Thomas Knieps-Port le Roi INTAMS review | Volume 13 | Issue 1 | Spring 2007 | Pages 1 > 2 Editorial (Full-text) “Why Marry At All? Motives and Obstacles for Lifelong Marital Commitment” was the theme of an INTAMS colloquium held on March 9 and 10, 2007 in Leuven and Sint-Genesius-Rode (Belgium). In our theological discourses we keep a whole reservoir of good reasons why couples should make the step toward formal marriage. But do these arguments resonate with contemporary people’s motivation? What makes partners opt for a civil or religious wedding celebration at all since alternative forms of living together have been socially accepted? That marriage is still very highly valued by a great majority of the population seems beyond question – and yet, an increasing number find cohabiting with a partner a possible alternative to the century-old institution. How can we explain this seemingly paradoxical situation? The colloquium aimed at looking into some empirical evidence in order to uncover current motives for a couple’s decision to marry. Professor Norbert F. Schneider, sociologist from the university of Mainz, reported on the outcome of a survey that he had carried out with German couples who had married between 1999 and 2005. His findings showed a variety of behavioral and interpretive patterns that account for the subjective meaning and value couples attribute to marriage and for the motivational background for their personal decision to get married. From his current doctoral research at the Catholic University of Leuven, Henk Sanders discussed the wide-spread phenomenon of cohabitation in Western societies and concluded that a majority of unmarried cohabitants ultimately have a permanent relationship in mind and that it is therefore inadequate to predict the inexorable decline of marriage in favor of cohabitation. Whether or not these empirically based findings are in any way congruent with the image that the Christian churches draw of marriage as a meaningful and unparalleled form of relational commitment was the question addressed in particular by two further contributors to the colloquium: Basilio Petrà, moral theologian from Florence, and Elizabeth Davies, Marriage and Family Life Project Officer at the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales; they looked at the issue from an ethical and pastoral perspective respectively. All four contributions to the colloquium are reproduced in this issue of the INTAMS review. Two further articles in this number are dedicated to marital spirituality. Paul Giblin, Professor of Pastoral Counseling at Loyola University Chicago, summarizes the qualitative findings of a research study in which the influence of faith/spirituality on the development and maintenance of couple relationships is explored. “Everything that is loving and life-giving and flows between the wife and husband contributes to the content of their spirituality”; that is the essence of the essay written by US theologian David M. Thomas. A well-known contributor to the field of marriage studies, Anglican theologian Adrian Thatcher, has directed the focus of his most recent book towards the family; in his article he explains why there is a large lacuna in theology on parenting and that any remedy in this regard needs to consequently adopt an anti-patriarchal stance. Referring to the public discussion which is currently going on in Germany about the work-family balance, Dieter Skala points to the common, yet different responsibility families and public institutions have in the education of children. Areti Demosthenous, theologian and family law specialist, draws our attention to the complex situation of mixed, mainly Orthodox-Muslim, marriages in Cyprus and insists on the positive contribution they can make to a more peaceful coexistence between the Greek and Turkish communities. Finally, another two articles look into history: drawing on chronicles and judicial documents, Canadian historian Geneviève Ribordy investigates the nobility's attitude towards the age of marriage in late-medieval France; and German theologian Gisbert Greshake reveals that recently beatified Charles de Foucauld anticipated Vatican II’s assessment of marriage as a full-fledged vocation which is not inferior to celibacy but rather “carries the light of Christ into a milieu to which priests have little or no access”.