What is Marriage? an excerpt

Feb 21, 2013 by Jim and Jerolyn Bogear

The following is from the opening chapter of Faith Legacy: Seven Values to Shape Your Marriage.

Think back to your wedding day. If you’re not married yet, imagine what it will be like. Picture the flowers; the rows of chairs; the people dressed up; eagerly waiting; the presents stacked on a table; the cake waiting to be cut; a bride in white; and a groom in tails. The picture is perfect, and the day is promising and hopeful.

The average American wedding costs around 25,000 dollars. More often, more time is spent on picking the right dress, choosing bridesmaid’s dresses, and arranging flowers than on pre-marital counseling. I (Jim) had a teacher who said, “Some of you will spend more time shopping for a pair of shoes than you will the person you are planning to spend the rest of your life with.” The wedding is a sacred ceremony with a wonderful party to follow, but the marriage is to be for a lifetime. How much more time and energy should we commit to the health of our marriage?

According to Merriam-Webster, marriage is “the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law.”¹ While marriage is all these things, it must be more. A “consensual and contractual relationship” does not attend to a spouse lying in a hospital bed dying of cancer. It doesn’t hold two people together when they’ve lost their house or, worse yet, experienced the death of a child. A legal contract provides little comfort or support when the crisis of unemployment and debt hits. If we look at marriage merely as a contract, when times get tough, it in no more sturdy or binding than two pieces of paper helf together by a Band-Aid. Fortunately, the Bible offers an alternative perspective on marriage.

Success in marriage happens when there is surrender to Scripture. Read what Jesus had to say about the permanent bond of marriage in Matthew 19:3-6: “Some Pharisees came to him [Jesus] to test him. They asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?’ ‘Haven’t you read,’ he replied, ‘that at the beginning the Creator “made them male and female,” and said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh?” So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate.’”

Marriage is more than a contract; it is a covenant between a man and a woman.

Do you agree? Let us know your thoughts on the definition of marriage.

~Jim and Jerolyn