We’ll return later this month with the “Obama Watch” as we examine the results of the Pennsylvania primary, but I want to discuss some other important issues that is before us. This week’s blog… “Do Marriage Vows Mean Anything Anymore?” ...... Last month Detroit’s ‘hip-hop’ Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was charged with eight counts, including perjury, after explicit text messages with his former chief-of-staff (who was not his wife) were made public. We also discovered last month that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who made his name as a prosecutor of Wall Street corruption and an image of uprightness, had to resign in shame after it was discovered through a federal wiretap that he had arranged booking a high-priced prostitute. But then just hours after replacing Eliot Spitzer, incoming New York Governor David Paterson, the state’s first and the only third African-American to become a governor since U.S. Reconstruction, has a news conference with his wife when they “both” admitted having several extramarital relationships.

These are just the most recent of revelations.  As reported this month in The Christian Post, “A recent study by USA Today/Gallup Poll surveying attitudes on marriage and infidelity found that more than half of Americans, or 54 percent, know someone who has an unfaithful spouse. But there is a significant difference between whether Americans know instances of infidelity and whether they consider it acceptable. In a different study released earlier this month by Ellison Research, more than 8 in 10 Americans said they believe adultery is a sin. Adultery topped the list of what respondents thought of as sinful behaviors – above racism, drugs, and abortion. Meanwhile, a 2007 study by Pew Research Center found that 93 percent of Americans believe faithfulness is the key to a successful marriage.”

With an ever increasing divorce rate amidst the increasing acceptance of sexual promiscuity, my question is “do marriage vows mean anything?” Different traditions within the Christian faith each have a standard exchange of vows, which except for a few words that don't vary much. Let’s examine the most common marriage vows in the Christian faith:

à "Do you, __ take __ to be your (wife/husband)? Do you promise to love, honor, cherish and protect her/him, forsaking all others and holding only unto her/him?" ("I do") à "I __ , take thee __ , to be my (wife/husband) to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, and I promise my love to you.." à "With this ring, I thee wed; all my love, I do thee give." à Episcopal, Lutheran and Methodist vows all specify taking one's spouse "to live together after God's ordinance in the Holy Estate of matrimony.” 

Well let me hear from you, "Do Marriage Vows Mean Anything Anymore?"