What constitutes "marriage"?

[blackbird]

Originally posted by Gina L:
It works both ways.
My opinion is that when two people decide to be man and wife to each other, they are man and wife.

Whether or not they admit it. There is no "faking" it, it's always real.

You live together, you are intimate , you're married.

I take it a step further and say if you are intimate, you're married. You don't even have to live together. This does not include anything except mutual consent between two people who understand what they are doing.

I don't believe the government has to be involved at all.

I don't believe that the government can perform a spiritually binding marriage.

I don't believe that if the government performs a marriage, it has any automatic validity in the eyes of anyone but those in the physical, earthly courts.

I stand by what I have always said on here...it is not illegal for a man and woman to live as husband and wife without the consent of the court. It's simply not recognized by the courts, and that ain't illegal. A marriage is perfectly valid without the interference/inclusion of the state/courts/other government agencies.

Have I ever mentioned this before?

You live together---you are intimate---your married?????

What you have just described for us is not marriage----its the act of adultery and fornication and is a direct violation of the written laws of God found in the basic ten commandments and is a sin against Almighty God and comes awefully close to blaspheming the written word of God!!!

 

[Scarlett O.]

Jesus told the woman at the well that the man she was "living with" was not her husband.

I believe that consumation of a "marriage" makes you one flesh.

I do not believe that having sex with just any partner or multiple partners makes you "married" to them. Fornication does not equal marriage.

If that's true, then there are some devout married Christians today who are living in filthy adultry because, whether we want to talk about it or not, not every Christian couple came into their marriage pure. Some had past experiences with other people that they now regret.

 

[rjprince]

Gina,

You are way off base here. As I was reading the thread I immediately thought of the woman at the well. She had had five husbands, and Jesus said, "he whom thou now hast is not thy husband". If sex constituted marriage, two people who committed fornication would not be sinning, they would be getting married! Then I read where several others had already commented to that effect...


Pipedude,

Right on! Public leaving, public cleaving, private consummation...


Frenchy,

I thought your cut and paste was very “on the mark”...


Bapmom,

2Sa 11:26 And when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband.
2Sa 12:9 Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.
2Sa 12:10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.
2Sa 12:15 And Nathan departed unto his house. And the LORD struck the child that Uriah‘s wife bare unto David, and it was very sick.

Notice, that three times after Uriah is dead, Bathsheba is still referred to as Uriah’s wife. This is not to suggest that she was still married to him, but that is to continually identify David’s sin against Uriah. He was dead! That marriage was over by any kind of Biblical standard. Yet, the fact of David’s sin followed him and his family all his life.

Also notice that the passages state that David did indeed take her to be his wife. But, David did not take her to wife until after Uriah was dead. So, she could not have been called his wife before he took her to wife. David and Bathsheba were indeed married, in spite of the shameful circumstances of their marriage... Did they have to get married? I do not think so.


All,

As far as using the OT as an absolute standard for our marital pattern today, pleas keep in mind that they practiced polygamy and concubinage in the OT. They also had the law of the “goel” that required a brother to impregnate the widow of his dead brother if he died without male descendants. If you are going to use the OT, go all the way back to Genesis 2-3 – one man, one woman, one lifetime. That was God’s creation order. Adam and Eve – NOT Adam and Eve and Sally and... Nor was it Adam and Steve, for those of you on the West Coast!

In the OT, God permitted many things that He did not command or like. There is no record of God ever suggesting polygamy or any of its other kindred practices (handmaid having a child for her barren mistress). Yet, we must be clear that GOD DID NOT FORBID polygamy in the OT. That which God regulated, was not forbidden.

Jesus clearly placed His blessing upon the institution of marriage by His presence and participation at the wedding in Cana (John 2).

 

[bapmom]

rjprince,

thanks for providing the scripture. I thought that what you said was what I was trying to say.......

I agree with ya.


Gina,
Actually I think we might agree more than we can tell. YOu said it requires a declaration of committment. I agree with that, and that is what a marriage is....some form of a declaration of committment. The reason we need to have any form of governmental approval or recognition is because that is the law of our land. And the Bible does tell us that Christians are supposed to be subject unto the governmental laws of the land they are living in, as long as those laws do not come in conflict with the commands of God.

Im not sure who asked it, but someone wanted to know why we need to be obedient to such a government as ours is. It is because we are commanded to be obedient to it, no matter how corrupt, until and unless it conflicts with God's laws.

 

[Aaron]

I think Gina's point is that God instituted marriage, not man. No one is arguing with that. However, God also instituted governments among men for the praise of them that do well and the punishment of the evildoer.

I also think another point she is trying to make is that when a government steps outside its bounds, then it is no longer a legitimate government and we ought to obey God rather than men, as St. Valentine did according to the stories.

She's made some good points. They're just unrefined.

 

[menageriekeeper]

Pipedude and RJ, very clearly stated my own position except for one little thing.

I don't believe that it is government involvement that "makes" a couple married. I do believe that it does require an assembly of people (preferably including a preacher) who will witness and confirm the vows the couple make to each other. Without the vows and the witnesses there can't be a marriage (unless these two are on a deserted island and then God can be the witness until two humans can be found).

Without witnesses there is no way to hold each party accountable for their actions within the marriage. If there is no accountablity, why bother?

 

[rjprince]

Bapmom,

Sorry, I over reacted a bit. I have heard some say that a marriage like David and Bathsheba's was not really a marriage but continued continuing adultery. They have used the references to "Uriah's wife" to attempt to substantiate their claims...

You suggested nothing of the kind, but I kinda reacted as if you did.

Again, Sorry.

 

[Gina B]

rj, I also explained about the woman at the well. I know I posted a lot, but it's in there.

Pipedude, "public leaving and public cleaving"...when two people shack up, they have left their parents, or sometimes not, but they've still left off their childhood, and unless they're in hiding, they're together.

Commitment? A number of married couples today aren't even committed. They know they can get a divorce. Are they really married? Of course. Now tell me why.

 

[rjprince]

Gina,

What was the relationship between the man Jesus spoke of to the woman at the well? Perhaps he was a prospect for her, yet they had not consummated the relationship. Perhaps it was not a relationship at all. Then again, maybe it was, and for purposes we do not understand, he was not considered her husband.

That is really a stretch... When you have to work that hard to deny the apparent meaning of a text, there may be a problem with your interpretation...

Joh 4:18 For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.

The word “hast” is the same in both occurances. True, it is a general word that is used many times in the NT, but the context assumes that she “has” this sixth man in the same sense of having the previous five.

Again, if sexual relations were equal to getting married, there would be no such thing as sexual sin, according to the OT standard. People would just be acquiring new spouses or concubines. The very idea of sexual sin denies your foundational premise – that sex = marriage.

The fact that some people are not committed in their marriage makes it a bad marriage, not a non-marriage. They are married because they have made a commitment to one another that involves their lives, their children, and their property. Not because they decided to live together on the basis of some kind of a non-committed try it before you buy it test drive. Some people test drive cars to get a free toaster. Living together without the formal commitment of marriage is about the same thing...

 

[Pipedude]

Originally posted by Gina L:
"public leaving and public cleaving"...when two people shack up, they have left their parents, or sometimes not, but they've still left off their childhood, and unless they're in hiding, they're together.

Well, if you want to stretch the semantic range of some biblical terms, you could say that. But those terms refer to the man changing his status from one family to the next. As such, it refers to an official pronouncement "we are a family with all the rights and responsibilities appertaining thereunto." One of the responsibilities, of course, is legal binding. By avoiding that, they are declaring that they are unwilling to be married.

To think clearly about this, it is necessary to take a more permanent view of marriage than what has prevailed in Baptist churches since the sexual revolution of the '60s.

 

[Karen]

Gina said:....

"Nobody HAS to get married. The state may not recognize it, but unless you're interested in the benefits the civil laws provide to married couples, there is absolutely no obligation to involve the government in your marriage.

Such civil practice may have been nice in the past, but it wasn't needed. It will have even less value soon........What need has a Christian to have such a government condone their marriage? Does anyone here seriously believe that the authority of such have any spiritual power over the children of the Most High?"[/QB][/QUOTE]

In addition to the things already stated by others, there is every need to have the state, an institution established by God, regulate marriage.
For example, people die. When they do, they leave children and property. Marriage controls a great deal of the disposition of such matters.
There are many valid ways the state DOES regulate marriage. Such as control of some communicable diseases, a valid age, not marrying under duress or compulsion.
The contract of marriage affects all of society. The fact that people perform it imperfectly does not mean that doing it less formally would help things at all.

Karen

 

[Frenchy]

Gina are you living with someone that isn't your husband? just curious?

 

[Gina B]

Originally posted by Frenchy:
Gina are you living with someone that isn't your husband? just curious?

I live with 6 other people, and none of them are my husband.

Just to settle any curiosity, I am divorced and I do not date, do not have relationships with men, am not seeking one, and practice total abstinence.

Karen, perhaps we can find the thread where this was discussed before, which included you and I having a very similar discussion.

In the meantime, let me ask/state this:

1. Is marriage an institution?

2. Did Jesus obey the government in his time on earth, or did he break earthly laws set up by earthly governments?

 

[Frenchy]

As I recall Jesus said "to render unto to God that which was God's and render unto Ceasar that which was Ceasar's" of course he obeyed the laws of the land, one of the reasons he was crucified.
He obeyed God's laws when they conflicted with mans laws just as we are to do. One of God's laws is marriage, one man to one wife. taking some sort of vows in front of witnesses, a priest and God!

 

[donnA]

I have said this before, and gave a link then, don't know what it is now, but that in bible times they did have a cerimony for marriage which included the man signing a marriage promise type paper with not the future wife, but her father, seeing as how she was a nobody anyway in their culture. So they had legal marriages, not just shacking up and whoever your with now is your spouse.

 

[rbell]

IMO, the central truth to "What constitutes marriage?" is the idea of vows--before God and witnesses.

 

[Aaron]

There was even a ceremony for Adam and Eve. God officiated.

 

[gtbuzzarp]

Deut 22
13"If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then turns against her,
14and charges her with shameful deeds and publicly defames her, and says, 'I took this woman, but when I came near her, I did not find her a virgin,'

15then the girl's father and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of the girl's virginity to the elders of the city at the gate.

16"The girl's father shall say to the elders, 'I gave my daughter to this man for a wife, but he turned against her;

17and behold, he has charged her with shameful deeds, saying, "I did not find your daughter a virgin." But this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity.' And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city.

I know there are probably better OT verses for marriage, but I just read thru this during one of my quiet times recently and got a chuckle.
It shows there was a giving of the woman by the father, and some sort of ceremony must have taken place for them to have this "garment."
Without getting too graphic, during Jewish weddings there is a period of time the bride and groom have to "consummate" the marriage. This is where the "garment" comes into play. The hymen on most virgins will not be broken, so when it happens, there is bleeding, and the "garment" is the evidence of that bleeding (to put it in plain terms).

Point being that 2 people shackin' up don't just decide one day that they are married. There is some sort of official process or ceremony to it all. If not, all the analogies of bride and bridegroom in the NT would make no sense to the people of the day.

 

[Benjamin]

Originally posted by donnA:
I have said this before, and gave a link then, don't know what it is now, but that in bible times they did have a cerimony for marriage which included the man signing a marriage promise type paper with not the future wife, but her father, seeing as how she was a nobody anyway in their culture. So they had legal marriages, not just shacking up and whoever your with now is your spouse.

Contracts with the father still goes on too. A friend's father who was putting out a lot of money for the wedding had her and her husband sign a contract that stated they each be responsible to pay 50% of the cost of the wedding back plus interest if the marriage were to fail before 7 years. I didn’t think it sounded like too bad of an idea.

 

[rjprince]

The idea of vows before God and witnesses sounds real nice for us as believers, and for a church wedding. BUT, for unbelievers, a civil ceremony is appropriate. Even in Noah's day, weddings were taking place among the wicked unbelievers who were destined for destruction (Matt 24:38). The emphasis of the passage is that life was going on as normal.