Just Do It?

12. "This particular doctrine, often expounded by the magisterium of the Church, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act.

The reason is that the fundamental nature of the marriage act, while uniting husband and wife in the closest intimacy, also renders them capable of generating new life—and this as a result of laws written into the actual nature of man and of woman. And if each of these essential qualities, the unitive and the procreative, is preserved, the use of marriage fully retains its sense of true mutual love and its ordination to the supreme responsibility of parenthood to which man is called. We believe that our contemporaries are particularly capable of seeing that this teaching is in harmony with human reason." (Part 12 of Humanae Vitae, by Pope Paul VI).

This quote is essentially saying a married man and woman can only have sex at certain times without using birth control methods, and this is a construction of God/Laws of Nature. In Humanae Vitae, God's creation and the natural Law of Humanity are the same thing. It continues to say that marriages will be undoubtedly more successful if the laws of God (Laws of Nature) are followed. It ends with the claim that all "contemporaries" can see the reasoning behind this law.

While contemporaries more or less means "peers," I'm not Catholic and only somewhat religious, but I can see the point that is being made here. In today's society marriage as an institution is undeniably less effective than it used to be. In America half of all marriages end in divorce. It's no coincidence that America also has the most sexual media and culture in the world. Because of condoms and other birth control methods, you can have sex without having a baby. Without those methods, casual sex would be much riskier, and therefore less people would do it. This is also assuming (because of Christian law) that couples wait until they are married to have sex. Which is all but gone in today's society as well. Obviously, the church wishes to preserve it's construction, marriage, even in modern times when condoms, birth control pills, and Plan B are available. But, so too the capitalist nature of our society wishes to continue to make money off of these products. This is where the conflict lies.

I'm not saying it's wrong to use birth control or have sex before marriage. There is a necessity for birth control in a civilized, modern society. But the claim of doing so being damaging to the institution of marriage is undeniable. Although the illustration I used is not a real Trojan ad, I think it goes well with the point being made here. If Tiger Woods actually had to face the risk of having a child with each of the numerous mistresses he had, he would have had less or none. Also, then he would probably still be married. It is interesting to me that the institution of marriage is man made, yet is so heavily dependent on procreation and reproduction, which are organically human. To conclude, I do not agree that birth control methods should be disregarded, but I can certainly see that the use of them has weakened the institution of marriage.