A fine essay, fine because clear and simple as the truth. Not to compete but to confirm, I add a few notes.
Prima naturalis humanae societatis copula vir et uxor est (The first natural bond of human society is a husband and wife [Augustinus Hipponensis, De bono coniugali]). For there to be a real family, there must first be a real marriage: a man and a woman bound to one another by mutual promises of lifelong fidelity, by the natural completion of their bodies in sexual love for the creation of new life, and by the rearing of that life within familial love to successful adulthood and next-generation parenthood. Marriage for the sake of children and family not only regards the present, but also binds it to the past and the future; these three become one in marriage and family. We are happiest when we live morally, and marriage is the matrix of adult moral happiness. Keeping that first adult promise keeps us moral in the other parts of our lives. In the daily care, conflict, cooperation, and compromise with the one person to whom we have promised our complete, exclusive, and lifelong devotion, we most fully mature as moral human beings. Raising children to independent adulthood in the shelter of that loving devotion secures for them the best prospects for a successful and happy life.
A fine essay, fine because clear and simple as the truth. Not to compete but to confirm, I add a few notes.
Prima naturalis humanae societatis copula vir et uxor est (The first natural bond of human society is a husband and wife [Augustinus Hipponensis, De bono coniugali]). For there to be a real family, there must first be a real marriage: a man and a woman bound to one another by mutual promises of lifelong fidelity, by the natural completion of their bodies in sexual love for the creation of new life, and by the rearing of that life within familial love to successful adulthood and next-generation parenthood. Marriage for the sake of children and family not only regards the present, but also binds it to the past and the future; these three become one in marriage and family. We are happiest when we live morally, and marriage is the matrix of adult moral happiness. Keeping that first adult promise keeps us moral in the other parts of our lives. In the daily care, conflict, cooperation, and compromise with the one person to whom we have promised our complete, exclusive, and lifelong devotion, we most fully mature as moral human beings. Raising children to independent adulthood in the shelter of that loving devotion secures for them the best prospects for a successful and happy life.
brilliant!