Do conservatives have a materialist conception of marriage?

Ben W. writes:

Regarding California’s ruling with respect to same-sex marriage, Pat Buchanan writes, “The very definition of marriage is the union of a man and woman, first and foremost, for the procreation of children.”

This is a materialistic, reductionist view coming from a conservative. Marriage, as defined by God (between Adam and Eve as the prototype) had nothing primarily to do with procreation. The male was found wanting in his psychological and emotional makeup without a mate—female to be specific. This is the primary template for marriage—not procreation.

Once again conservatives betray a true principle by recourse to a secondary and materialistic cause (procreation). Marriage as defined by God (and confirmed subsequently by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew) is the holy relationship between a male and a female (Jesus also makes no mention of procreation in identifying God’s principle of marriage).

The apostle Paul characterizes the relationship between the church and Christ analogically as that between a man and his bride. No mention of procreation.

When conservatives assert that the cause of a relationship is primarily material in nature, they open the door wider and wider for Darwinian type thinking in all realms of life.

LA replies:

On one hand, the social conservatives such as Maggie Gallagher and Patrick Buchanan are important because they recognize social functions of marriage and family that are not liberal and can’t be reduced to liberalism. On the other hand, I agree with Ben W. that many social conservatives overemphasize the social utilitarian functions of marriage at the expense of, as he puts it, the spiritual principle.

But Ben seems to be downgrading the importance of procreation. In Genesis 1, the first thing God says to male and female is “Be fruitful.”

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Gen. 1:27-28

Ben has based his own acount solely on the second and very different account of the creation of mankind, in Genesis 2, where there is no mention of procreation:

And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him….

And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. Gen. 2:18-24

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 23, 2008 12:46 PM | Send