Indissoluble Marriage: A Defense

And this is my last instance of the things that I should ask, and ask imperatively, of any social paradise; I should ask to be kept to my bargain, to have my oaths and engagements taken seriously; I should ask Utopia to avenge my honor on myself.

g. k. chesterton, Brave New Family¹

Despite its widespread prevalence, I will argue below that divorce as such is wrong.² This article will thus defend the Catholic view that an essential property of marriage is its indissolubility.³ The reason I think divorce is wrong focuses on what marriage itself is, or, better, its genus.⁴ Before presenting my argument, therefore, an examination of the definitions of marriage and divorce are in order. After finding current definitional assumptions about marriage wanting in section one of this article, I remedy the situation with a "family view" of marital union in section two and show how it entails that divorce is, per se, immoral. In the remaining sections of the paper I defend the family view and its consequences for divorce against objections and show its superiority to other views of marital union.

1.

Long before Augustine identified the three ends of Christian marriage as proles, fides, and sacramentum (procreation, fidelity, and sacrament), marriage was recognized as a natural and normative institution in the West.⁵ The Trojan War was fought in part over an adulterous wife, and Aristotle, following Hesiod, made a man, a woman, and a plow the sine qua non of the polis.⁶ Subsequent moral reflection on the institution of marriage has regularly focused on sexual morality and the character of the spousal relationship, albeit with various emphases, depending on whether one focused on the marital goods of family, fidelity, or friendship.⁷ A normative definition of marriage that suitably captures this tradition is the following: "Marriage . . . is living together (or at least a commitment to do so), plus a commitment to at least occasional sexual intercourse if possible—and if not possible, the fact known to both (or however many) marital partners—plus a commitment to exclusivity as far as sexual intercourse is concerned."⁸ Let us call this definition (M). While marriage entails the commitments described in (M), I will argue, these conditions are not sufficient for marriage, for two reasons.

The first is that we have counterexamples to (M) drawn from common usage of the term in common cohabitation and concubinage (e.g., the nameless mother of St. Augustine's son), both of which may involve cohabitating persons committed to sexual exclusivity who do not consider their arrangement a marriage. Another more serious counterexample is the partnering relationship. Here the parties add to (M) an additional commitment to longevity or permanence but do not experience or define their relationship as a marriage and (presumably) are not simply confused about what marriage means. In fact, this must be the case if introducing someone (who meets the above conditions) as one's partner rather than as one's spouse is not simply incoherent.

My second reason for thinking that (M) is deficient begins with an analogy. Suppose that two necessary but insufficient conditions of being a medical doctor are having the right to prescribe medicines and the duty to heal. Even if it is true that all and only medical doctors have these rights and duties, it still makes sense to ask, "In virtue of what conditions does a person gain these rights and duties that constitute being a medical doctor?" People become medical doctors through the acquisition of the knowledge and skill necessary for healing, but only gain the title of MD by successfully passing an appropriate examination. Note that it is possible to be a medical doctor without having passed a public examination, and to pass a public examination without being a medical doctor. Note further that simple coextensivity does not guarantee that a definition captures the essential meaning of the term being defined.

Now consider what follows when we entertain similar considerations about spousehood. Expanding just a bit on (M), let us say that being a spouse entails a unique set of...