Lesson video

Hello, my young scholars of religion.

My name is Ms. Marx, and I'm going to be your Religious Education teacher today.

Today, we're going to be doing about the nature and purpose of marriage, and we are going to be thinking about this as philosophers, theologians, and social scientists.

So, when you're ready, let's go.

So, by the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to explain what marriage is, nature, and why people marry, purpose, and non-religious views on marriage.

So let's start with our key terms. Civil, non-religious or secular; cohabitation, living together as partners and having a sexual relationship without being married; marriage, the legally and religiously recognised union of two people as partners in a personal relationship; nature, the basic features of something; purpose, the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.

So look out for those in today's lesson.

Our lesson today is going to have two sections, The nature and purpose of marriage, and Non-religious attitudes to marriage.

So let's start with our first section, The nature and purpose of marriage.

Have a look at these two pictures and see if you can think of a link between the world wars that we've had, World War I and II, and marriage.

Pause the video and have a think.

You could talk to the person next to you, or talk to me.

Well done, some great ideas there.

Now, as we're being social scientists today, it's very interesting for us to see how things might have changed over time in British society.

And there's a link between those world wars and the marriage rates in British society, they've changed significantly.

So, first of all, many people got married just as the wars began.

So the soldiers went off to war, and they were married, and they can think of their sweethearts while they were fighting.

And then fewer marriages happened during the wars, because people weren't together and the marriages couldn't be happening.

And then they increased as soldiers returned and people returned back from the war, they could start to get married again.

And we know this because we can look at statistics.

So we can look at those official figures that show us how those rates have changed over time, particularly for England and Wales.

So, here, we've got a graph showing those different statistics, the number of marriages, and then the year, it goes from 1862 all the way to 2022.

And we can see the rates and how things have kind of dipped and raised and lowered.

So can you see the data here for those two World Wars? We've got it rising just before the war, lowering during the war, and then rising again just after.

So we can see that the war has had an influence on how many people have been getting married or not.

Because as social scientists, we consider what might influence people's behaviours in society, what factors might be influencing the way that people are behaving? Why do you think there's a significant reduction here where this arrow is pointing? Pause the video and have a think, and you could talk to the person next to you, or talk to me.

So this is around the year 2020, and it's actually when we had the COVID-19 restrictions.

There were fewer marriages happening, because people weren't able to get married because of those restrictions, and they probably weren't meeting people too.

It shows that the rate of marriage is influenced by different factors.

We talked about war, but here we've also got the global pandemic.

These things have influenced the rate of marriages that have been happening in England, in Wales.

But we can also see a sort of trend over a longer period of time.

So, over the last 50 years, we can see the trend of what's happened, even though there's obviously peaks and troughs when different things happen, overall, there's a general trend.

What is that general trend? Pause the video and have a think.

You could talk to the person next to you, or talk to me.

Well, there's been that downward trend in the number of marriages.

So, over the last 50 years, there has been a general decline, and obviously a much lower decline with COVID, a bit of a recovery, but we'd expect it to still be going down.

So what other factors might there be other than war and global pandemics? Well, when the laws change, that can influence marriage rates, and we can see why there might be increases or decreases in marriage when certain types of marriage might be allowed or not within the law.

Religion can have an influence too, so people's adherence to religious attitudes and to religious teachings around marriage.

But also finances, so issues around money, because it can be an expensive thing to get married, or people feel it's an expensive thing.

And so, that can have an influence as to whether people choose to get married or not, or they put it off to do it later.

Now these factors are linked to people's beliefs about the purpose of marriage.

So, like, why are people actually getting married in the first place? Can you think of some reasons why people get married? You can pause the video and talk to the person next to you, or talk to me.

Well, some reasons we've got here is to share a life of love.

So you want to be sharing that life with a person, and can combine your lives together and share that life of love together.

It could be to fulfil a religious or a social duty, it could be that it's part of your religious idea that that's what you want to do, or it could be that that's what's expected of you in your society.

It could be to have sex and procreate.

So if you think that sex is not permitted outside of marriage, and you think that you want to have sex, then you may choose to get married in order to have sex and then procreate, which means to reproduce and have children.

It could be for financial reasons, that kind of financial stability that people may feel they get from being married.

It could be a way of showing commitment to somebody and those promises that are made within marriage, those kind of solemn vows and promises of commitment to one another.

And it could be for security and stability to know that you are together, it might be that some people choose to get married before they perhaps buy a house together, so they know they've made that commitment before they do a big financial investment in a house.

Now, the laws on marriage vary around the world.

They can vary on things such as the age you can get married, who you can marry, the process of getting married, how many spouses, so how many people you could be married to at one time, and the involvement of religion or not.

Now, the marriage law in England and Wales says, you must be: aged 16 or over, previously, it was 16 until 2023, but now the law is you must be aged 18 or over; not already married or in a civil partnership, so you cannot have more than one spouse by law in England and Wales; you can't be closely related; but you can be same sex or opposite sex; and it can be a religious or a civil ceremony, so it could be a religious ceremony or a civil ceremony, which means non-religious.

Let's do a quick check.

You have to have a religious marriage ceremony if you want to legally marry in England or Wales.

Is that True or False? Pause the video and have a think, and we'll see what you've done in a moment.

That is False, but why? Well, it's False because you can have a religious marriage ceremony or you can have a civil marriage ceremony.

It doesn't have to be a religious marriage ceremony in England or Wales for it to count as a legal marriage.

Let's do a practise task to see what we've learned.

Complete the table, deciding if each point is true or false, and then if it's false, explain why.

So the points are: the number of marriages in England and Wales have remained consistent over the last hundred years; the number of marriages are affected by things such as laws; everybody agrees on the purpose of marriage; and all countries have the same law on the age that you can get married at.

Which of these are True and which are False? And if they're False, why? Pause the video and have a go, and we'll see what you've done in a moment.

Your answers should have been like this.

The number of marriages in England and Wales have remained consistent over the last hundred years is false, because the numbers of marriages have followed a downward trend.

Second point, the number of marriages are affected by things such as laws, and that is true.

Everybody agrees on the purpose of marriage, that's false because there's many different views on the purpose of marriage, e.

g.

, for procreation or for finance.

And, finally, all countries have the same law on the age that you can get married at.

Well, that's false because different countries have different ages, and in England the age is 18.

Well done.

So now onto our second section then, Non-religious attitudes to marriage.

So, Laura, Sam, and Jacob are thinking of ethical questions linked to marriage, 'cause these ethical questions can inform people's views and attitudes towards marriage.

And Laura asks, "Should everyone get married?" And Jacob asks, "Should you only live, cohabit, with a partner if you're married?" And Sam asks, "Is marriage important in society today?" So these three questions would inform what somebody's views are to do with marriage, whether everyone should get married, is it important, and could you just live together without getting married? So let's see what some non-religious responses are to these ethical questions then.

Brandon and Zoe are gonna share their answers for us.

Brandon is a humanist, so that's a non-religious worldview, and he says, "I don't think that you have to get married for a relationship to be committed.

You can cohabit with your partner and show your commitment in other ways.

Marriage is one way to show a commitment if you both choose to do it." And Zoe, who's an atheist, says, "Marriage is not as important as it used to be.

Data shows that the proportion of people getting married has decreased.

I cohabit with my partner without needing marriage." Let's do a quick check.

What's the correct term for living together as partners and having a sexual relationship without being married? Pause the video and have a go, and we'll see what you've done in a moment.

Well done, it's cohabitation, or you might have put cohabiting.

So now let's hear from Diane who's a humanist.

She says, "My husband Alan and I believe that marriage is an important way to share a life of love.

We had a civil ceremony first, and then we had a humanist ceremony with a humanist celebrant.

We made vows to each other in front of our family and friends.

Marriage is an important foundation for society.

It provides stability and security for our children.

It also has other benefits including financial ones." So there's lots of reasons here that Diane has given for why she's married, but none of them are religious, because she's a humanist.

And, also, Diane explains here that she had a civil ceremony first, and then they had a humanist ceremony with a humanist celebrant.

And I wonder why they wanted to have that ceremony as well as the civil ceremony.

Can you think of any reasons why? Pause the video and have a think.

You could talk to the person next to you, or talk to me.

Well, for many people, a marriage is about that civil ceremony and the legal document that's combining these two people together, but it's also that opportunity to bring your friends and family together to celebrate this union and who you are going to be in that community.

And so, for Diane, it was important to do this as part of her humanist community as well as the kind of civil ceremony that she had.

So which one of these would a humanist not believe about marriage? Pause the video and have a think.

Is it a couple's choice, it shows commitment, it can provide stability and security, and it's a gift from God? Which of these would they not believe about marriage? Pause the video, off you go, we'll see what you've done in a moment.

Well done, it would be d, would be something that a humanist would not believe about marriage, because humanist is a non-religious worldview.

So time for another practise task now to see what we've learned.

Izzy is practising writing points and developing them, so she's writing some points, but she needs to develop them further.

And she's made two points about non-religious attitudes to marriage, but she hasn't developed them.

You are going to develop both of her points with examples or evidence.

And Izzy says her first point, "Some non-religious people think that marriage is no longer important in society." And, secondly, "Some non-religious people think that marriage is an important part of society." For each of those points, you're going to give a development, which could be an example, or evidence, and you can use some of those non-religious perspectives that we've seen earlier in the lesson.

Pause the video and have a go, and we'll see what you've done in a moment.

Well done, some good thinking there.

So I asked you to take each point that Izzy made and give a development, which could be an example or evidence.

And the point that Izzy gave first was, "Some non-religious people think that marriage is no longer important in society." And your development could be, "Data shows, in the last 50 years, there's been a decline in the number of marriages, which may show that marriage is not as important as it was in the past." And her second point was, "Some non-religious people believe that marriage is an important part of society." And your reason could be, "For example, it provides stability and security, it can have benefits to the couple, including financial benefits." And, remember, we had Diane who had a big celebration with her friends and family, too.

So, well done.

So let's summarise what we've learned today then.

The nature and purpose of marriage.

We can use statistical data to suggest factors that affect people's decision to marry or not.

There are different views on the purposes of marriage.

Marriage laws vary around the world.

We can ask ethical questions about the nature and purpose of marriage.

And non-religious people may view marriage differently with some supporting its importance and others believing it isn't necessary.

So well done for your hard work today, and I hope to see you again soon.

Bye-bye!.