Making the Case for Marriage Vows: Author David Blankenhorn Urges Return to Biblically Based Traditions

Most of us as adults these days have to face the fact that to some extent, we were all influenced by our friends, the flower children. The social upheaval of the sixties, with the exaltation of the individual, the pursuit of license, and the trashing of tradition, has left a deep imprint on our national psyche. One of the little noticed ways in which this occurred is the relative disappearance of traditional wedding vows, and the gradual appearance of non-traditional, creative alternatives to the vows. Often well intentioned, this practice nonetheless has altered the modern ceremony to a point where we no longer expect the tradtional vows when we attend a wedding; we are not reminded of past weddings we have witnessed, nor are we reminded of the content of our own solemn vows, so that we might personally reflect on and possibly renew them.

David Blankenhorn brought this problem into clear focus in his article, "I Do," in the November 1997 issue of First Things (pp. 14-15), from which excerpts appear below. Blankenhorn is President of the Institute for American Values in New York, author of Fatherhood in America (Basic Books, 1995), and also coeditor of Promises to Keep: Decline and Renewal of Marriage in America (Rowman & Littlefield, 1996).

Blankenhorn observes:

"In recent years, two basic innovations have transformed the marriage vow in the United States. Both innovations are particularly widespread in both mainline and evangelical Protestant churches, in which about half of all U.S. marriages occur.

First, as Barbara Dafoe Whitehead points out in The Divorce Culture, marriage vows today commonly downplay or avoid altogether any pledge of marital permanence. The old vow was "till death us do part" or "so long as we both shall live." Most new vows simply leave the question of marital duration unasked and unanswered, as if the issue were either irrelevant or beyond knowing....To pledge marital permanence would be to make a false guarantee. We are in love today, but the future is something that should not or cannot be promised.

The second change is more subtle, but far more profound. Today, growing numbers of couples-perhaps most couples-compose their own vows. My wife and I did in 1986; most couples we know did....It would be hard to exaggerate the symbolic importance of this shift toward self-composed vows. The old vows were created by society and presented to the couple, signifying the goal of conforming the couple to marriage. The new vows are created by the couple and presented to society, signifying the goal of conforming marriage to the couple. The two approaches reflect strikingly divergent views of marriage and of reality itself.

In one view, the vow is prior to the couple. The vow exists on its own, exerting social and sacred authority that is independent of the couple. In this sense, the vow helps to create the couple. For in making the same promise that others before them have made, and that others after them will make, the couple vows on their wedding day to become accountable to an ideal of marriage that is outside of them and bigger than they are.

In the new view, the couple is prior to the promise. The vow is not an external reality, like gravity or the weather, but instead a subjective projection, deriving its meaning solely from the couple. From this perspective, the couple approaches the vow like a painter approaches a canvas. Rather than the vow creating the couple, the couple creates the vow. As a result, each marriage becomes unique, like a painting or a snowflake.

But the essence of this change reflects a dramatic shrinking of our idea of marriage. With the new vows, the robust expectation of marital permanence shrinks to a frail, often unstated hope. Marriage as a vital communal institution shrinks to marriage as a purely private relationship. Marriage as something that defines me shrinks to something that I define.

Finally, as the idea of marriage gets weaker, so does the reality. In this sense, the new vows are important philosophical authorizations for our divorce culture. They are both minor causes and revealing results of a society in which marriage as an institution is decomposing before our eyes.

By accepting and even embracing these ideas, many pastors become little more than entertainers, bit players, in the weddings they conduct and in the marriages they launch." Blankenhorn then offers four proposals to correct the current problems:

"First, individual pastors, and ultimately denominational leaders, should reclaim the historic responsibility inhering in communities of faith to promulgate and maintain the integrity of the marriage vows exchanged in their churches. Second, pastors should agree to marry couples in their churches only when at least one member of the couple is also a member of the church. Third, pastors should require all couples who marry in their churches to participate in a serious program of church-sponsored premarital education. And finally, individual churches should formally embrace the goal of strengthening marriage and lowering the divorce rate in their congregation, specifically through on-going programs aimed at marital enrichment and "marriage saving," and generally by seeking to create a marriage culture within the faith community that is distinct from the divorce culture in the larger society."

The full text of this article is available at
http://www.firstthings.com/issues/nov97