husband and wife and between parents and children, provides the stability and security children need, not only to assure them of care but also to recognize their own worth. The trauma to children whose parents divorce, or to children who suspect that the relationship of their parents is in jeopardy, witnesses to the strength of this need of the child. Agape reinforces the natural predisposition of parents to give their child care and affection and provides a spiritual source for perseverance, growth and deepening of the relationship between parents and child. In spite of the trials and difficulties of family life, most children bring fulfilment and joy to parents, especially in a marriage characterized by agape. The sense of loss at the death of a child bears witness to this. Children will be a genuine source of joy only when, and to the extent that, the parents seek not their own satisfaction but the good of the child. Parents who seek the child only for what the child can do for them will become discouraged. When parents care for an infant and in turn are delighted by its smiles and frowns and expressions of wonder, they are not caring for it only for the sake of the delight they get from it. They take delight in it because the infant is already precious to them. 4. sex as shaping behaviour in favour of children
Before artificial contraception became commonplace there was no need to argue that sex orients marriage towards the procreation and rearing of children. People got married, engaged in sexual intercourse, bore children and cared for them. Because marriage was about sexual intercourse of spouses it was about bearing children. It was also about caring for the children because of a more-or-less universal supposition that those who begot children should care for them. If marriage did not involve sexual intercourse it would not be about bearing and raising children. That sex orients marriage towards procreation is not only a physical but also a personal reality. It was indicated earlier that sexual intercourse will tend to take on the personal
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