Life’s Greatest Joy: Marriage & Family

In his talk, Why Marriage, Why Family, Elder Christofferson shared a letter German-Christian theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer penned to his niece before her wedding , “Marriage is more than your love for each other. … In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of the generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to his glory, and calls into his kingdom. In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal—it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. … So love comes from you, but marriage from above, from God.” (Bonehoeffer, 1953)

I love how the beautiful words of this theologian describe the greater expectation of marriage. It’s more than just a romantic love between husband and wife.

“Marriage was not created by human judges or legislators. It was not created by think tanks or by popular vote or by oft-quoted bloggers or by pundits. It was not created by lobbyists. Marriage was created by God!” (Nelson, 2014)

In the dissenting comments, the minority of the Supreme Court Justices declared, “As the majority acknowledges, marriage ‘has existed for millennia and across civilizations.’ Ante, at 3. For all those millennia, across all those civilizations, “marriage” referred to only one relationship: the union of a man and a woman.” (Obergefell vs. Hodges, S. Ct. 14-556, 2015)

This week I’ve had reason to reflect on the definition of marriage, which has been since the creation of the world, until a few years ago, defined as the union of one man and one woman.

It was God who created marriage. In the beginning, God created Adam and Eve and said, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Geneisis 2:24) Husband and wife make up the two essential halves of a family. (Beck, 2009)

“The burden of social science evidence supports the idea that gender differentiated parenting is important for human development and that the contribution of fathers to child rearing is unique and irreplaceable. . . . The complementarity of male and female parenting styles is striking and of enormous importance to a child’s overall development.” (Popenoe, 1996)

In my own home, I have seen the benefits of having both a father and a mother in the home. I asked my daughter and son (ages 16 & 18) to share their thoughts on how their mom and dad parent differently, and here is what they said:

v  Mom is sensitive and sympathetic during my emotional times.

v  Mom is always there to talk me through situations.

v  Mom makes sure things get done.

v  Dad is always  supportive and encouraging.

v  Dad helps keep things light.

v  Dad is less emotional, which helpful when things are tense.

v  I’m glad you have different parenting styles, because it’s important to have different ideas/perspectives on situations.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. Eberhard Bethge (1953), 42–43.

David Popenoe, Life Without Father (New York: The Free Press, 1996), 146.