The Origin of Marriage As We Know It Today

ICT7133 · #1 11-18-2008, 11:37 AM

I think this is a great board. Touchy subjects are handled gently, and contributors try to handle the issues with gentleness and intelligence. Now, let us talk about marriage itself.
We say that God instituted marriage in the garden when He created the first man and woman. From that premise we proceed to describe marriage as a lifelong relationship and commitment.
I have no quarrel with that.
I myself would have been married to the same woman for forty years this coming Spring, and hope to see more Springs added, God willing, before she and I part to see each other again in heaven.
Now my questions are:

1. Has anybody ever done a study on marriage ?
2. Has anybody seen in the Bible where it says that marriage is supposed to give one partner the right over the properties of the other ?
3. Has anybody ever done a study on the evolution of marriage, that is to say, Scripturally and secularly, to what marriage is as we know it today ?

The reason I ask these questions is because although I do not approve of lesbian or man-man relationship, I have no objection to their getting married because I think their goals in marriage is not so much the spiritual meaning of marriage as the material benefits of marriage.

And the reason I think that way is because I have not seen in the Bible where marriage evolved to the social and political form that it has today.

Where is the marriage contract in the Bible ? Where is the marriage license that secular governments must grant ? Where in the Bible does God's priest act subordinatively to the civil government ? Why is it that when a man and a woman is married by an ecclessiastical minister instead of a civil authority that man and woman's marriage is in danger of being illegal ? Who gave the civil authority the spiritual right to declare a union created and sworn to before the God that both parties in a marriage believe in as invalid and illegal ?

Mark · #2 11-18-2008, 07:28 PM

Hi ICT7133 -

I think this is a great post! A friend of mine was asking me just the other day why a man can only have one wife - when many prophets of the 'old times' had several wives. I had no real answer for him (only that I knew instinctually that polygamy is wrong).

I'd be curious to see what others on here (that know more on this topic than myself) have to say on the matter.

RevStevenMRobinson · #3 11-18-2008, 07:59 PM

many people in the bible did have multiple wives... b ut it never states that God approved of the act.

RevStevenMRobinson · #4 11-18-2008, 08:01 PM

and if we look into the scriptures. we can see that many who had more than one wife often delt with alot of problems,,,,,,,,we who go against God normally have alot of problems.

ICT7133 · #5 11-24-2008, 09:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RevStevenMRobinson

and if we look into the scriptures. we can see that many who had more than one wife often delt with alot of problems,,,,,,,,we who go against God normally have alot of problems.

don't have to look into the Scriptures. I only look around and see that even those who have just one wife often have a lot of problems.

But you see, the question is not whether a marriage should be polygamous or monogamous or polyandrous.

The question is where did the form and politics of marriage as we see it today come from ?

Any takers ?

Anyone who'd done a little bit of, maybe, investigative digging into this ?

RevStevenMRobinson · #6 11-27-2008, 07:08 PM

well, God created marriage.... if you are wanting to know were marriage came from. Gen. 2:24 ..... therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: they shall be as one flesh.

now, if you are wanting to know when my county court house began sanctioning the act i couldnt tell you.......i choose to study the bible rather than the laws and precepts of man.

but for this thread......i feel......finding the answers in the word of God should be more than satisfactory for anyone.

ICT7133 · #7 11-28-2008, 08:16 AM

I guess, Rev., what I'm looking for falls a little bit on the side of cultural anthropolgy or sociology, I think.

You know.

I mean, I understand and affirm, as you do, that God instituted marriage when He brought Eve to Adam, and Adam called Eve "woman". And from then on, with God's blessings, they lived together, with all the connotations of living together present.

I have never seen in Scriptures where man and woman must sign a paper called a marriage contract, and seek legalization from their tribe (government as we call it now) regarding their union, and so on.

David, who had many wives, when he committed adultery with Bathsheba, is said later on to have taken her as his wife, after the death of Uriah, and I don't read of any ceremonies as we know them today.

It seems that in those days, a man and a woman stood before God, in front of the people, and took each other as man and wife, and parted only in death, as Paul states it.

So I guess part of what I'm saying is that marriage as we know and perform it today has evolved into a hugely secular affair in which government has dipped its dirty hands because while we may choose to still do marriage as was done in old times, stand before God and make your vows before the living God and all that, under the laws of the land, will that be a legal marriage ?

Do you see what I'm driving at ?

Who is government to declare which is legal and which is not legal ? And yet that's how it is today, even here in supposedly Christian nation America, so much so that the homos and the lesbos are agitating for a legal binding of their "partnership" and calling it marriage in order for them to have the right to the property and benefits of the other in case the other one "kicks the bucket", as well as the fealty and loyalty of the other so that if the other should pant after another, the "offended party" can divorce the "offending party", and all that rickety mickety jazz.

So, where did this "marriage" come from, how did it evolve into something like this, and how the dickens did churches get embroiled in this sticky, smelly, stuff ?

mercyme · #8 11-28-2008, 07:12 PM

Look up marriage license in Wikipedia

RevStevenMRobinson · #9 11-28-2008, 10:05 PM

Well, i was married "legally" i guess you could say. i have a piece of paper that has my name on it, along with my wife's, that says we are married......but i was married to my wife to please God.....no paper can do that....it was a decision made by me and my wife...our vows were placed before God.....not a city, county, state, or nation. my marriage has been sanctioned by the Lord and we live by his law,or at least try to.
i choose to please my God rather than my country.

ICT7133 · #10 11-29-2008, 05:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RevStevenMRobinson

Well, i was married "legally" i guess you could say. i have a piece of paper that has my name on it, along with my wife's, that says we are married......but i was married to my wife to please God.....no paper can do that....it was a decision made by me and my wife...our vows were placed before God.....not a city, county, state, or nation. my marriage has been sanctioned by the Lord and we live by his law,or at least try to.
i choose to please my God rather than my country.

That's somewhat the point, Rev.

We believers can claim to death that, in the act of marriage, we want to please our God but the fact remains that when we leave the church after ceremonies, and we were married only ecclessiastically, in the public and government eyes, the marriage is not complete without those pieces of paper called contract, license and permit.
On the other hand, marriages performed by those named by law to be legal administrators of marriage (other than clerics), seem to be more valid, binding and legal than those performed only under ecclessiastical sanctions.