From marriage to life

In paragraph 9 titled with Married Love of the Doctrinal Principals written by Pope Paul, he mentions something about marriage and love. By his definition of them and his ordered structure of life, he makes the statement that marriage is not only between the couple themselves, which stands for all the man and woman, but includes the God and the spirit. Also he thinks that both sides of the couple should bear all the difficulties and work through them together no matter what kind feelings they will have during this procedure to guarantee a so-called “profound and enduring happiness” because love and reproduction will accompany them all the way and that is his meaning of marriage.

By saying “whoever really loves his partner loves not only for what he receives, but loves that partner for the partner’s own sake, content to be able to enrich the other with the gift of himself”, he tries to confirm the ideal style of marriage. But it sounds like a proposal when you ask for a marriage rather than the illustration of the real marriage life. Love and reproduction do contribute in a way, but not for all the couples who are married now.

Take the reproduction as the first issue, it is not that every couple does want get a child. There are families named as DINK, which stands for double income no kids. People have their own rights to choose their life style. For some couples, bringing up a child means a burden more than a present of God to them. As an Asian, I totally understand the culture for family to have a child or children. There are lots of sayings about this topic as “There are three unfilial things in life, among which having no kids is the worst”. But time changes, we cannot use the old values and traditions as restrictions in a new society. Yes, it seems that it is imperfect for a family without children but what if this family cannot give the child a good condition to grow up. Once the baby is born, the parents should take the responsibility of his/her future. We cannot achieve the so-called “profound happiness” by sacrificing a child’s happiness. Life is one-way and you can never take it back afterwards.

As to the love, it is neither that all the people who in love could end in a marriage nor that every married couple is still together because of love. There is no doubt that every couple who is still together will make a perfect in the end because those unhappy couples just brake up or get divorced half way there. It may not be perfect but fair enough. They do not match each other well, which does not mean there is no love in between. Marriage is not the only way to show what love means. If we let the Pope take the position of two choices, would he choose to give up the marriage for the benefits of both sides or to endure all the difficulties to maintain a so-called “perfect marriage”? No offense but we are just human beings with feelings rather than any gods or spirits who are perfect with no flaws.

So in conclusion, we, as human beings, of course will try our best to get the best results in every aspect of the life. But that does not mean we need to finish everything perfectly, especially for marriage. Life is not defined by a certain structure but expressed by everyone itself. Marriage is just a matter between the two who are experiencing it. So please take off your words with all the definitions, dear Pope. What we want is the truth that even comes from the Renaissance, when we said human rights are much more important than the theocracy.