Marriage and Family Conceptions in Nupturient’s Consciousness

Abstract

The Church, blessing the young Catholics’ marital unions, has a right and duty to know what is their attitude towards the Catholic marriage and family conception, in what extent it is internalized by them or allien to. The Church must be fully conscious of non-trivial today a problem of contracting by many Christians a „church wedding” and not real sacramental marriage union.

In the presented studies which aimed at getting possibly broad knowledge about the model marital and familial conceptions functioning in nupturients’ consciousness, were taken into account all the model elements making up the Christian conception of marriage and family. It was assumed, that there is an integral connection between the world-outlook attitude and the degree of acceptation of Catholic marriage and family model.

The investigations were carried on an all-Poland sample, counting 2,139 boys and girls from 9 dioeceses, preparing themselves for entering into marital union and in this connection participating in co-called “premarital conferences”. The trial comprised two groups of nupturients: those having completed the said preparation courses and those only registered for participation. Owing to such a methodological approach one could make an attempt to defining the degree of effectivity and, at all, possibility of influencing on creation by them convictions compatible with Christian model conception of marriage and family. Thus, such investigations on one hand constitute an effective help for carried by the Church pastoral and guidance family actions and, on the other, much contribute to our sociological learning about marriage and family, during permanent social changes of today.

The empirical data gathered here prove that despite of undiminished practice of getting into church marriage (approx. 83 per cent of civil marriages are subsequently blessed in church), more and more widely, in Catholics’ consciousness, vanish the essential contents bound with Christian family and marriage conception. It is not exclusively connected with general processes of practical laicization (acknowledging one’s belonging to the Church and doing some religious practices, together with going in daily life far away from fundamental norms of Christian morality), systematically embraping more and more wide circles of our society, but in a great extent results from defects and shortcomings in catechization, especially premarital. Since studies have explicitly revealed how the premaritat catechization (despite that it still is in a beginning state, still elaborates its methods and prepares teaching staff), is able to modifícate the convictions and attitudes of nupturients, concerned with all — essential from the Christian point of view — the model elements of marriage and family.