BOOKS:
Marriage and Modernisation, by Don Browning

by Bill Muehlenberg

News Weekly, June 14, 2003
Marriage and Modernisation
by Don Browning

Eerdmans

How have the forces of modernisation and globalisation impacted on the institutions of marriage and family? Is the decline of marriage in the Western world inevitable? What role does religion play in the revitalising of marriage and family? And how can the fortunes of marriage be reversed in the social, cultural and educational arenas? What models can we look to today which can guide us in our attempt to resurrect the institution of marriage?

These and other profound questions are closely explored in this new volume by Don Browning, a leading ethicist and family educator from the Chicago Divinity School. Political, historical, religious and theological disciplines are carefully woven together in this wide-ranging work. The outcome is a renewed call for the importance of marriage in an age that needs to rediscover why it is such a necessary and crucial institution.

Browning examines how the family has fared over the millennia, and then uses this historical backdrop to see whether and how modernisation and marriage can co-exist.

He argues that we cannot turn back the clock, and refutes the concept of marriage as pre-modern, incapable of surviving in a modern and postmodern environment.

He points out the now familiar negative impacts of modernisation on marriage and family, but also argues that there have been positive benefits as well to arise out of modernisation. His thesis is that modernisation, at least in its destructive aspects, needs to be curtailed (not eliminated, as if that were possible) while marriage needs to be supported and promoted anew. Somehow the two can and must develop together.

Detailed examinations of the family in different cultures and nations is followed by meaty chapters on the findings of evolutionary psychology, feminism and global trends, and theological defences of marriage.

For example the place of marriage and the role of fathers receive close attention. Given that male alienation from families is perhaps the most important social problem of today, this chapter offers insights and wisdom from generations past which shed considerable light on the way we might proceed on these key social questions today.

Those wanting a "solution" to the "problem" of marriage will not find what they are looking for here. The problems are too complex and the situation too diverse to offer a magic pill of reform. At best Browning can only point to wisdom from the past coupled with insights from the present to guide us into the future.

But the foundational themes addressed here are the right place to begin: families are essential to the well-being of society; marriage is the centerpiece of strong family life; and all levels of society (governmental, cultural, educational and religious) need to contribute to the defence and promotion of the institution of marriage.