St Andrew’s - Your Church
St Andrew’s - Your Church
National Marriage Week
Launch of National Marriage Week 2007
When the call came through I was rather taken aback: “The Mothers’ Union would like some married couples to go to
Ruth and I put our best feet forward, slipping away from work for a few hours on Monday to go hand-in-hand to the meeting in a small, but opulent, room in the Houses of Parliament. We were delighted to find ourselves described in the MU press release as ‘newly married’ (only 12 years this summer), but felt ourselves slightly fraudulent: we seemed to be the only people in the room who did not dedicate significant parts of their lives to supporting other people’s marriages. We met up with Ron and Jackie Stewart – ideal candidates to attend the launch as they have run a highly successful and popular Marriage Course for several years at St Andrew’s.
The introductions by the host MP and Anne Atkins, ‘Thought for the Day’ broadcaster and writer, led entertainingly into a hard-hitting and often depressing talk by Iain Duncan Smith MP, the Chair of the Centre for Social Justice. His speech was heavy with statistics showing how children were normally much better off when raised by parents in a stable lifelong marriage. He said that people had now begun to appreciate the high social cost of family breakdown.
After this lengthy talk, I was eager to hear the Archbishop of Canterbury, but slightly apprehensive, because of his academic reputation. Would he deliver a complex and impenetrable lecture? Not a bit of it. His talk was direct, succinct, inspiring and powerful. He used a popular phrase quoted at him by his teenage daughter: “Get a Life!” That, he said, is what marriage is all about: a person offering her life to another, and receiving a life in return. Marriage is a mutual and life-long bond entered into before God with respect and dedication and provided the best environment for nurturing children. Get married, he said. Get a life.
The Archbishop described married couples as ‘heroes’ who give stability to society. Dr Williams said many critics were trading off the inherited capital of previous generations who worked at marriage and stayed together. Their prosaic heroism and moral geography had provided a stable background for the next generation.
He added that a committed relationship of a husband and a wife indicated to the children that they could live without fear of being let down and abandoned. Marriage was a commitment to each other and to children. He was followed by other speakers including the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, who gave a very heartfelt and uplifting speech, talking about the very personal benefits that he had derived from marriage. He spoke wittily and passionately about the very great benefits of declaring a union before God – a union of mutual and lifelong faithfulness – much like the faithfulness that God shows to his creation. Among a gathering of professional speakers it was very encouraging to hear such a high quality of thought and delivery from our religious leaders.
The many speakers including all agreed: the evidence suggests that in general couples who are married are wealthier, healthier and more secure and their children are safer, better educated and live longer. In particular the incidence of transient relationships and absent parents in deprived areas and the increase in the proportion of children born out of wedlock was a very worrying trend for society.
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