Page 4031 - 1970S

Not so long ago a study in
London , England, re–
vealed that the vast per–
centage of supposedly
"happily married people" would
very readily swap partners, and they
openly admitted that they would
not ma¡ry their present mates again.
That is tantamount to conceding ut–
ter failure in the ultimate human
relationship: marriage. Wanting to
begin marriage all over again is just
one of many symptoms signaling
the disintegration of the family unit ,
the basic building block of any
stable society or civilization .
The number ofdivorces has finally
reached the mi ilion mark annually in
the United States. There are nowover
100,000 divorces per year in the Brit–
ish Isles. Even in Russia the divorce
rate is ten times higher than it was in
1950. Divorce is shattering the foun–
dationofmodem civilization , leaving
armies of emotionally ravaged chil–
dren in its wake.
The Era of the lnnocent Vlctlm
About three-quarters of all divorces
involve couples with young chil–
dren. That is an inescapable fact. It
is these little ones who are contin–
lually subjected to the worst kind of
emotional upheavals at a time in
their líves when they are least able
to cope with them, to the shame of
unthinking, ignorant, selfish adults!
Not that a bad marriage which
somehow hangs precariously to~
gether produces good children ei–
ther. Flip a coin and take your
choice. Whích is worse: Kids with
no resident father or mother, or chíl–
dren who are forced to witness a
drunken father beating their mother
or a screaming shrew tongue-lashing
their dad?
More than half of all serious
crimes in the United States are com–
müted by youths aged ten to sev–
enteen. At least 5,000 U.S. teachers
are physically attacked each month
by their students. Three hundred
thousand schoolchildren are vio–
lently confronted every month by
other schoolchildren. And child
crime has increased 40 percent in
Britain over the last five years.
Marriage is a two-way street.
Father and mother must share the
blame for our aimless, alienated
youth. Traditionally it has been the
8
errant husband who deserted the
wife and kids. But now mothers in
their middle forties are running
away, leaving hubby standing with
a dishrag in his hands wondering
what to do with the children. Deser–
tions are up for both sexes. Faithful–
ness and commitment are down.
There are many, many reasons
for the fall of the American family.
Poor family communication is a
chief factor; sexual difficulties are in
the forefront. Add to these problems
a permissive society, antifamily TV
serials, the gay rights movement,
women's lib, our mobile way of
God made the man and
the woman to be
perfectly compatible
with one another–
the perfect team
-mentally, physically
and spiritually.
life- the list could go on and on. l t's
a matter of how much blame to as–
sigo each category- to what degree
is this or that phenomenon respon–
sible for the problem? Sociologists
sometimes disagree on percentages.
A New Scapegoat
But now sorne elements in society
have found a brand-new scapegoat.
The Bible!
Members of the gay liberation
movement discount the Genesis ac–
count of Sodom and Gomorrah
along with those particular epistles
of Paul that denounce homosexual–
ity. Modero gays insist that these
biblical passages should be inter–
preted so as to separate "the real
religious message" from the cultural
bias of bygone days. Others take the
approach that the Bible must not be
the sole guide to sexual morality.
New books promoting this liber–
alized outlook are hitting the mar–
ket. They advocate that each person
decide for himself whether or not a
particular course of action is right or
wrong and that he shun absolute
baos on immoral practices. These
authors assert that any act can be
right if it is "self-liberating, honest ,
faithful, socially responsible, life–
serving and joyous."
Today the Bible is also charged
with being a symbol of male chau–
vinism and hopelessly locked into
an outdated patriarchal system. It is
ridiculed for its emphasis on the
woman's role in the borne. Rev–
elation is looked upon as a treatise
on ancient history with little rete–
vanee to the monumental problems
of modero society.
Perhaps many people are looking
at the Bible with a bad case of tun–
nel vision. Maybe they can only see
the surfeit ofbloodshed chronicled in
the Old Testament accounts. For
them the Bible may be too hard on its
heroes. Remember, it exposes the sins
and mistakes of its most vaunted
heroes. Few are excepted. The per–
sonal ftaws ofthe leading members of
the patriarchal family are laid bare;
likewise the deficiencies of famous
kings of Israel and Judah. The Bible
even discloses the faults of Christ's
leading apostles.
The Blble and the Family
The Bible covers marriage and fam–
ily life more comprehensively than
any other ancient book that has sur–
vived to our day. The first chapter
describes the tirst family- the
crowning achievement of God's cre–
ation. "And God created man in His
own image, in the image of God He
created him; male and female He
created them" (Gen. l :27, New
American Standard Bible) .
It was God who ordained mar–
riage. He made the man and the
woman to be perfectly compatible
with one another-the perfect
team- mentally, physically and spir–
itually.
Adam said : "This is now bone of
my bones, and ftesh of my ftesh: she
shall be called Woman, because she
was taken out of Man" (Gen. 2:23).
Four thousand years later Jesus
Christ of Nazareth reaffirmed the
divine origin of marriage. "But from
tbe beginning of the creation, God
made them male and female. For
this cause a man shall leave his
father and mother, and the two shall
become one ftesh; consequently
they are no longer two, but one
fiesh . What therefore God has
The PLAIN TRUTH June/July 1978