Changing Face of Marriage

My experience of the "domestic Church" has been wonderful. My mom and dad came from two different religious backgrounds--my mom was raised Episcopalian and my dad was raised Roman Catholic--but they decided together to raise us with Catholic beliefs, yet still encouraging us to explore other versions of Christianity if we wanted to. I was always taught that through the domestic Church, religion is introduced first by your parents. This was definitely true in my household. My parents took my sisters and I to Church with them from the time we were babies. They told us about God and their beliefs when we were very young. When it came time to choose a school to enroll us in, they placed Megan and I in Catholic school so that we could learn more about the Catholic faith while learning and interacting with other Catholics. My parents have also showed us the importance of agreement, patience, and love in a marriage that I will one day hopefully mimic in my own marriage. There are definitely both pros and cons to the changing structure and composition of family and marriage. I believe that now more than ever, family and marriage have more unity. No one person is "in charge" of the marriage the way that a husband used to be in charge. Now, in most cases, both husband and wife truly express total union in marriage by equal say in family decisions, equal support financially, and equal support around the house and often in raising the children. I think it is great that women are now working as well as the men and that gender roles in marriages are slowly being erased. There are cons to the changes in marriage, though. A lot of people are not taking the sacrament of marriage as seriously. Divorce rates have risen and, as the one video stated, the percentage of married couples has decreased. These facts are impacting family development because many children are no longer being raised in a "domestic Church" where God is present in their parents' unity and love. I am not surprised by the fact that those who receive college degrees are less likely to divorce. I believe that a lot of factors influence this, from financial situations to family upbringings to personal values and motivations, but that does not mean that couples without a college degree cannot be in a loving, faithful marriage. This fact does give me hope that my own marriage will one day be strong since I plan on receiving a college degree and marrying someone who does the same. I do hope to one day establish a domestic church in my own home just as m parents did for me. I want my children to be able to learn about their faith, love for one another and for God, and important family values through this domestic church just as I did growing up.