Why is marriage precious?

It can be convincingly argued that marriage has been virtually abolished in the western world with the introduction of no-fault divorce, which on closer inspection is really nothing other than "unilateral divorce on demand." The state no longer demands that couples honour their permanent legal commitments. It no longer recognizes that nuptial vows bring into being something that, once established, does not depend on the couple in order to continue to be. As American writer Maggie Gallagher points out, thanks to no-fault divorce, marriage has been demoted from "a binding relation into something best described as cohabitation with insurance benefits."

Despite this, young people continue to wish to marry, and approximately fifty percent of them will do so successfully. Many of them cannot quite articulate what it is they intuit about the nobility of marriage, but they seem to know that if marriage was something less than themselves, like a revocable and private contract, there would be nothing to aspire to; for one does not aspire to what is lower, but only towards what is higher and loftier.

Indeed, young people want to aspire to what is truly larger than themselves, and marriage in the true sense of the word is larger than the self. What follows is an attempt to articulate some of the more essential points regarding the nature and dignity of the most fundamental and primary of institutions.

Unity is necessary

Unity and indissolubility are essential properties of marriage; for there is no marriage without them, just as there is no square without four equal sides and four right angles. A permanent union is precisely what a couple intend when they marry. If they do not, they might intend something, but they do not intend to marry.

In fact, indissolubility is nothing other than the good of marriage itself. Two people who intend to marry intend to give themselves to one another not partially, but entirely. And a total self-giving will necessarily include the giving of one's body, since the human person is a unity of spirit and matter. That is why marriage is a joining of two into a one-flesh union.

All love is a giving of oneself to some degree or another, but conjugal love is unique in that it is a love that is necessarily exclusive. If I give myself entirely to a person, there is nothing left over and at my disposal to give to someone else. Should there be, then I have not given myself entirely, but …