By Frank Wessling
Let’s think about marriage and its meaning. The question is in the air these days.
In much of the world, marriage is for the minority of people. Especially in those countries considered underdeveloped or high in poverty, the public ceremony of marriage vows between a man and woman is for a middle-class minority. The poor tend to merely settle down informally – or the women settle with their children while men cope with temporary, sporadic and often distant work opportunities.
In Central and South America, where the claimed Catholic populations range from 50 percent up, only small numbers marry in church. These are generally from the economically well-off minority.
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