Wow.

That was, essentially, my reaction upon first reading Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ speech on marriage a the Vatican’s Humanum Conference (or the Colloqium on the Complementarity of Man and Woman in Marriage, to give it its full name).

This is one of the deepest, most profound defences of the institution of marriage that I’ve ever read. In fact, to call it a defence would be to do it an injustice: as evangelical pastor Rick Warren said at the same conference “It’s not enough to defend marriage. You have to celebrate it.”

Here’s a small chunk of Rabbi Sacks’ speech:

What made the traditional family remarkable, a work of high religious art, is what it brought together: sexual drive, physical desire, friendship, companionship, emotional kinship and love, the begetting of children and their protection and care, their early education and induction into an identity and a history. Seldom has any institution woven together so many different drives and desires, roles and responsibilities. It made sense of the world and gave it a human face, the face of love.

For a whole variety of reasons, some to do with medical developments like birth control, in vitro fertilisation and other genetic interventions, some to do with moral change like the idea that we are free to do whatever we like so long as it does not harm others, some to do with a transfer of responsibilities from the individual to the state, and other and more profound changes in the culture of the West, almost everything that marriage once brought together has now been split apart. Sex has been divorced from love, love from commitment, marriage from having children, and having children from responsibility for their care.

…

This is creating a divide within societies the like of which has not been seen since Disraeli spoke of “two nations” a century and a half ago. Those who are privileged to grow up in stable loving association with the two people who brought them into being will, on average, be healthier physically and emotionally. They will do better at school and at work. They will have more successful relationships, be happier and live longer.

And yes, there are many exceptions. But the injustice of it all cries out to heaven. It will go down in history as one of the tragic instances of what Friedrich Hayek called “the fatal conceit” that somehow we know better than the wisdom of the ages, and can defy the lessons of biology and history.

This is actually one of the more functional, utilitarian passages in the speech, which you really, really should read. (Or, for those who prefer to watch the speech, it’s available in full on Youtube).

Defenders of marriage spend a lot of the time making a sociological, economic, pragmatic case for marriage – and I included ourselves at Iona in this. There’s a good reason for that: we’re an organisation involved in debates about policy, and valuing marriage is indeed good policy.

But good policy is only good because it facilitates human flourishing, and Rabbi Sacks’ speech captures some of the many ways in which marriage is so much more than a matter of policy. It’s an institution that, at its best, is one of the greatest achievements, and the greatest treasures, of humanity. It’s woven into our history, our worldview, our religions, our philosophies.

If ever a speech deserved its standing ovation, it was this one.