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On the fourth of July, in Harvard Memorial Church, I attended the wedding of my

friends Diana Eck, professor of comparative religion and Indian studies, and Dorothy
Austin, Episcopalian priest and chaplain to the university. It was an exhilarating
occasion. When the couple - Harvard luminaries together for 28 years - walked down
the aisle, the massive congregation of more than 800 people broke into spontaneous
applause.
But there was also a hint of unease. The Harvard police surrounded the church to
prevent the incursion of hostile protesters. In some ways, Dorothy and Diana live more
truly Christian lives than many joined in heterosexual marriage. In 1999, for example,
they took in a family of four Muslim Kosovar teenagers who had lost both parents, and
seen their father killed before their eyes. But the religious right would regard their
wedding as sacrilegious, and bishops who support gay rights have received death
threats.
The extremity of this response suggests a buried anxiety. The strident fundamentalist
rhetoric in defence of "family values" is just one end of the spectrum. At the other is a
tradition of recoil from matrimony, apparent in some of the religious movements that
erupted in America in the 19th century. The Oneida Perfectionists advocated free love,
while the Mormons introduced a system of polygamy. Shakers regarded sexuality as
wholly corrupting; thousands of couples sold all their possessions and moved with their
children into celibate Shaker colonies. The movement flourished for more than 70 years.
The success of such apparently bizarre experiments indicates widespread dissatisfaction
with traditional marriage.
We now regard monogamous, heterosexual marriage as a holy institution that is central
to Christianity. But enthusiasm for the married state is relatively new. Until the 17th
Comment
Marriage made in heaven
The suppression of ego demanded by a truly Christian union
makes gender irrelevant
Karen Armstrong
The Guardian, Monday 12 July 2004 00.11 BST
Karen Armstrong: Marriage made in heaven | World news | T... http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jul/12/gayrights.religion
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century, celibacy was the primary Christian vocation. Jesus told his followers to leave
their wives and children (Luke 14: 25-26). St Paul permitted marriage but
recommended chastity. St Augustine, the founder of western Christianity, equated
Christianity with celibacy. Plagued by sexual desire before his conversion, he prayed:
"Lord, give me chastity - but not yet!" Later he regretfully conceded that marriage was
part of God's plan, but described sexuality as a symptom of humanity's chronic
sinfulness.
Matrimony may have been the lot of the vast majority of Christians, but it was not
revered as an "honourable estate". Couples were not married in the church itself, but -
like the wife of Bath - at the church door, epitomising the liminal status of wedlock.
Priests uneasy about their own sexuality did not encourage a positive view of marriage.
When the 12th century philosopher Abelard proposed to his pregnant mistress Heloise,
she insisted that it would be a scandal for Abelard to submit to such "base servitude".
She later attributed their downfall not to their "fornication" but to their wedding.
Following Calvin's lead, the Anglican church was largely instrumental in promoting the
ideal of holy matrimony, now routinely praised in all denominations. But the old
denigration of sexuality persists, often at a subterranean, subconscious level. In the
Catholic church the ban on artificial birth control implies that married sex is permissible
only with a possibility of conception. Priests are still forced to be celibate, even though
clerical celibacy is not a divine ruling but only became obligatory in the 13th century.
This is not only unhealthy but self-destructive. Priests are leaving the church in droves.
Forbidden to marry, they have sexually abused women and children, a scandal
representing what Jungians would call the shadow-side of the church. For generations,
the Catholic establishment has aggressively regulated the laity's sexuality, while denying
its own corruption.
The writings of the American religious right show it is perturbed by shifting gender roles
and sexual mores. It is particularly fearful of feminism and sexual ambiguity. This
inspires aggression against those who support gay rights.
Christians have long found it difficult to integrate their sexuality with the sacred and to
affirm the religious value of marriage. Unable to accept their own sexuality, they
castigate the behaviour of others, attribute far too much religious importance to what
happens in the bedroom and see sexual correctness as the benchmark of orthodoxy. But
like all major faiths, the Christian scriptures speak of the primary importance of
practical compassion, which mitigates the destructive tendencies of egotism and greed.
Marriage demands the suppression of the ego. Every day you have to dethrone yourself
from the centre of your world and put another there. It is a spiritual process, and gender
becomes irrelevant. Those who prop up their sense of self by attacking others' sexual
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behaviour have lost the plot. Diana and Dorothy, who have cared for the orphans and
the dispossessed, seem far closer to the Christian ideal.
! Karen Armstrong is the author of The Spiral Staircase: A Memoir (HarperCollins)
karmstronginfo@btopenworld.com
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Karen Armstrong: Marriage made in heaven | World news | T... http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jul/12/gayrights.religion
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