MARRIAGE

Brent Anderson

The word "marriage" is defined by a large set of differing contractual relationships between men and women. Variation within marriage forms is a direct reflection of the myriad’s of different cultures in the world and therefore, the practice of marriage is of necessity not well defined by any one cultural practice. Out of this variety there is one constant, and that is a contractual bonding of man to woman. It is obvious that pair bonding in humans satisfies a very basic genetic or biological need. If this were not so then given the huge number of different cultures and sub-cultures there would be numerous examples of alternatives. One does not have to have a college degree to recognize and understand the instinctual pursuit of men and women for each other as a primal motivated behavior that concludes with the majority of individuals uniting in long term pair bonds or relationships. Even in today's liberated societies where formalized marriage is shunned for the more avant-garde "living together" or "in a relationship"; the end result is in most cases the same.

There are, and always will be, some aberrant variations that are practiced by minorities. (This is guaranteed by the chaotic diversity seen in all aspects of life.) A modern and very visible variant is typified by women raising children born of a succession of transient men, as observed in some inner city cultures, but this variation mostly yields disastrous results for the majority of the resulting children, and causes monumental problems for the rest of society. In the end, these social aberrations will drift toward the norm of stable and productive forms of marriage.

The preponderance of all new marriages occur among the young for the obvious reason that there are simply more unattached young people than there are in any other age group. As a result, the practices of previous generations with regard to marriage are often the target of youthful rebellion. Despite this, most men and women unite in a form of marriage that fits within a worldwide spectrum. It is true that those who rebel and try new variants of old ways are the ones who gather the notoriety, but the majority of young people will continue in the traditional marriages of their culture, parents or church. That old saw "that the more things change the more they are the same" remains true. While man and woman like to think that they are intellectually independent of genetic heritage, one has only to consider the reproductive drives established by genetic programming to regain humility.

The evolutionary factor that led to the need for marriage was and is the relatively long time it takes to rear a human baby to self-sustaining maturity. Human intelligence and the necessarily large brain it requires dictate this rather long period of time. More importantly, a great deal of knowledge transference is required for young humans before they can successfully compete and survive to pass on their genes. Human genetic survival happens to favor offspring that have a father and mother who invest joint effort in caring for and teaching them. This need created by our genes is the source of much of the basic structure of our lives. That this concept is uncomfortable (politically incorrect) for most in no way changes the basic truth that we are simply one of many species of life on this Earth. We, as well as all other species, are driven by the same manic need to survive and reproduce. One has only to observe young adults of both sexes’ to observe the stupefying power of the urge to procreate. "Educated society" usually ignores, or does not choose to see, the instinctual behaviors that are prevalent in mankind. Instead, they weave them into complex social frameworks that disguise them as culture.

Marriage or pair bonding is not the norm among the species of Earth but it is not unknown in other species. If we consider each of the other species that form pair bonds we observe, in most cases, that they do so because it increases the survival rates of the resulting progeny. The fact that mankind practices marriage is not the only factor that sets man apart from most the other animals of this world. Sentience is the defining characteristic of mankind. While it can be successfully argued that other species have some amount of sentience and even that they surpass the least intelligent representatives of mankind, still the gap between the average man or woman and the average Chimpanzee is very large.

There is another, perhaps controversial to some, characteristic of humanity that again defines marriage for a segment of the population. That is that man and women are spiritual beings who are the children of "God". While a vocal minority do not believe that this is so, it is nevertheless true that the majority of humanity believe that they are a composite of physical and spiritual. The physical side of that duality is becoming ever more understood under the onslaught of scientific investigation. That part of us is understood within the context of the world ecosystem that was, and is, the womb for all forms of Earthly life.

The spiritual side of man is less easily investigated since such knowledge is founded on the non-duplicable experiences of individuals. This situation is not accidental. It is the purpose of our spiritual Father and Mother to place us in an environment that requires us to make decisions for good or bad without their direct interference. However, this isolation was not meant to be absolute, provision was made for each of us to individually communicate with them on a two-way basis. This method of communication is the same that we used before our physical birth, and that is mind-to-mind transference. Our physical bodies make this form of communication difficult at best, since from our births we have learned to communicate with sound, gestures and writing; so communicating with our spiritual Father and Mother requires that we relearn spiritual speech (telepathy etc.). This is not an easy task, and does require an earnest and prolonged effort in the face of taunting from others who do not believe. It is important to our Spiritual Parents that we continue our education, just as it is for us with our own children. Our spiritual education required that we live short-term physical lives, because the unique environment of our spiritual youth was one in which our very thoughts were known to all. This situation made it very difficult for us to make uninfluenced decisions. Here where all thoughts are secret we can make secret decisions for good or evil.

When talking of the being that we refer to as "God" you will note that the author substitutes our spiritual Father and Mother. I do this simply for the reason that I have knowledge that was given me by our spiritual parents when my spirit left my body for a time during an operation. The father of my physical body along with my four grandparents, who are all dead, came to escort me and to instruct me. I understood without effort all that they were thinking, and much more. My grandparents were both united to each other in a spiritual marriage that is so much more than any words that I can put together could ever express. (My father was alone because my mother was still here on the Earth.) When they were finished it was their privilege to escort me to Jesus the Christ. He instructed me further before returning me to my physical body. From this experience I can say unequivocally that the practice of marriage as we know it is a poor imitation of the marriage of our spiritual Parents, but it is also fact that the programmed genetic need to form long term bonds was established because it mirrored the relationship of our spiritual Parents. I have written these words because I was instructed to. I cannot prove to any one that what I have written is true. These truths can only be discovered on an individual basis. The scientific method will not and can not reveal spiritual truth. Nevertheless, marriage is not just a physical state, but one that is practiced by our spiritual parents. We have the opportunity to choose a faithful marriage and covenant with our Father and Mother. Such a marriage must be sanctioned by our eternal parents and be administered by a worthy holder of the Priesthood of God. If you seek such a marriage then ask God and you will be guided.

Marriage cannot be described simplistically, for its roots are both spiritual and physical. Our present is the result of literally billions of years of genetic evolution. The forces of genetic imperatives are seen in every aspect of our lives as well as in marriage. Though the seeming chaotic mutations of DNA brought forth man and woman and the worlds ecosystem it was our spiritual Parents and Family that directed chaos that is evolution to this end.