What Is Marriage?

[Koey]

In metalurgy, marriage is when two metals are joined together. In the garden east of Eden, Adam and Eve were joined. There was no mention of a formal marriage ceremony.

1. In the Middle Ages, the priest often went about formally blessing unions that had already taken place, but was that a marriage ceremony?

2. Today, the laws of most lands make a formal legal agreement a marriage, but is that what God intended?

3. Is the church acting as a burdensome overlord demanding an official ceremony before it recognizes a marriage, and is that what God intended for the church to do?

4. Should the church recognize a private arrangement, between a man and a woman as a marriage? I'm not talking about casual sex here, but a private, committed relationship.

5. Is the church's definition of marriage too narrow, too much like the world's man-made legal system?

Granted, there are many problems with cohabiting, defacto or common law marriages. They have higher incidences of abuse, fall apart more often and are less stable than formal marriages. I certainly believe that they are to be discouraged. But,

6. Does the church have any right to call a committed, long-term defacto relationship a sin?

7. Does the church have the right to ask a new Christian woman who has lived with an unbelieving man for 20 years and has 3 children by him, to separate, when he has no intention of allowing her to go through a formal marriage ceremony?

8. Are we in the business of breaking up families, just because they do not perfectly follow our rules?

 

[Chajara]

I'm cohabitating with my boyfriend and all I know is that a marriage ceremony isn't going to change a thing between us... except we'll get a bunch of presents and have some pictures to frame and hang on the wall I guess. Also my mother will stop pestering us to get married already.

The lifetime commitment is already there. We know we're not going anywhere. If that's not good enough for anyone else, well, I don't know what to tell them. I dare /anyone/ to suggest that we don't really love each other because we're not legally married yet. I know what I feel, and I know where this is going. I have prayed and prayed that my life would take the direction that it needed to take, and my prayers have been answered.

 

[HuntingMan]

Marriage is a union between a man and woman who are vowed together as husband and wife with the understanding that this union is exclusive and for life.
Anything beyond that is just fluff...

 

[fated]

Marriage necessarily includes the open acceptance to life, that is the (reasonable) mutually desirable transmission of life.

 

[fated]

In metalurgy, marriage is when two metals are joined together. In the garden east of Eden, Adam and Eve were joined. There was no mention of a formal marriage ceremony.

1. In the Middle Ages, the priest often went about formally blessing unions that had already taken place, but was that a marriage ceremony?

2. Today, the laws of most lands make a formal legal agreement a marriage, but is that what God intended?

3. Is the church acting as a burdensome overlord demanding an official ceremony before it recognizes a marriage, and is that what God intended for the church to do?

4. Should the church recognize a private arrangement, between a man and a woman as a marriage? I'm not talking about casual sex here, but a private, committed relationship.

5. Is the church's definition of marriage too narrow, too much like the world's man-made legal system?

Granted, there are many problems with cohabiting, defacto or common law marriages. They have higher incidences of abuse, fall apart more often and are less stable than formal marriages. I certainly believe that they are to be discouraged. But,

6. Does the church have any right to call a committed, long-term defacto relationship a sin?

7. Does the church have the right to ask a new Christian woman who has lived with an unbelieving man for 20 years and has 3 children by him, to separate, when he has no intention of allowing her to go through a formal marriage ceremony?

8. Are we in the business of breaking up families, just because they do not perfectly follow our rules?

1)I'm not familiar with this, but circumstances are certainly different today and divorce far more rampant.
2)The current legal system in most western countries thrives on one spouse (typically the female) divorcing the other, and then taking their children and money by force. Is that what God intended?
3)The Church has the responsibility to shepherd its members and help them discern their vocation. A... pastor... should have every right to require testing and discernment before marrying a particular question, even to the point of making a judgment that they cannot rightly marry a particular couple.
4)That question hides many particular questions.
5)The Catholic Church recognized "natural marriage" that is marriages between individuals who come together for the purposes of bearing and raising children. To participate in full communion, however, with the Church, the couple would have to enter discernment and have their marriage blessed like any other. In this country, the Catholic Church is "radical" in requiring personal responsibility in relation to ones spouse and children. In this way, it attempts to do what it can to prevent people from having their family torn apart.
6)Declaring a things a "sin" is rather complex, and would require additional information.
7)What Church are you talking about. If that is (mis)information from a Catholic Church a suggest you seek another priest. If not, seek a priest!
8)This is another complex matter, and cannot properly be asked in one sentence nor an adequate answer given in this format.

 

[Apollo Celestio]

It's a sex permit. The ceremony is whatever the state requires, I suppose.

 

[ClausJohn]

1. In the Middle Ages, the priest often went about formally blessing unions that had already taken place, but was that a marriage ceremony?

In the late middle ages marriage was already quite a christian ritual, however it started out with merely a sort of "informal marriage contract" between families, with initially no involvement of the church.

 

[Koey]

Marriage is a union between a man and woman who are vowed together as husband and wife with the understanding that this union is exclusive and for life.
Anything beyond that is just fluff...

Thank you for your kind reply. What verse of Holy Scripture is that please? I really want to know what the Bible says about this, just to make sure that we do not have some fluffy definition just pulled out of thin air.

 

[Koey]

1)...What Church are you talking about. If that is (mis)information from a Catholic Church a suggest you seek another priest. If not, seek a priest!...

Just to clarify, when I say the church, I mean the Christian church as a whole, no particular denomination is meant.

 

[Koey]

In the late middle ages marriage was already quite a christian ritual, however it started out with merely a sort of "informal marriage contract" between families, with initially no involvement of the church.

Excellent information! Thank you!

By the way, who gave the Church the right to interfere in what was essentially a family contract? In patriarchal times, it was the family who blessed their own children's union. The church [or the state] seems to have shoved Mom and Dad aside in order to be the exclusive ones to bless the union, and Dad and Mom now just sit passively on the side, stripped of their role. Is that really what God intended?

 

[Tkjjc]

Gen 2:24
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

 

[Koey]

Gen 2:24
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

Excellent quote! That's the best definition of marriage that I can think of too - joined. Nothing said of a formal ceremony, or legal document with church mumbo jumbo necessarily.

 

[billwald]

Isaac took Rebecca into a tent and that "married" them.

 

[Koey]

Isaac took Rebecca into a tent and that "married" them.

Yes indeed! Is it time for the church to change its definition and to begin recognizing defacto relationships as a marriage, and blessing such unions, instead of alienating them?

Is it time for the church to get out of the bedroom and back on the Gospel trail?

Is it time for the church to relinquish the authority that it has stolen from family patriarchs and get back to minding its own business, the Gospel?

Just a few challenges/thoughts...

Don't get me wrong! I firmly believe that church leaders ought to be above reproach, with the highest standards in marriage. However, should the church impose that high standard upon everyone in the laity too?

 

[holo]

It appears that marrying someone by going into their tent and penetrating them (and their sister!) is actually MORE biblical than the whole christian idea of having a priest and witnesses.

 

[Koey]

Well, you actually have a point there. The modern Christian teaching against polygamy is actually taking the ideal from creation (one man, one woman) and making it law. Even the New Testament says that only those considered for eldership need be the "husband of one wife." That then presumes that lay people may indeed at one time have had several wives, otherwise why bother specifying it.

 

[HuntingMan]

Well, you actually have a point there. The modern Christian teaching against polygamy is actually taking the ideal from creation (one man, one woman) and making it law. Even the New Testament says that only those considered for eldership need be the "husband of one wife." That then presumes that lay people may indeed at one time have had several wives, otherwise why bother specifying it.

For myself I do not believe that 'husband of one wife' was directed at polygamists intentionally, but to the practice of divorce and remarriage instead.

The reason being is that we see no other correction against polygamy in the NT specifically, but we do see correction where divorce is concerned.

The other issue that makes me believe this is that the restriction on the list of widows was this woman 'having been the wife of one man'.

Since we know that there was no real issue of women having men-harems, it surely isnt pertaining to that sort of thing, and since Paul literally encourages some widows to remarry and basically commands others to, its not very likely that he then turned around and refused to help these ladies later on when they needed the churches help after only following Pauls own instruction that they remarry.
Thus it is very unlikely that it means the woman who husband died, she remarried as is lawful, then her second husband died later in life and she is now over 60, a widow again and in need of the church's help.

This leads me to believe that BOTH of these very similar passages are actually dealing with something that WAS very specifically condemned in scripture...divorce and remarriage.

But it would, by default, apply to the polygamist.
I just dont think that Paul was actually giving this restriction to the leadership with that INTENT, but more meant that this man could not be of the type that would just cast a wife away to take another as was as common then as it is now.

 

[Koey]

You believe? Thou believest? Hey, what basis hast thou for excluding polygamy? It was an OT practice.

 

[fated]

What is marriage?
How can I say what marriage is, except within the confines of how I see and interpret it?
Marriages come with difficulties, yes, however, I should describe them, perhaps, from a theological perspective, rather than a secular perspective first. It is the secular perspective that makes your question difficult in some instances...

First, understand that I am Roman Catholic.

Marriage is a Sacramental Vocation to which people are called to share their lives together, and hopefully, bear children in.
It is a Sacrament like no other, in that it is a pre-existing social structure elevated to the force of a Sacrament by Jesus Christ.
It is the Vocation, the thermo-nuclear core of human existence, from which all other vocations derive and that all other vocation are called to serve.
What is the ordinary pinnacle of love in marriage? It is summed up in the common words of a man "Will you have my baby?" or a woman "Can I have your baby?," the words that reach deeply into the self giving character of the marital bond.

My intention in sharing this, is not to attempt to deflect every exception you can name, or argue about the Sacramental character of marriage, which I have done elsewhere. I thought only to give you some food for thought, if not as to what your own marriage is, but perhaps what the marriage of others ought to be, or what yours could aspire to be.

Love,
David

 

[dayhiker]

Gen 2:24
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

Now from my reading the married couple didn't leave their father and mother, well the bride did. But the couple moved in with his parents and if they were rich enough they had a room on the side of his parents house.

So does that nulify their marrige because they didn't do exactly as this scritpure says?