By Edwin Cooney
I know you’re not going to believe
this, but it’s true! I’ve found the
answer to “peace on earth, goodwill toward peoples!” Yes, I modified that last word, as the
problem with the original saying is that it leaves out half of humanity and
that’s so counter to Twenty-First Century thinking!
About a week ago, a dear friend of mine
sent me a commentary in the New York Times by William Baude, an assistant
professor of law at the University of Chicago.
Professor Baude postulates that the recent decision of the United States
Supreme Court validating same sex marriage may well open the door to the
legalization of plural or polygamous marriages in another 20, 40, or 50
years. If there’s no magic in the union
of opposite sexes, he writes, where is there any particular magic in same sex
marriages? There might however be some
magic in an unfathomable type of marriage.
It’s hard to argue with the good
professor, so I won’t. One good idea
gives birth to another and thus from here on Professor Cooney takes over. Actually, once you open that dusty old
history book on your shelf, you’ll realize that the idea I’ll soon offer isn’t
exactly new, although I’ve modified a medieval tradition that worked almost as
often as it didn’t work.
The solution to wars among nations,
great and small, is very simple. After
all, every other institution created by humankind -- alliances, ententes,
leagues of nations, treaties, the application of “Realpolitik”, and even the
establishment of the United Nations at San Francisco in June of 1945 -- have
had only limited success in bringing about that dream of universal peace which
must be achieved if humankind is to survive.
Hence, the solution to wars is — get
ready now — drum roll — marriage. That’s
right, everyone ought to marry everyone else!
I’m not anxious to marry Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Jihad Johnny of ISIL,
Benjamin Netanyahu or even Barack Obama, but if the result is “Peace on Earth…”
how can I rule it out?
History is bedecked with the positive
effects of marriages. Take Henry VIII of
England. He married Catherine of Aragon,
his late brother Arthur’s widow.
Catherine was the sister of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. When Henry decided he needed to dump her
because she couldn’t bear him a prince, he was forced to spare her life. After all, his brother-in-law would have
turned all of Europe against Henry and perhaps would have successfully invaded
England. Thus, as Henry seemed likely to
threaten the Pope, Charles surrounded the Vatican with his forces. Hence, Henry had to spare both the Pope and
Catherine to preserve his own neck. What
else could Henry do but create the Anglican Church that is today headed by
Queen Elizabeth II? Of course, there
were nasty events that occurred meanwhile, but by having been married to
Catherine and honoring Catherine’s special status, England grew economically,
militarily and spiritually enough to become a world power a century later. Never mind the fates of Anne Boleyn and
Catherine Howard. I only consider
evidence that supports my thesis. About
20 years later, Henry and Catherine’s daughter, “Bloody Mary,” enabled England
to prosper by marrying her mother’s nephew (her cousin), the Catholic King
Phillip of Spain. Never mind the Spanish
Armada of 1588 that Francis Drake had to crush to save Elizabeth I’s throne.
Throughout the 19th Century peace
prevailed most of the time in Europe largely due to the marriages of Queen
Victoria’s daughters to the most prestigious princes of Europe. Never mind how war-like Victoria’s grandson
Wilhelm (the German Kaiser) turned out to be. Wilhelm was second generation
after all!
As for the power of marriage throughout
American history, only three marriages — those of Captain John Smith and
Pocahontas, John and Abigail (Smith) Adams and, of course, Franklin and Eleanor
Roosevelt have really benefitted both our culture and the body politic. However, history might well have been
different had Confederacy President Jefferson Davis married Julia Ward Howe,
author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
My point is that who marries whom can have a significant effect on who
we are and what we do or don’t accomplish in the decades to come.
Consider, if you will, the
following. We evolve generation by
generation slowly but inevitably changing every aspect of our beings. Sixteenth Century England that was dominated
by Henry VIII and his protestant daughter Elizabeth, whose mother Anne Boleyn
he had executed, was vastly different from the Cromwellian England of the 17th
Century. England in the 19th Century
which was dominated by the diminutive Victoria, as different as it was from
Henry’s and Oliver Cromwell’s times, was nevertheless still England. We too have evolved down the avenue of ages. Many ways of our forefathers and mothers
aren’t our ways and indeed they shouldn’t be.
Thus last month’s Supreme Court decision, whatever it portends, will be
what a future generation believes it ought to be. As much as we too often try, we can’t control
the future. Polygamy may indeed return
in different form guided by different mores.
Our evaluation of those mores is meaningless and, even more, to do so is
exactly none of our business. Our time
is now; their time is coming and will be their business.
Marriage, at its best, is a
relationship of cultural structure as well as of spiritual and legal
expectation. Many who come from a
Judeo-Christian background often believe that human marriage is a
Judeo-Christian institution. However,
marriage, even within materialistic Soviet society, was not much, if at all,
different than it was in western nations.
Nina Khrushchev was as married to Nikita as Mamie Eisenhower was to
Ike. Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev were as
married as were Ronald and Nancy Reagan.
Marriage requires its partners to love, honor and cherish. Within the next century, for its own
survival, humankind may encourage multiple marriages between a set of
housewives in White Plains, New York and a set of shepherds in Nepal, between a
union of truck drivers in Argentina and a bunch of congressmen from Texas to
assure marital bliss to all humankind.
Perhaps someday we’ll all be married to each other! Outrageous as this may seem, these couplings
may be the surest path to “Peace on Earth and goodwill to peoples” that
humankind has ever discovered!
There surely must be a Nobel Peace
Prize somewhere in my future, wouldn’t you think? Surely you must be envious that you don’t
think like me! Tell you what — if the
Nobel Peace Prize Committee mails my award to me without announcing it as they
do with all their other awards, I’ll surely put it in that week’s column! How about that!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
EDWIN COONEY
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