Marriage - for whom?

Marriage – for whom?

The Anglican Dean of St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, The Very Revd Rowan Smith, preached on Epiphany, 6 January 2008. It was a school example of how a sermon should be preached – the liturgical and church year context was taken in, the text, the gospel of the day from Mt 2.1-12 was expounded and the prophetic word was there: the fact that the magi came from afar indicated the universal message that Christ came for all.

So at the end the Dean added something that he had experienced the night before: a wedding. The leader of TAC (Treatment Action Campaign, in support of all those who are HIV positive or are living with AIDS), Zackie Achmat married a young Afrikaner. The Dean was delighted, and we all know it, as he is a strong supporter of same sex marriages.

However much I think we should welcome stable same-sex relations including the fact that such relations may be solemnized in church or somewhere else, the question remains with me: should we here talk about ‘marriage’? Is it not to confuse things? What is the Christian view point?

The same day, 5 January, another wedding took place in Kwa Zulu Natal, a wedding that the Dean did not mention, a wedding that will have more of power political implications no doubt. Jacob Zuma, the newly elected President of the ANC, married for the fourth time, and he married a young Zulu woman of 32 years of age. Zuma’s life style is polygamous, he is still married to one woman (the other two divorced him and committed suicide respectively) and in addition he is preparing paying lobola (brudpris) for yet another woman.

The freedom to choose what kind of marriage you like to form should perhaps be there, but it is not without interest that the up-coming leader of South Africa seemingly effortlessly goes about his marriage life in his own and also traditional African way.

Is Jacob Zuma involved in a marriage with all these women? That is apparently the way we express it. What is also expressed is a very clear cut patriarchal life view and to our amazement, there are so many women who still subscribe to this view in South Africa.

A very significant discussion has been taking place in Sweden especially in the Lutheran church, i.e. the Church of Sweden. It is agreed that same sex relations are welcome to be blessed in the church according to a certain ritual. In this context a discussion has started regarding what you call such an act. Is it also a marriage?

The Church Council of the church has recently said that to them marriage should be reserved to those who are of different sex, in other words, the traditional union between one man and one woman. I think that this is a more important issue than what it looks at first sight. I also agree that in terms of unions blessed by the church, the one between one man and one woman should have the prerogative of being named marriage.

It is striking that we are so caught up with other challenges, and to a large extent rightly so, that we are suffering the risk of being neglectful regarding the traditional union, that which I like to call marriage. What do we do with it? Why is the divorce rate to high in many countries? To put a long discussion short here, for now, let me just say that there is a great, almost desperate need for renewed reflection on what a marriage is from a theological point of view. I am even prepared to support the Roman Catholic notion of marriage as a sacrament, but on one condition. We need to re-write the whole agenda of what is a marriage, especially in terms of power relations and of what constitutes oneness. Patriarchy must go. Equality and sharing must come in. One must remember that most of this reflection will have to do with the emancipation of women. Still today (in South Africa for example) a man could feel threatened by the sheer fact that the wife also has her own bank account and therefore is able to take a number of practical decisions of her own.

I am also not a stranger to the idea that we who are in the life long, traditional Christian marriage have a lot to learn from other unions, not so much from those of the Zuma kind, but from those of the same sex.

Hans S A Engdahl, Cape Town 11 January 2008