One of the essential aspects of love is that it does not stay with itself, but tends to be fruitful. In the post fruitfulness of love was explained in a purely biological sense using the Genesis text: "God created humankind
in his image, In the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.God blessed them,and God said to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth" (Gen.1, 27-28). This proved to be quite unsaticfactory explanation in contrast to the sexuality of animals, human sexuality displayed certain distinctive features which showed that its function was not restricted to the preservation of the species.In what way,then
can we express the specificity of the fruitfulness of Christian marriage?
i)Love is impelled to realization,objectification and embodiment in a shared third party.
The child is not a mere biological product; he or she the embodiment of the communion in love between the parents; he or she objectifies the self gift of the parents to one another. The two partners normally find themselves in a new way in their child and the latter can thrive only as human beings if they are secure in the mutual love of the parents.
ii)Love is fruitful also through growth in mutual love of the couple.Every childless marriage is not a fruitless
marriage unless there is a conscious exclusion and deliberate closing in on itself for egoistic reasons;then it becomes a perversion.Even if the immediate reason for physical union of the partners is not to beget further
descendants,but to deepen and enrich their own experience of mutual love, this is of indirect benefit to the
descendants who are already in the family.
iii) Love of the partners in marriage is fruitful also from a sociological and cultural point of view.Marriage and
and family cannot be regarded by Christians as a merely private matter.
Faithfulness in love.The shared responsibility of the partners for their children is one of the convincing arguments in favour of the indissolubility of marriage. However, this third good of marriage,faithfulness,
can be more directly attributed to the essential meaning of love itself.
i)According to Gabriel Marcel,loving another person means telling him or her: You will not die. The bond that is established through love is not a mere legal bond; it affects our whole person; it sets in motion the whole of
one's being towards the other. If marriage is founded on love and not on likes and dislikes,not on legal contracts alone, but a personal act of self-gift, it cannot be terminated because that will be going against the
very nature of love.
ii) Faithfulness does not impede the exercise of human freedom. Freedom is different from arbitrariness.
The former is the capacity to relate oneself to all; it sets in motion a movement which cannot be stopped.
The latter is to be guided entirely by self,whether it be one's mood.liking or ideology; it sets in motion towards oneself, just the opposite of the movement of freedom.
iii)The love with which we love the other and commit ourselves to the other is love that is participated from God. The definitive bond of faithfulness in marriage has an essential religious dimension,namely it is a participation in the divine love,in the Trinitarian love. Just as God's love is always faithful; so also the love
of those who participate in it will also be definitive.
iv)In the Christian marriage man and woman are able to find their definitive status in this faithfulness.They
become one flesh or one in mind body ( Gen. 2, 14; Mk 19,8; Eph 5, 31); in other words they become a
'we' person.The marital bond of faithfulness creates something that transcends the single person and binds
the history of the two people definitively and at the deepest level together.
in his image, In the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.God blessed them,and God said to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth" (Gen.1, 27-28). This proved to be quite unsaticfactory explanation in contrast to the sexuality of animals, human sexuality displayed certain distinctive features which showed that its function was not restricted to the preservation of the species.In what way,then
can we express the specificity of the fruitfulness of Christian marriage?
i)Love is impelled to realization,objectification and embodiment in a shared third party.
The child is not a mere biological product; he or she the embodiment of the communion in love between the parents; he or she objectifies the self gift of the parents to one another. The two partners normally find themselves in a new way in their child and the latter can thrive only as human beings if they are secure in the mutual love of the parents.
ii)Love is fruitful also through growth in mutual love of the couple.Every childless marriage is not a fruitless
marriage unless there is a conscious exclusion and deliberate closing in on itself for egoistic reasons;then it becomes a perversion.Even if the immediate reason for physical union of the partners is not to beget further
descendants,but to deepen and enrich their own experience of mutual love, this is of indirect benefit to the
descendants who are already in the family.
iii) Love of the partners in marriage is fruitful also from a sociological and cultural point of view.Marriage and
and family cannot be regarded by Christians as a merely private matter.
Faithfulness in love.The shared responsibility of the partners for their children is one of the convincing arguments in favour of the indissolubility of marriage. However, this third good of marriage,faithfulness,
can be more directly attributed to the essential meaning of love itself.
i)According to Gabriel Marcel,loving another person means telling him or her: You will not die. The bond that is established through love is not a mere legal bond; it affects our whole person; it sets in motion the whole of
one's being towards the other. If marriage is founded on love and not on likes and dislikes,not on legal contracts alone, but a personal act of self-gift, it cannot be terminated because that will be going against the
very nature of love.
ii) Faithfulness does not impede the exercise of human freedom. Freedom is different from arbitrariness.
The former is the capacity to relate oneself to all; it sets in motion a movement which cannot be stopped.
The latter is to be guided entirely by self,whether it be one's mood.liking or ideology; it sets in motion towards oneself, just the opposite of the movement of freedom.
iii)The love with which we love the other and commit ourselves to the other is love that is participated from God. The definitive bond of faithfulness in marriage has an essential religious dimension,namely it is a participation in the divine love,in the Trinitarian love. Just as God's love is always faithful; so also the love
of those who participate in it will also be definitive.
iv)In the Christian marriage man and woman are able to find their definitive status in this faithfulness.They
become one flesh or one in mind body ( Gen. 2, 14; Mk 19,8; Eph 5, 31); in other words they become a
'we' person.The marital bond of faithfulness creates something that transcends the single person and binds
the history of the two people definitively and at the deepest level together.
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