From the Aristotelian perspective, “human sexuality is defined as a biological capacity for the procreation of human life. It is a biological imperative, existing solely for one purpose, namely human reproduction.
.. O’Murchu continues:
The ensuing sexual morality considered all other forms of sexual expression to be contrary to nature and sinful in the eyes of God. And since procreation was the primary goal, any suggestion of pleasure or human fulfillment from sexual intimacy was considered an aberration.
From a Catholic perspective it is worthy of note that marriage was not elevated to the status of a sacrament till the Council of Trent in the 16th century.
.. During and after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the Catholic Church seemed to realize the inadequacy of the Greek view of marriage—solely for procreation—and began to recognize another obvious element to the definition of marriage: intimacy and mutual support.
.. Conservatives are so afraid of false expression (and they are right), and liberals are so afraid of unhealthy repression (and they are right), that it is going to take us a while to discover our sexual center and balance.
Martin Luther King: ‘We Can’t Keep On Blaming the White Man’
Fifty years after his death, many pay lip service to his ideals, but far too few are following his example.
It almost goes without saying that the leading civil-rights organizations today can no longer count people of that caliber in their ranks. Which may be the clearest indication yet that the movement is over and that the right side prevailed. If black Americans were still faced with legitimate threats to civil rights—such as legal discrimination or voter disenfranchisement—we would see true successors to the King-era luminaries step forward, not the pretenders in place today who have turned a movement into an industry, if not a racket.
Racial gaps that were steadily narrowing in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s would expand in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, which suggests that the disparities that continue today aren’t being driven by racism, notwithstanding claims to the contrary from liberals and their allies in the media. It also suggests that attitudes toward
- marriage,
- education,
- work and
- the rule of law
play a much larger role than the left wants to acknowledge. More marches won’t address out-of-wedlock childbearing. More sit-ins won’t lower black crime rates or narrow the school achievement gap.
As Marriage Standards Change, A Therapist Recommends ‘Rethinking Infidelity’
Many people today will have two or three marriages. Some people will have those marriages with the same person.
When Did Marriage Become So Hard?
No one will deny that marriage is hard. In fact, there’s evidence it’s getting even harder.
Eli Finkel, a social psychologist at Northwestern University, argues that’s because our expectations of marriage have increased dramatically in recent decades.
“[A] marriage that would have been acceptable to us in the 1950s is a disappointment to us today because of those high expectations,” he says.
The flip side of that disappointment, of course, is a marriage that’s pretty amazing. Those of us who can meet the high expectations of modern marriage, Finkel says, may find “a level of marital fulfillment that was out of reach until pretty recently.”
This week we go back in time and look at the history of marriage and reflect on where we are today. We’ll also ask Finkel, author of The All or Nothing Marriage: How the Best Marriages Work, for some tangible ways we can improve our love lives — including by asking less of our partners.