage process, it was hard to get out.

Movement towards Sacrament

The Doubts.
1. Marriage good – Sexuality suspicious. In Middle Ages, most Church people helf virginity in higher esteem than marriage. Paul said that marriage distracted one from the things of the Lord. Marriage was often viewed negatively as a remedy against the desires of the flesh rather than positively as a way to become holy.
2. Marriage involved Financial arrangements.
3. Marriage existed before the coming of Christ.

The Energies
1. The Renewal of Augustinian Thinking. Augustine saw marriage as a sacrament (Eph 5.32). It was a sign of the union between Christ and the Church and a sacred pledge of fidelity between husband and wife.
2. The Spiritual Renewal in the 11th and 12th Centuries.
3. The Reaction against the Albigensian Heresy, whose proponents saw marriage and sexuality as evil.

These three powerful impulses forced the Church to focus on marriage as a vehicle of holiness and in some sense a sacrament. So Peter Abelard with some hesitancy listed marriage with the other sacraments. Then Peter Lombard included marriage as a sacrament in his influential list. The Council of Verona (1184) confirms this and justifies it as a sacrament on the basis of Paul’s teaching that it is a living sign of Jesus’ Covenant with Church. The grace of the sacrament assist people grow in Holiness and fulfil their Marital Duties. Marriage was declared indissoluble to reflect Jesus’ faithful union with the Church. Subsequently at a number of ecumenical councils marriage was listed among the official sacraments of the Church.

The Wedding Ceremony was developed in the 12th Century and bishops began to insist that all weddings be blessed by a priest.

Marriage came to be seen as a Contract, with a precise exchange of rights over each others bodies for those acts needed for the procreation of children. Marital sex could have no other function. A spouse had a duty to render the marriage “debt” of intercourse under pain of sin. There was no room in this contractual concept for other personal matters, like covenant love and community of sharing and affection.

Consent: Finally, during this period, the Roman perception of marriage was challenged by the general European perspective. According to Roman tradition marriage was by consent. In the Frankish and Germanic tradition, however, the giving of consent came at the betrothal, and the marriage was not considered to be completed or consummated until the first act of intercourse had taken place. For the Europeans, marriage was preceded by a whole series of steps and this raised questions as to just where in all these steps did marriage become indissoluble. The Roman side was reluctant to have the bride treated as so much barter at the exclusive whim of her father. The European side was equally reluctant to recognise private mutual consent marriages because they undermined the father’s and family authority. This led to the question of what officially effected the marriage bond: Roman mutual consent or European first intercourse
Popes Nicholas I, Alexander III, Urban II, and especially Gregory IX, settled the issue with a final decision by declaring that mutual consent makes the marriage, but the bond is perfected and becomes absolutely indissoluble through consummation. A decision was made officially, which effectively excluded control over marriage by everyone but the bride and groom. Henceforward the marriage bond would be considered indissoluble not only as a Christian ideal but also as a rule of law.

• Council of Florence, 1439, affirmed the sacramentality of marriage and stressed the Triple Good of Marriage:
1. Children
2. Faithfulness
3. Indissolubility