To Have and to Hold: The Marriage Covenant

Notes from David Atkinson, To Have and to Hold: The Marriage Covenant and the Discipline of Divorce (St James’s Place, London: Collins, 1979), see first post and notes from his historical sketch.

“The centre of the meaning of marriage (not what it is for, nor how it is made, but what it means) is the expression of a bond of moral troth (that is, covenant faithfulness) in which two people marry each other before God, and pledge to each other loyalty, trust, devotion and reliability.” (p. 85)

“Within a marriage covenant faithfulness will mean at least the following four things (following Smedes).”

• faithfulness to a vow
• faithfulness to a calling
• faithfulness to a person
• faithfulness to a relationship (pp. 85-87)

“If marriage is understood in covenant terms, then the possibility of divorce must be discussed as the possibility of breaking covenant. The covenant structure of marriage lends weight to the view, discussed earlier, that marriage is not a metaphysical status which cannot be destroyed; it is rather a moral commitment [to a permanent relationship] which should be honoured.” (p. 91)

“To understand divorce as a moral (rather than a metaphysical) question, however, allows us to consider whether and in what circumstances such a moral obligation as is undertaken in marriage may be overridden by other moral duties, and whether and in what circumstances, divorce may be considered the lesser evil.” (p. 92)

I have written up further notes from chapter 4 (background and biblical evidence), chapter 5 here (principles for a Christian view of divorce) and here (applications of these principles), and chapter 6 (pastoral questions).