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Judeo-Christian marriage is a religious, not a legal, institution

Why We Should End State Marriages



The present assault on Judeo-Christian marriage is a blessing in disguise. Judeo-Christian marriage is a religious, not a legal, institution. The ancient world had many legal marriages which Christians and Jews found abhorrent. Sibling incest was normal among the royal family of Hellenistic Egypt – Cleopatra married her brother Ptolemy, just as a Cleopatra had married a brother Ptolemy for generations. Before the Greek rulers of Egypt, pharaohs of Egypt would marry their daughters. This ancient Egypt was not odd and barbaric: Egypt was among the most cultured societies of the past.

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Polygamy has been present in almost every culture, and it is allowed by both Islam and Judaism.  The touching biblical story of Ruth is based upon the duty of Boaz to enter into a polygamous marriage with Ruth.  Medieval Jewish prohibitions against polygamy were limited to Christian lands which banned the practice, and polygamy still practiced by Sephardic Jews is still recognized in much of the world.   What was true in Judaism was true, in other ways, in Christianity.  Marriage without legal formalities was recognized by the Christian Church.  Moderns may consider “common law marriage” – marriage without ceremony - immoral, but the Church recognized it as proper.  State, not church, insisted upon a formal marriage ceremony and this was so that marriage could be taxed and regulated.    There has always been a conflict between marriages of faith and marriages regulated by the state. Orthodox Jews considered a child who marries a goy to be dead, whatever governments might say. Catholics have not recognized divorce, whatever government might say. Mormons adopted polygamy for awhile, whatever governments might say. 

The notion of monogamy as a desired moral condition is the product of early Christianity.  The notion of sexually exclusive marriage is the product of early Judaism and the Decalogue.  The rejection of homosexual marriage is Jewish and Christian.  Our modern notion of marriage as one couple who are faithful to each other is Judeo-Christian.  People who do not value monogamy and marital fidelity cannot be successfully forced into living a righteous marriage, any more that they can be compelled to worship the God of Christians and of Jews. 
 Good and godly living does not require government regulation.  Simple religious faith, without the big stick of government, works fine.  Moreover, marriage by faith and not by statute has had a profound and positive influence upon human behavior. The Judeo-Christian tradition, beginning in Jewish religious law, created rights for wives; obligations for spouses, children and parents; and produced a genuine social safety net. This heritage is the source of our traditional nuclear family.  
The changing definition of marriage is a spiral into nihilism.  Some people seriously applaud nihilism and reject unchangeable standards.  Those people find marriage a bottomless pool of evolving meaning.  Why limit marriage, for example, to our species?  Why keep pet owners and pets from marrying?  This is not meant in jest.  Love between a dog and his master is true and valid.  If love and companionship is the cornerstone of marriage, why not allow such marriages?  Often our love for a pet cocker spaniel is truer and more loyal than our love for human spouses.  How many lonely people have made bequests to beloved pets?  What is wrong with such a marriage? The love of a woman or a man for his dog or cat is a blessing, but if this is formulated into legally defined marriage, the blessing would become a curse. Government almost always destroys the value of voluntary relationships. 
Government has done this to marriage. Much of what we call matrimonial law is simply the social planning of Leftists trying to impose their notions of right and wrong upon the old religious institution of Judeo-Christian marriage.  Those who wish to avoid the sting of these Leftists often do not marry.  Those who wish to live in a holy institution, by contrast, have been hoodwinked into accepting a crass government substitute, the civil marriage, which is subject to infinite tinkering.    The pedigree for civil marriage is not good.  Goebbels said in the 1930s:  “The new Marriage Law of Greater Germany recognizes only one kind of marriage, namely, the wedding performed by a civil official in the name of the Reich.” When Eva Braun became Mrs. Adolph Hitler, the newly married couple explicitly rejected any religious service or sacrament and, instead, adopted a purely state marriage.  In Stalinist Russia, marriage required a state certificate, not a priest or a rabbi. The Nazi or Soviet marriage is the antithesis of the Judeo-Christian marriage.   Deregulation of marriage, like deregulation of most things, will not end marriage but save it. The rules of marriage will cease being based upon laws written by special interest groups or decisions made by officious judges or regulations promulgated by bossy bureaucrats.  Deregulated marriage will be based, instead, upon the vastly superior rules of Judeo-Christian faith and upon the free will of both parties involved.  The custody of children is not currently tied to marriage but to paternity and maternity.  Courts could still decide those issues based upon the best interests of the child without the state marriage of the parents.  
 Deregulated marriage would liberate spouses and parents from statutes and court rulings and, instead, allow husbands, wives and children to live voluntarily by the standards of their faith.  It would end odious burdens like the marriage tax, without hurting spouses who wished to live according to the rules of their religion.   Government has no business telling Jews and Christians how their faith should define marriage.    Government has no business dictating articles of faith to different branches of Judeo-Christianity at all.  Government has no right to tell Orthodox Jews that it is antisocial to keep Kosher, but what if the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled tomorrow that  frozen bacon cheeseburgers in the supermarket were not traif and that they must be sold with a circumscribed “K” as Kosher?  Can federal judges define “Kosher”?  If so, then those federal judges would be doing to the Constitution what Nazis did to books they disliked.        Laws, court decisions, bureaucratic edicts – these are not the proper tools to determine what people should believe.  Adultery is bad because it is a sin, not because it is a crime (when is the last time anyone was prosecuted for adultery?)  Polygamy is bad because it is a sin, not because it is a crime.  Incest is bad because it is a sin, not because it is a crime.  When we surrender our consciences to courts and legislatures, then what we seek to preserve is corrupted.  Why not take marriage out of the courthouses and place it back in the church and synagogue?  Why not end state marriages?



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Bruce Walker -- Bio and Archives

Bruce Walker has been a published author in print and in electronic media since 1990. His first book, Sinisterism:// Secular Religion of the Lie, has been revised and re-released.  The Swastika against the Cross:  The Nazi War on Christianity, has recently been published, and his most recent book, Poor Lenin’s Almanac: Perverse Leftist Proverbs for Modern Life can be viewed here:  outskirtspress.com.


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