Marriage is an important institution because at its core is commitment. Humanity won’t thrive, and humanization won’t reach its fullness apart from trust and faith. Commitment is a universal currency of human relations. It is an expression of trust, which is the essential qualifier of goodwill necessary in all human conduct. Without commitment all ideas are empty, meaningless if not irrelevant to the human condition.
What I find problematic among those who oppose divorce is how they argue the case for marriage. It is ideological. I use the term ideology as a simplification of an “unqualified cause.” “Unqualified” to the point that all realities have to validated and invalidated based on a self-referential contention. One cannot claim for example that “marriage” is the end all and be all of all human perfection. Children who are raised by single parents also have the potential to grow in the fullness of their personhood.
The union between two persons should be defended because there is a reason to do so. We defend the meaning of marriage and not marriage itself. The call to defend marriage is a call to value the importance of commitment. However, we should also be realistic that in a truly “human world” the margin of error is wide. Just because a person has made a mistake in his or her choice – doesn’t mean that he or she has made an error for a lifetime.
I am waiting for those who are against divorce to also offer the constructive solutions to the so many problems of married people. Those who feel that they are closer to God because their married life is, as they claim, unproblematic are only good in moralizing. They don’t tell us however of specific and concrete steps, measures, and efforts that can be made in order to “save souls.” After all, the Church is a place for all men who need redemption, married and non married alike.
Another problem that I see with those who criticize divorce is in the way they excessively idealize the family. It is true that the family is sacred. There are instances however when much sacrifice has been experienced by family members. Are we to save all marriages? What if the only solution is distance not only in space and time but also emotions? True, divorce especially if not planned well has a lot of consequences to the children. But let’s be equally honest that even among said to be intact families problems abound. Sometimes a solid family can be like a bunker where genuine human growth and development cannot thrive.
The much deeper issues that confront human beings of today are “existential meaninglessness”, “loss of purpose”, and the increasing “lack of trust.” These problems are pre-marital. These are problems that may have eaten up people from within even before they entered into marriage. And mind you this is a problem even among those who enter religious or consecrated life. Truth be told, some people even get married because of boredom or even fear. Some if not many children therefore are products of boredom and not love.
If we want to help people find meaning in their life, it is not enough to just moralize and say that “marriage is sacred.” The “Sacred” is always connected to “meaning making.” To help people find the “Sacred” we have to first let them find their “meaning.”
This is where many pastors, religious, and moralizers have failed. They have been good in telling people the “ought” but they have not journeyed with people in their “is.” It was Pope Francis after all who said that: “reality is greater than ideas” and that “time (process of becoming) is greater than space.”
Marriage is about finding meaning. It is not an ideology to fight and die for. For those who are called to it and can live with it – good! Those who cannot deserve a chance to find themselves until they would reach their fullness in grace.