A good piece by Bob Patterson on Republicans and marriage...
by David and Tim Bayly on September 1, 2009 - 2:00am
(Tim) "Marriage Matters" on National Review Online is by my good friend, Bob Patterson, who writes:
Republicans resent the
presence of social conservatives in the party and, even more, the fact
that in 30 states social conservatives have succeeded in defending the
legal status of matrimony against elites who want America to be more
like socially liberal Europe.
...In 1776, (Adam Smith) noticed how men and women on this side of the Atlantic were twice as likely to marry — and at younger ages — and had twice as many children as their European counterparts.
...In 1776, (Adam Smith) noticed how men and women on this side of the Atlantic were twice as likely to marry — and at younger ages — and had twice as many children as their European counterparts.
Bob ends with this warning:
Of course, insisting that marriage law should reflect what nature, history, and reason affirm risks offending not so much homosexuals as cultural elites who care little about America. For these reasons, the effort to preserve a social institution that is a critical part of American exceptionalism, including this country’s economic prowess, deserves greater support from the GOP establishment and from Republican business interests. Given how a rejection of the marriage ideal would make the U.S. look like Europe, the stakes could not be higher.
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Comments
It's worth noting that Smith made his observations two centuries before effective contraception was available; fecundity among people has a lot more to do with culture and faith than it does latex, industrialization, and artificial hormones, apparently.
The family is the fundamental organizing principle of any society. The radical alteration of the family is requisite to any societal revolution. This is particularly true as it relates to the structure of familial authority and of the family as the primary mechanism for the transfer of wealth.
Great article - thanks for the link.
I *was* going to say that the good news is that this is the same sort of world that faced the early Christians, but that would be incorrect. The western world we face is apostate... they do *not* do these things in ignorance as the pre-Christian Europeans did. May we all repent and believe.
> The western world we face is apostate... they do *not* do these things in ignorance as the pre-Christian Europeans did.
Pre-Christian Europeans at least had the common sense to know what a family was, who was in charge of it, and likely knew more about the importance of children, etc.
The decline in marriage and falling number of births that Adam Smith observed in Europe were among the first fruits of the Enlightenment(we really need to come up with a more accurate designation for this period of Western intellectual history)which by Smith's time had permeated the upper levels of British society.
While Europe was embarking on her journey to cultural suicide, God in His good and gracious providence was granting the colonies one of the greatest revivals that the world has seen. May God in his good and gracious providence grant us yet another.
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