I am still to meet someone who would say that marriage is not a contract. In an interview on a local TV programme a lecturer on the subject at the University referred to marriage as a contract, while a few days earlier in the same way a learned member of the Church also referred to marriage as a contract. Yet is marriage a contract?

A contract is the creation of man. It is an agreement entered into by a plurality of persons for a specific purpose. Any number of persons can form a contract irrespective of their sex.

The purpose for which they agree can practically be anything. The period during which the agreement is to be effective can be definite or indefinite as the parties agree. Just as a contract is created by man, in the same way it is regulated by man by man-made legislation and by conditions set by man himself as part of the agreement, and it is man himself who rescinds the agreement if things do not work out as desired or if it suits him to do so.

Marriage, on the other hand, has its roots in natural law. It is part of the infrastructure of that universal divine project which is called creation. It is available to just two human beings who must be a male and a female, who strip themselves of their individuality to donate themselves reciprocally to each other. Husband and wife thus unite to form a family, a nucleus of society, for the purpose of procreation of the human species, finding their fulfilment within human nature in the process. No conditions are set by man, but there is an affirmation by both husband and wife of what is done at that moment in time: “I take thee... to love and to cherish ... for good and for worse... till death do us part.” This is marriage, the union of a man and a woman who, motivated by unselfish love towards each other, start a new life together facing hand in hand the ups and downs of earthly existence till they are separated by death.

Having considered all this I fail to see how marriage can fit in the widest interpretation of contract. Similarly I fail to see how the civil right which may be available to a party in a contract may also be available to a husband or wife, or to both of them, to terminate their marriage. Anything which is intended to terminate marriage, including divorce, belies the affirmation of the spouses themselves made to each other. Maybe in the not too distant future the affirmation at the time of the ceremony will read something like this: “I take you to love and cherish in my own way... to have a good time... so long as it suits me.” Would this make life easier? Certainly we will not be needing divorce.

I have not made any consideration of a religious nature because I wanted to look at marriage with the same optics and from the same point of view of those who lobby for the introduction of divorce. I say this lest anybody would think that I do not fully agree with Catholic marriage. On the contrary my one and only consideration of a religious nature is that we have a divine law emanating from Our Lord himself which should be followed in the light of Our Lord’s infinite mercy.