As appeared in “The Public Square”
Richard John Neuhaus
First Things | May 2001

If we lose the word "marriage," David Blankenhorn writes [in Propositions], we lose marriage. But in some circles today, relationships are in, marriage is out. Blankenhorn of the Institute of American Values is commenting on a report issued by the Law Commission of Canada, tellingly titled, Recognizing and Supporting Close Personal Relationships Between Adults. He goes on to note that a study sponsored by his institute and demonstrating that school curricula today prefer "relationship" to "marriage" was discussed at a recent conference where it was candidly pointed out that local school officials around the country "will not accept course material that seems to endorse marriage." All of which is enough to drive Blankenhorn back to an earlier source of wisdom. "But they are wrong to suggest that marriage is simply one version, and quite possibly an inferior version, of a private relationship. To remind yourself of what marriage is, listen to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing to a young bride and groom from his prison cell in Nazi Germany in 1943: 'Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal - it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man.' And then, about what does the elevating, this remarkable sentence: ‘It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.' I don't know how it could be said any better, and in today's marriage debate, I don't know of anything more important to say."