Ooh I was furious listening to the radio this morning. The law commission have proposed changes in the law which would allow cohabiting couples to make financial claims on each other when they separate. "Why should it be," somebody asked, "that when a couple divorce a mother who has cared for children has a right to half the couples possessions and ongoing support, whereas if the couple have never married the woman has no right to anything?"

The clue comes when the questioner points out that the couple never married. I am sorry to be so simplistic, and I am not particularly banging the marriage drum on religious grounds here, but if you want to be protected under law then you get married. You get the protection when you make the commitment.

I do not understand the view that people can be committed but not want to be married. Marriage is at its most basic a commitment to fidelity and relationship. (Christian marriage is more than this, but marriage outside the bounds of Christianity is just as valid). Marriage is not necesssarily religious or tied to one particular culture; it is simply committed relationship. It ties you down only in so far as being committed to another does.

Why on earth should a non-married, non-legally-binding relationship bring the entanglement of a legal right to compensation at termination? If I wanted to cohabit it would be in part to be free of such things.

I'll stop ranting soon, but what made me cross was not just the presenting issue here. Today we want all of the rights we can get with as little responsibility as we can get away with. We are quick to make a claim and terrified to commit.

Neither society nor humanity can function this way. The God of the Bible is, among other things, a covenant God. He commits to us and calls us to be committed. It is costly, but it is also the only way to be healthy, the only way to thrive, and the only way to inhabit our birth-right.