Marriage and the family: meaning and existence

Transcendence and building civilization and culture

Pat Fagan

I made the mistake of thinking I could use data and go to Congress and illustrate through a think tank to make arguments but that part of my career was a failure. I want to show a program that myself and... when I look at what's happening across the world, one of the key strategic elements is fatherhood.

How does a man who wants to raise boys into great husbands and fathers? I saw that as a strategic national strength to develop. I think the elements of this are universal across cultures and across religions.

What I would call the here you have depicted here many different forms of marriage or celebrations of marriage across different cultures. There is an assumption here. Man is relational. Relationships are essentially spiritual. They have corporeal aspects to them, but they are in the spiritual domain. The way I behave has an effect on you as you look at me. That takes place in the relational dimension. There's also a spiritual connection though. There is a spiritual nature of man.

A success point for parents is if... let's say you were just married. In 30 years, say you are at the same kind of event and you're looking at your child being married to a good person. If you pass the baton to them, then he has selected the good woman as best he can and you have then be very successful and the other set of parents on the other side of the aisle have also been very successful. I think men and women around the world, parents around the world, would rejoice in seeing this happen.

With the spread of Christianity in Western Europe, there came two things. There was indissolvable marriage and weekly worship of god. The more god you hvae, the more religion you have and the more children you have. Our policies cause the opposite: less god and less children.

....

((lost interest))