Q&A: Is There Value in Getting Married?
Is There Value in Getting Married?
Question
Do you see value in getting married?
I’m not talking now about the “institution of marriage,” but about the act of a person getting married—does that have value? Is a person who doesn’t get married in some sense a slightly deficient person, since he did not realize marriage? If so, is the value in establishing a family with children and descendants, or do you see some value already in the very act of the wedding itself (with an additional value then added by having children)?
Personally, I find it hard to see in this a “religious” or moral value, but my feeling is that a person who doesn’t marry is somewhat lacking. Maybe there is some kind of “aesthetic value” in a “complete person” after marriage. I don’t know, and I find it hard to define here.
Answer
It is, of course, a religious value. I do not see in it a moral dimension.
Discussion on Answer
Toward the children, true, but there are also circumstances in which children of a married couple, legally committed to each other, suffer for various reasons. Toward the spouse—how is it different from a business deal with a partner?
Rabbi,
Here is a line of reasoning, and I’d be glad if you could point out where, in your view, I’m mistaken:
A. There is value in human life—and included within that is helping people improve their lives and benefit them. A person who increases happiness for human beings—that is a great virtue, and it has value. B. The act of marriage brings happiness to people and improves their lives. Consequently, a person who gets married actualizes the value of “human life.”
One can disagree about this on factual grounds (marriage does not bring happiness to people), but let us assume that the description is accurate. Where is the flaw here? Is causing people to be happy not something of value? What am I missing?
In a different style: there is value in loving people (not a religious value like “love of the Jewish people,” but a human or moral value). Similarly, there is value in, or a more complete and harmonious picture of, a person loving and uniting with a woman (his wife). This is an aesthetic or human value of the ideal of “family.” Therefore, is there value in the act of the wedding?
I’d be glad if you could expand for me on which points you disagree and why.
That is not a value in marriage but in happiness. It is no different from the value in buying someone an ice cream. If that is what you mean, then you may be right—and even that is only if happiness is in fact produced. But the questioner’s intention, as I understood it, was not that. He was wondering about the value in marriage itself, and not only as an instrument for happiness.
With God’s help, 28 Adar 5781
To L.A. — greetings,
On the importance of formalizing marriage, see an article by Rabbi Michael Abraham, “Cupid and Other Animals: Why Get Married?” (= Column 141).
With blessings,
Yaron Fish”l Ordner
In my humble opinion, intimate relationships in which there is no mutual commitment, and either side can simply get up and leave, are an immoral exploitation of one’s partner, turning him or her into an object that one “uses and throws away”—not to mention the children who fall victim to that kind of relationship, lacking commitment and stability. It is immoral, both toward the partner and toward the children.