Thursday 4 September, 2008

World
UK
Family

By Charles Gardner

Sarah Palin, the surprise choice for running mate in the U.S. Presidential election of Republican candidate John McCain, will no doubt reassure those voters who suspect the latter wasn’t conservative enough.
But the attractive 44-year-old soon came under the political and media microscope with the revelation that her teenage daughter is pregnant.
For someone who clearly supports marriage and Christian values, that leaves her in a tricky though not untenable position.

But as has been said in her defence, we bring up our children in a fallen world where the pressure for them to conform to behaviour not acceptable to us is immense.
That is not to say that parents who lead by example are not able to provide a moral framework which their children are likely to follow. And just because things go wrong and mistakes are made, we shouldn’t throw the ‘baby’ out with the bathwater, raise our hands in despair and give up trying to set standards.

With this in mind, the announcement by Britain’s shadow chancellor George Osborne that married couples will be offered tax breaks as a priority of a Conservative government is particularly good news. Arguing that marriage is an institution that contributes to building a stronger society, he was building on David Cameron’s declared mission to mend Britain’s “broken society”, the Tory leader having pointed to evidence that almost half of unmarried couples split up before their child’s fifth birthday, compared with a divorce rate of one in twelve.

At last our politicians seem to be taking heed of family friendly lobbyists who have been arguing this point for years, adding that marriage has considerable health and economic benefits for society.
So statistically, it is still the safest environment in which to bring up children – the security of having parents who have committed themselves to each other will obviously provide emotional stability for kids who are thus far less likely to go ‘off the rails’.
Personally, I am delighted that both my children will be getting married this month, even if they have lived with their respective partners for some years.

The social environment of the last 50 years, particularly since the ‘Swinging Sixties’, has not been helpful to many of us, including myself, who set out with the best of intentions for lifelong commitment, only to see it all go pear-shaped in the divorce courts.
But it doesn’t alter the fact that marriage is best – for our kids, for ourselves and for future generations. The alternative – which would see family life virtually a thing of the past because everyone lives simply for the present – is too ghastly to contemplate.

There is still a perfect way – and it’s found in a passage of ancient literature often read at wedding ceremonies: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal…Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered and it keeps no record of wrongs…”

After a false start and a successful second marriage which sadly ended in widowhood, I now experience married bliss – though relatively late in life. Marriage is more than being able to have sex ‘legally’ as my parents once put it – sex before marriage was taboo in their courting days – but is about building a deep friendship with someone you also fancy. And in that scenario sexual union becomes the ultimate, most expressive and totally delightful symbol of bonding.
It is not just about procreation, although we could do with a re-emphasis on bearing children given the UK’s alarming drop in birth rate.

But when the light of Christianity shines brightly again in this country, we will see a restoration of marriage.
As an example, a couple from Selby in North Yorkshire who have lived together for nine years decided to tie the knot after becoming Christians (as reported in the Selby Times). And they did so because, as they began to understand the teaching of the Bible, they realised they were actually ‘living in sin’.

As the headline to the story indicated, it was a ‘marriage made in heaven’!

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