Marriage and the Bible - Part 50 - Final Thoughts

This series started with a series of questions and a simple idea to go through the Bible and find out what is actually said about marriage.  With 50 posts it stands as probably the most lengthy thing I have done to date and I am sure some of those questions weer answered, but not always in the way one would have thought.  

1. Is there a difference between being married and being husband and wife?

I would say yes.  At least there is a great deal of difference between a couple that seeks to have a spiritual covenant and those who engage in a cultural contract type of obligation.  It seems that God has always desired man and woman to have what the original couple had before the fall of man.  A triune relationship with Him, man and woman together.  Sin entered the world and over time culture and law began to seek to define marriage as forms of obligation and give it in many ways a mechanical and practical view away from the idea of 'one flesh', naked and unashamed.

In our world Christians find themselves where the ultimate desire for their married lives is to return to this covenant relationship but still there are cultural and legal obligations that define marriage.  God seems to let mankind define this but presses each couple 'back to the garden'  as it were.  Mankind can indeed present difficulties in this as sometimes marriage contracts are not written with this in mind.  In some forms cultural contract marriage is actually a deterrent to achieving spiritual covenant.  The spiritual covenant marriage is about God; the cultural contract is about man.  God seems to respect or at least allow both, but His desire is to bring mankind back to the garden at least in spirit.

2. Does the Bible give a actual moment of marriage that is definable?

This greatly depends on what you are talking about.  When it comes to culture and law, marriage is definable when all requirements are met and agreed on.  Those requirements are different for each culture and nation so it is difficult to say anything other than God honors that man makes some choices here.  Even here, because of the nature of humanity, this can be a clear as mud.  In a spiritual covenants I see that is this union is only possible with one man, one woman and God at a moment when all three parties come together in spirit, mind, heart and for the couple flesh. 

I think it is very possible to have one without the other but often what happens is a conjunction of both.  Some marriages start out as covenants without cultural obligations such as Adam and Eve's being husband and wife.  Others start off as a cultural and legal obligation and can change into a spiritual covenant.  The best marriages in our fallen world try to live up to both with an understanding that, if push comes to shove, what God desires in a spiritual covenant takes precedent over the cultural contract.

3. Are other types marriage bonds acceptable?

What can be said about this is that the Bible allows for the fact that humans are going to be humans and we are going to enter into less than perfect relationships because of it.  The Bible presents many forms of marriage in its contract form: polygamy and concubinage for the most part with marriages that are purely procreative or pleasure oriented.  God accepts that human being will want to control sexual expression to maintain certain cultural and legal obligations.

What the Bible takes the dimmest view on is anything that involves sin in the relationship or a mixing of faith (believers with unbelievers).  In our modern context, that means open marriages and homosexual marriages are out, but polygamy and even group marriage (minus homosexual and open elements) are real possibilities.  The problem with all of these though is that outside the simplest arrangement for marriage (one man, one woman for life) there becomes a diminished capacity to live up to or even attain a marriage that is a true spiritual covenant. 

4. Can a marriage end?

The unfortunate answer is yes.

The real truth is that spiritual covenants require a great deal of effort to both attain and maintain and this means that there are a lot of opportunities for it to become the lesser form of marriage -- the cultural contract. 

In the cultural contract form, marriage can be broken and ended when one side or the other decides the obligations are not being kept.  Christians probably should take note that Jesus defines adultery as the only thing that should end any marriage but allowance is also made for mixed marriages by Paul and the fact Jesus even seems to indicate that 'hardness of heart' can still cause a marriage end, it just may not justify it.

The other unfortunate end to marriage is death and this in effect ends both kinds of marriage.  This can make the end of a spiritual covenant marriage particularly difficult when a couple is truly one flesh.

In the end marriage is both an action involving both God and man and thus it gets complicated even in the Bible as it greatly is affected by what what a person or culture is seeking to produce with marriage.  Marriage involves a lot of choices but God's desire remains the same.  That desire being to see a man and woman one flesh, naked and unashamed working for His purposes.

Finis

Previous: Modern Challenges: Is Traditional Marriage a Failure? 

Marriage and the Bible- Part 47 - Modern Challenges: Line or Group Marriage

I have to admit this one is a tough one.  It is very difficult to say this is truly unbiblical.  The reason is that polygamy is most certainly in the Bible, the difference here is that the polygamy is both ways at the same time.

One could say there is no example of a woman married to many men in the Bible, but that could be a cultural thing as the importance of knowing both the father and mother of a child was very important to them.  It is also an argument from silence which does not do us much good.  A woman with many husbands would have a problem identifying the father in that culture.  In our modern day, paternity tests could determine this, but the proponents of group marriage point out that all the men take legal responsibility for every child in a group marriage regardless of who the father actually is.  The issue for them is that all adults are responsible for all children produced by the group.

The difference between this and open marriage is that sexual fidelity is expected in most group marriages.  The person must keep there sexual relationships inside the group.  Some of the more liberal ones allow for homosexual relationships and openness, but that is not always the case.  The Biblical problem with open marriage is fornication, but in group marriage where openness is not allowed and coupling must be male-female, the charge of homosexual sin and fornication disappears.  That leaves us with only the charge that multiple men with a single woman is not seen in the Bible.  That does not leave us much to cling to, if we are going to say this marital arrangement is unbiblical.

This type of marriage actually also does allow for the possibility of a covenant relationship but much in the same manner as polygamy has that possibility.  The difference being that with more men more such covenant couples are possible.  Ultimately though this becomes at best a mixed contracts type marriage with covenant relationships possible, but more and more unlikely as more people are added to the group.

In many ways group marriage is about creating a line (thus line marriage) of marriage that can last for a long time.  As members die, they can be replaced and a legacy created that can last as long as people want to stay in it and keep it going.  It also, in many ways is about getting some of the benefits of open marriage (multiple partners to avoid boredom, which is by the way the third leading cause of divorce in the United States for both men and women) and yet the legal protection of a marriage contract.

Another thing could be said about divorce here, that if one member of the group decides to divorce the rest, it does not end the group marriage, just that person's involvement in it.  It still means the kids would be taken care of by more than one parent, although custody issues are going to get really complex with this type of marriage should that person getting the divorce decided to sue for custody.

This is ultimately a tough one to say - "this is sin, it should be not be done".  What could be said is that it does not reflect the ideal of what God, Jesus and the Apostles present as a marriage.  It is much more of a contract than a covenant relationship.

Next: Modern Challenges: Homosexual Marriage
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