Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

subject to the free agreement of the contractual partners, the content of the marriage contract
has been predetermined by God himself.
The contracting of marriage in the form of a binding contract before God and the entire public
is not only a demand of the social order, but at the same time an expression of conjugal love
which, by a holy oath, wills to profess unity, exclusivity, and indissolubility. In this sense, the
marriage contract is „the juridical translation of the concept of love“(Rene Savatier). 53
At the same time, a great risk lies in the consent to marriage, since with both spouses not only
are beauty, age, and health subject to change, but affection and fidelity can also disappear.
Only love is able to take the risk upon itself by trusting in God's grace.
2. Three essential features of marriage clearly emerge which must be recognized through the
consent in every marriage contract if it is to be valid: the ordination to the awakening of new
life, fidelity to one's spouse, and indissolubility. The words of St. John Chrysostom hold for
the Christian in case the state laws should determine something else: „Do not quote the laws
to me which are enacted by those who are outside...God will not judge you on that day according
to these laws, but according to those which he himself has enacted.“ 54 In the industrial
society, numerous people place their individual and subjective desire for happiness above the
divinely appointed order. The indissolubility of marriage especially has become a vexation for
many. But divorce, from which a „mitigation of marital suffering“ had been hoped, has „on
the contrary unmasked itself as an increase of this suffering.“ For every divorce is a „painful
bankruptcy of an entire capital of passionately loved dreams“ (Rene Savatier). 55 Withdrawal
leaves „those involved no longer as full-blooded people, but as used up possessions.“ 56 Divorce
is not a carefree departure, but a serious life catastrophe. To shipwreck in marriage is
personally more tragic than to fail in one's profession. After the divorce curve of the post-war
years, which had risen excessively because of the war conditions (87593 divorces in 1948),
had sunk considerably at the beginning of the nineteen-fifties in the Federal Republic of Germany,
it has been rising again since 1962. In the year 1981, the previous record of 1976 was
exceeded with 109528 divorces. In the years 1964 to 1981, a total of 1.411.318 marriages
ended in divorce. 57 The staggering increase of the divorce rate is a barometer of destabilized
normal behavior. The confusion of moral norms does not allow us to expect a change of direc-
53
In J Vio11et, Vom Wesen und Geheimnis der Familie (Sa1zburg [n d]), 52.
54
Exposition of 1 Cor 17:39f.
55
In J Viollet. op cit. 56f.
56
J Bernhart, De Profundis (Leipzig, 1935), 99.
57
Year- Marriages Divorces Births Deaths
1964 506,182 55,698 1,065,437 644,128
1965 492,128 58,718 1,044,328 677,628
1966 484,562 58,730 1,050,345 686,321
1967 483,101 62,835 1,019,459 687,349
1968 444,150 65,264 969,825 734,048
1969 446,586 72,300 903,456 744,360
1970 444,510 76,520 810,808 734,843
1971 432,030 80,444 778,526 730,670
1972 415,132 86,614 701,214 731,264
1973 394,544 90,164 635,634 731,032
1974 377,265 98,584 626,373 727,511
1975 386,681 106,829 600,512 749,260
1976 365,728 108,258 602,851 733,140
1977 358,487 74,658* 582,344 704,922
1978 328,215 32,462 576,468 723,218
1979 344,823 79,490 581,984 711,732
1980 362,408 96,222 620,657 714,117
1981 359,658 109,528 624,557 722,192
* 1977-1978: The drop in numbers was because of the Law for the Reform of Marriage and Family Right of
June 14, 1976.
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