German politician Gabriele Pauli wants a marriage license to expire after 7 years, to be renewed by the couple if they so desire. The reasoning is more of the same “people cheat, people are in marriage only because they want to feel safe, or they want to be together for the children”, blah blah blah.

Of course, this has outraged her predominantly Catholic party. but it’s not a real shock. There’s no respect for the institution of marriage any more, and it primarily comes from a secular interpretation of marriage instead of a religious interpretation.

Marriage is a religious institution. It is a Christian belief that when people get married, they do so in a union with God, who blesses the couple and their union and the children that follow. Modern states have adopted the marriage model and the word marriage, although the marriage licenses have nothing to do with a Higher Power (unless you think the State is the Higher Power). Due to the removal of emphasis on what Marriage is really about (and why it’s a Sacrament in the Catholic and Anglican tradition), people get married for the wrong reasons and divorce is the inevitable result.

I’ve been a proponent of changing the terminology of a “civil marriage” to one of a “civil union”. If a state wants to allow people to join together as a couple, that’s great, but it’s not a Marriage. It’s simply a recognition of the state of the status of the couple. This goes for gay people as well as straight. Recognize it for what it is. The dissolution of a union isn’t that big of a deal– people break partnerships all the time in the secular world.

But for Marriage– that’s for life. It’s an oath, a vow, two people (a man and a woman) make before God. It’s a religious institution and it should be treated as such. People are taking Marriage far too lightly and there should be a push by all religious denominations to focus on Marriage, the family, and how the Sacramentality of Marriage unifies not just the man and the woman, but the children as well.