Marriage, morality, and politics

From time to time a candidate’s marital history comes up in presidential campaigns. I’ll just make a few quick observations:

i) A long and successful marriage takes a lot of dedication. That’s to be commended.

However, it’s easy to judge things superficially.

ii) A man can be married to the same woman all his life, but have extramarital affairs (or vice versa).

iii) A man can be married to the same woman all his life, and be nominally faithful, yet he’s really married to his job. A number of men are ambitious, career-driven workaholics who are absentee husbands and fathers. (The same holds true for some women.) That’s a type of desertion.

iv) In a fallen world, we sometimes see the paradoxical spectacle of men and women who are passionately devoted to each other even though they are faithless. Richard Burton and Liz Taylor come to mind.

v) A couple can be devoted to each other, but still be rotten to the core. Bonnie and Clyde were inseparable, yet they wouldn’t be my first pick for President and First Lady. Hitler and Eva Braun also come to mind.

vi) In biblical ethics, premarital sex is sinful as well as extramarital sex.

vii) The liberal media touts the Hallmark image of devoted homosexual “couples.” That’s largely illusory. But suppose a homosexual “couple” were faithful to each other or monogamous. Although fidelity is a virtue, fidelity in a perverted relationship is a vice.