![]() ![]() Traditional societies made the family the ultimate value in life, and so marriage was a mere transaction that helped your family’s interest. ![]() It is possible to see marriage as merely a social transaction, a way of doing your duty to family, tribe and society. But in talking this way, there is a danger of falling into the opposite error that characterized many ancient and traditional societies. That means that love is more fundamentally action than emotion. “In sharp contrast with our culture, the Bible teaches that the essence of marriage is a sacrificial commitment to the good of the other. ![]() Covenant is therefore a concept increasingly foreign to us, and yet the Bible says it is the essence of marriage.” This has also been called “commodification,” a process by which social relationships are reduced to economic exchange relationships, and so the very idea of “covenant” is disappearing in our culture. When we cease to make a profit – that is, when the relationship appears to require more love and affirmation from us than we are getting back – then we “cut our loses” and drop the relationship. Today we stay connected to people only as long as they are meeting our particular needs at an acceptable cost to us. “Sociologists argue that in contemporary Western society the marketplace has become so dominant that the consumer model increasingly characterizes most relationships that historically were covenantal, including marriage. ![]()
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