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A Report by a working party of the Board for Church in Society
ISBN 1 899292 6 £7 Published 2003 available from Diocese of Southwark,
Trinity House, 4 Chapel Court, Borough High Street,
LONDON SE1 1HW
Continuum ISBN 0 8264 6629 X £10.99 May 2003
Two books reviewed by Sue Burridge
Much has been written about the changes in the way people order their personal lives, the overall decrease in the number of people getting married for the first time, particularly amongst the under 40s, and the growing acceptability of households containing non-married relationships. The changes offer huge challenges to the Church, not only theologically as Christians seek to relate their traditional understandings of the importance of marriage to the way people live their relationships today but also past orally when much of the Church’s traditional ministry to the wider community has been through its work around marriage and weddings and the gap between that and the lives of young adults appears to be growing. These two books are brave attempts to offer both theological and pastoral insights around difficult areas: cohabitation and Christian marriage.
Cohabitation: A Christian Reflection attempts to answer the question about how unmarried people living together perceive the Church and its attitude to them and whether their perceptions are justified. The Board for Church in Society deliberately drew together 12 people mainly from Southwark Diocese, including Suffragan Bishops, academics, clergy and readers, 7 women and 5 men, whose views; theological convictions and experiences were known to be diverse. The 116- paged report is a series of 13 short, accessible articles with different perspectives with the aim of stimulating wider discussion and pastoral activity, interspersed with quotes and case studies. It starts with an article discussing various definitions of cohabitation and the difficulties of pinning down the diversity of living arrangements. However it does limit the definition to heterosexual cohabitation and divides the definitions into those where expectations are asymmetrical and those that are symmetrical (i.e. where both partners have a common understanding about their living arrangements). Part 2 is made up of three articles that reflect on our Christian heritage and history and set the scene for the debate.
The first looks at the history of Christian marriage and cohabitation, taking examples of ‘social marriage’ before and after the Lord Hardwicke Act of 1753 and arguing that although these relationships were not based on a marriage ceremony they are very different social beings from the majority of cohabiting relationships today. The author argues that cohabitation is a new phenomenon that demonstrates behaviour closer to that of single people than to social marriages of the past. The second article attempts to give a voice to people who are Christians and cohabiting with quotes from a small qualitative survey of 6 couples who were cohabiting or had done so before marriage, all of whom belonged to the ‘committed’ symmetrical group of cohabitants. The third article gave a brief overview of previous Anglican statements on cohabitation over the last 20 years but drew no conclusions.
Part 2 is made up of four slightly longer articles on the social and legal context. The first looks at the wider changes in family structure both in the UK and in Europe, showing the rapid reduction in the number of marriages, particularly first marriages and for younger people, the increase in divorced people, the growth in cohabitation and of live births outside marriage. It also discusses the durability of cohabitation and the outcomes for children and begs the question about how laws are bound to change to reflect these demographic trends. The second, longest, article considers the social effects of cohabitation and attempts to answer why family structures have changed. It then goes on to consider the case for marriage and argues as the data supports the traditional view of the importance of marriage, particularly for the bringing up of children, should social policy be encouraging people to get married or be finding new ways of protecting children from the bad effects of a more fluid society. The third is an important article, given the demography of Southwark Diocese and the lower levels of marriage amongst some of the ethnic minorities in the UK. It looks at some of the research on ethnic minority family makeup, the reasons for lower levels of marriage amongst the Afro-Caribbean communities and the teaching on marriage in the black majority churches. The final article in this section looks at cohabitation and the development of law around these types of relationships, drawing out some of the differences and similarities to law on marriage and some of the changes that are proposed.
Having set the scene and attempted to explore the reasons why changes have taken place, Parts 4 and 5 attempt to reflect theologically on that scene with the light of scripture and Christian tradition and to map out some ways forward for the Church. Part 4 starts with two theological explorations of marriage. The first uses Pauline scriptures in particular to explore the meaning of ‘one flesh’ with respect to sexual union of a man and woman and argues that, in the Pauline writings, sexual intercourse always creates ‘one flesh’ and argues against modern ideas of betrothal as a way of responding positively to those who are cohabiting (as argued by Thatcher amongst others). The second tries to explore briefly a theology of marriage through the three images of covenant, one flesh and sacrament and helpfully discusses some of their strengths and some of the abuses that have flowed from by them with some suggestions of how to reclaim the theology of marriage, particularly for women. Neither attempt to develop a theology of cohabitation. However the last article in this section does attempt to provide a sexual ethic drawn from both Barthian and Catholic ethics for discussion of cohabitation and concludes that cohabitation is rarely able to meet the criteria of this sexual ethic. With these rather negative conclusions about cohabitation, somewhat against the original expectations of some of the working party, the last part seeks to explore the pastoral implications for the Church. The first explores how the Church should respond to people who cohabit. It concludes that the Church both has to find new ways to express a more meaningful and relevant understanding of Christian marriage and also to re-consider the Christian teaching on sexual intimacy. The last article lays out ways that the Church can help, such as making information available to young people, helping them to share their own opinions, promoting relevant marriage preparation and providing help when relationships break down. The last section provides a useful summary of the conclusions of the report.
Working with people who still bear the scars and pain of the treatment meted out to the BSR and its working party after its report ‘Something to Celebrate’, I congratulate Southwark Diocese for attempting to move the debate on. This is a very useful if tantalising short treatment of the sociological changes that have resulted in cohabitation as a modern phenomenon and some of the implications for Church and society and I found it very helpful. I like the way authors have been allowed to speak distinctly rather than trying to put all the views together. It is clear but surprisingly, against the expectations of some of the working party, rather conservative in its conclusions and recommendations which somewhat affirm the Church’s traditional view of the importance of marriage whilst challenging the Church to rethink its sexual ethics. It wisely, but annoyingly for those of us who work in the area, does not enter the debate about how society should reorder laws and social policy particularly to protect the vulnerable and the poor, often not in married relationships and its conclusions are weakened slightly because of the failure to address adequately some of the blatant discrimination against those who are not married in some churches. However it successfully achieves its aims to ‘inform and provoke further discussion’ and I commend it to anyone wishing to think more about the subject.
Adrian Thatcher, Professor of Applied Theology, is one of the few English theologians, unlike sociologists, still writing about marriage and relationships and well known by the FLAME network. Many of his books have been attempts to do just what the Report by Southwark Diocese recommended is done, that is to find new ways to express a more meaningful and relevant understanding of Christian marriage and also to re-consider the Christian teaching on sexual intimacy. This book is the result of Adrian’s attempt to be more applied than theological. It is intended to be accessible to couples and their families who are preparing to get married in church or who want to know more about church weddings in simple language that does not assume the readers are fully immersed in Christian tradition and includes many helpful references to appropriate websites. In it, Adrian attempts to put over a much more positive view of Christian marriage and to rediscover what the marriage relationship should be about if it is not based on inequality, patriarchy or lack of freedom for women. The book reflects his view that the wedding is an event within the process of a deepening and growing commitment in mutual love and his ideas about betrothal being a way of the Church responding to the fact that most couples coming for a wedding are probably cohabiting already.
Adrian starts with an apologetic for his enthusiasm for marriage using the same statistics as in the report to show that marriage is ‘better’ than living together in a very non-politically correct fashion (without acknowledging that some of these statistics are contested and that some sociologists would take a different view blaming poverty and discrimination for some of the ills rather than the absence of marriage). However he ends the chapter by suggesting that successful marriages contain negotiation about work/life issues (housework in particular) and shared values and beliefs about marriage, particularly that of commitment and fidelity. The second chapter looks at church marriage through exposition of the preface to the Common Worship service (a technique familiar to many clergy). Adrian then looks at how couples can prepare for marriage and neatly includes the diversity of marriage preparation on offer, from inventories to mere wedding preparation but also gives some pretty meaty stuff about the usual C’s beloved by many a marriage preparation course. Chapter 4 is a treatise on attitudes and traditional teaching about the place and time of sex and living together where Adrian indulges himself by dwelling on a common thesis in his books, that of bringing back betrothal as a way of Churches coming to terms with cohabitation (an argument disputed in the report and probably not of interest to most couples!). Chapter 5 is a simple, helpful chapter about the mechanics of marriage preliminaries and explanation of the marriage ceremony, with some useful listing of options available to couples. Chapter 6 attempts to cover two tasks not covered by many marriage preparation courses, firstly of showing how the religious insights encountered in a church marriage can sustain the marriage afterwards and secondly exploring the potential spirituality contained within marriage, through the ideas of sacrament, deepening love and covenant. The final chapter addresses whether people can marry a second time, where Adrian takes a very pro-marriage stance but deals sympathetically with the criteria developed by the Church of England.
The book is particularly useful for those wanting to know more about getting married in the Church of England. It is based on Anglican perceptions about marriage as expressed through the Anglican rite and recent changes in Anglican teaching about marriage in church after divorce. The aims of the book are admirable and such a book is long overdue. However I suspect it will be more useful to clergy and lay people preparing couples for marriage and it will give them confidence in the work they are doing. It will form an extremely useful resource to draw on – even FLAME committees might learn something! It might also be useful for Christian couples wanting to know more. However at times Adrian addresses arguments more relevant to clergy and theologians than to couples. This makes it very useful for those of us working in this area but less relevant to those just wanting a church wedding.
Both these books could contribute to ongoing discussions about really big issues facing the Church – should anyone want to continue discussing them!
© 2005 Flame 2003