Yesterday I wrote about my beliefs concerning marriage. I left off saying I’d qualify what I’d said; there might be a little repetition, and I apologise for that. I also apologise for my lack of references – I had them once, but I’ve long since lost track of where I found a lot of this information.

I tend to prefer time-honoured traditions to modern ones. Christianity, moreso than Jesus’ own tradition Judaism, has always focused on the love component of marriage. Hence, a commitment ceremony – betrothal, or engagement – came before living together. Sex came after that: historically, after the wife falls pregnant, a marriage ceremony was performed. The ceremony was a recognition of a reality that had already taken place, not an initiation into a new reality. There were no legal contracts, except in the cases of royalty or nobility. For a large part of Christian history, a priest did not even preside over either betrothal or marriage, let alone a legal representative: It was entirely a lay ceremony. My beliefs, as mentioned yesterday, reflect this.

The (controversial) logical corollary: I do not believe in ‘no sex before marriage’. In the best light, I could say I believe in ‘no sex before engagement’, but I believe that engagement in our culture is a different animal from historical Christian betrothal. Truthfully, I believe in ‘no sex before commitment’. But this commitment must be a life-long commitment, that cannot be rescinded or gone back upon. Whilst commitment is often not taken seriously in our society, this half-cocked commitment is not what I’m talking about. What sex has nothing to do with is secular ceremony, what is has little to do with is religious ceremony, and what it has everything to do with is familial and communal recognition. Hence, I believe, as I hinted yesterday, that sex in God’s eyes, is marriage, or makes marriage, or initiates marriage, with all of its obligations and responsibilities. Because of this, ‘No sex before marriage’ is a nonsense phrase to me.

It would be wrong (and some will inevitably interpret me this way) to say I have no morals because of this. I don’t believe in sex without consequences, and I don’t believe that Christians (or non-Christians, for that matter) should sleep with multiple people. I don’t believe that a decision of ‘commitment’ is valid simply because two people in young love believe it so – parents and community must also play a role in this. In fact, I think the way I see marriage requires a stronger sense of right, greater forethought and more community participation than marriage as practiced most often in our society. I feel that the institution of marriage in our society has become a mess, and far from how early Christians practised it or how God intended it to be.

Finally, despite all of this, the truth is that I shall marry and live together, in the traditions of the society I’m a part of. We won’t have sex before marriage, and we won’t move in together prior to that, we’ll be engaged with a diamond ring and we’ll exchange vows and surnames in front of a priest. But I don’t for a second think that it’s God’s intention. It’s simply the way the culture I’m a part of does it. God blesses that. But God working through this western, Catholic marriage tradition is not the same thing as this western, Catholic marriage tradition being God’s intention. I think it’s important not to get those two things confused.