Quick new start...

Consider this: To abandon the conjugal conception of marriage- the idea of marriage as a union of sexually complementary spouses- eliminates any ground of principle for limiting the number of partners in a marriage to two. I was asked "Really? How?" ... In brief: To separate the unique biological unity and unity of procreative intent expressed through the sexual complementarity of the husband and wife from the concomitant emotional, spiritual, and psychological closeness is to remove the exclusivity and commitment of sexual intercourse from only one spouse. If a wife's acceptance of her husband in conjugal union (or the husband's gift of self to his wife) as the consummation of their marriage expresses nothing about their unity of existence and is merely a mechanistic operation, if the procreative, sexual act does not inherently parallel extant truths about the wife and husband on a profound emotional, spiritual, and psychological level... then there is naught to limit unity of procreative intent nor any other variety of closeness to merely one other spouse. As mutually exclusive options the implications ring thus: 1) If sex is not exclusive to spouses, it follows that spouses are free to engage in sex with whomever 2) If emotional, spiritual, and psychological closeness is not a state which is exclusive to spouses, then spouses can engage in equal or greater degrees of closeness with non-spouses. Taken in tandem, consider: It is then morally acceptable for a spouse to engage in sexual intercourse and profound emotional, spiritual, and psychological closeness with a non-spouse. Continuing down the tracks, this train of though leads to acceptance of polygamy and polyamory, producing a culture in which marriage loses its significance and standing. With what effects on children begotten and reared in a world of post-marital chaos? I wish I had more time to research, explain, illuminate, educate myself... but I'm working on a paper that has nothing to do with this currently. Soon, though.