Different denominations have put different stipulations on what a marriage entails. On one end of the spectrum, Mormons and Catholics teach that if you’re not married in their church, it’s not a real marriage. Somewhere in the middle, most believers think of a marriage as love, a lifelong commitment, a marriage license and sex. And on the other side of the spectrum are believers who are looking more closely at what the Bible really says about marriage and noticing that:

There’s no example of a modern marriage ceremony or a command to hold one.
No command or example of a marriage being officiated by clergy.
No command not to have premarital sex.
No command to have a state issued marriage license.

And they have come to the conclusion that marriage is simply having sex and making a commitment before God to the other person…. in one order or another.

While I agree with them that some aspects of the modern marriage ceremony- costing thousands of dollars, officiated by clergy, and approved by a 501c3 church- are not necessary, there are several important elements in the Bible that make a marriage more binding than intercourse and vows said between the couple alone.

Legal Responsibilities

The husband is to provide the wife food, clothes and sex. The ancient rabbis understood this to mean that if it applies to a second wife, how much more so should it apply to a first wife. He's also to set up financial provision in case he dies or abandons her- this was called the bride price. From these laws, the Jews created the Ketubah- a legally binding contract that was signed by the man at the time that the marriage agreement was made and the betrothal was finalized. The only legal requirement of the wife was to be faithful.

The presence of legal responsibilities indicates that there is a court system to hold them legally accountable. That is what much of the Torah was- the law of the land upheld by the council of 70 and the judges. If he fails to uphold these responsibilities, the wife can seek divorce. If either of them is unfaithful, they are charged with adultery. How would any of these laws be upheld without a contract proving the couple was actually married? In modern times, you can write a ketubah and sign it and that can be a very important spiritual vow between you, your spouse and God, but it’s a worthless piece of paper in a court of law. You need something that holds you and your spouse legally accountable in our modern court system.

There are many different ways to provide and not all are financial- cooking, cleaning and caring for children are all provisions. The modern couple may swap traditional roles, as nothing in Scripture commands against this. As long as the husband is not abandoning his wife in destitution and he is contributing to the home, he is keeping the command. See the Proverbs 31 husband.

Legal Protections

Some believers want to remove as much of the secular system from their lives as possible and resent the idea that the government gives us “license” to get married. However, in ancient Israel, the laws of Torah were the governmental laws. The purpose of the modern license is to provide reassurance that your spouse is in fact legally able to be married- they’re not already married to someone else and they are of legal age to consent.

Beyond the food, clothes and sex provisions, anything could be included in the ketubah and made part of the legal responsibilities or protections. In modern times, the law offers protections in the case of divorce for the equal distribution of assets, pre-nups to protect assets gained before marriage, and determines how child care and responsibilities will be divided up. One can object to the marriage license being called a license and grumble about living in diaspora, while still recognizing the protection and benefits the marriage license offers.

If you’re completely opposed to a marriage license, you may want to research using a combination of insurance and a cohabitation agreement to cobble together the same legal protections (I’m not very familiar with how all of this works. Proceed with caution). However you choose to do it, women especially, just please don’t fall for your potential spouse claiming that no legal protections are needed at all because God will hold them accountable and the love between you is so strong that the relationship will never end. Please listen to the wisdom of many, many women (especially, but men too) who lost everything in such arrangements. One reason I specify women here is that often the men who object the most strongly to legal protections are those who will insist your role is to stay home and not work. Even if you strongly agree with this now, if he abandons you, you’ll have no work history, likely have a couple of young children, have no recourse to insist he pay alimony (the modern bride price), and be destitute. May God bless your marriage and heaven forbid you ever have a reason to separate. Make sure you’re protected anyway.

Witnesses

In the vein of the ketubah being a legally binding contract, it required witnesses to uphold it. A witness is someone who will testify in a court of law that this couple was, in fact, married, should the question arise. I’ve read the claim that Issac took Rebekah into his tent, so that’s all there was to it. But we have to read the preceding chapters- both families were aware and involved. I also seriously question the commitment of a couple (or one party of a couple) who does not want the community to be aware of their union. Usually this involves some sort of underhanded situation, like one spouse is not yet legally divorced from their previous spouse. While there are probably some special circumstances where this would be the best thing to do, usually having the support and accountability of a safe, healthy community is a great benefit to a marriage. If your friends, family and community have major objections to your marriage and won’t be your witnesses, strongly consider why that is.

Consent

In the story of Rebecca and Isaac, Rebecca is asked if she wants to go with Eliazar to marry Issac and she says yes. The rabbis determined that this indicates a woman must consent to the marriage. Naturally, the man must consent to the marriage as well, but this isn’t addressed in Scripture directly as it was not as common of a worldly, patriarchal custom for men to not have a say in the decision. While safe families should be included in the process, and couples would be wise to consider their family’s objections if the family is seeking righteousness and wisdom, there is no command for parents to arrange marriages, and certainly not while limiting the consent of the bride and groom. We are all responsible for our own walks before God (Deut 24:16, Proverbs 9:12, Ezekiel 18:20), so we must all have the right to choose how we walk. That includes marriage and every other adult decision. Even Mary consented to give birth to the Messiah before God impregnated her (Luke 1:38).

Intercourse/Sex

Deut 22:28-29 speaks to situations where a couple has consensually and mutually gotten caught up in the moment and went to far. It establishes that if an unmarried man and woman engage in intercourse, the actions are out of order and it’s expected that this situation be rectified by putting the legal protections in place that should have been done beforehand. An additional stipulation is then added- he can never divorce her. The man has wronged the woman by not providing her the protections of the legally binding marriage before sex and the consequence is that he can never divorce her. That doesn’t say she can never initiate a divorce nor that she is forced to marry him. It means that he is legally obligated to provide for her for the rest of her life, because he did things out of order. (She did things out of order too, but the earthly responsibility and expectation is put on him because he has greater earthly power in the fallen, patriarchal world. God levels that playing field by putting the consequence in his lap, while never limiting the woman’s rights or agency).

But putting a penis in a vagina (intercourse) is not the same thing as healthy, safe, mutually pleasurable sex. Sex should be the natural outpouring of emotional and spiritual connection, with the above mentioned legal protections in place. If it's not consensual (every time, marriage does not imply consent), connected and mutual, it's just using the other person as a masturbatory aid.

The Two Shall Become One Flesh

This implies a spiritual, emotional and physical intimacy. Of course, the law of the land can’t mandate intimacy, but everything in the physical realm has a spiritual counterpart. The law of the land focuses on the physical realm- legal responsibilities and protections. The spirit of the law calls us to something higher on which all of the physical law rests- Love your neighbor as yourself and do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Specifically to marriage, it calls us to be echad- in unity.

We cannot have spiritual intimacy without both individual and mutual spiritual connections to our Creator. This elevates marriage from physical commitment to a continual interaction with the divine. What if we remembered every time we spoke to our spouse that we have in that moment the opportunity to both reflect and receive the presence of God?

When people focus too heavily on the spiritual realm, and believe their love and commitment is all that is needed, they often end up unprotected in the physical realm. And when people focus too heavily on the physical realm, and believe that marriage is only about procreation, a legal place to satisfy lust, and upholding the idol of the nuclear family, they miss out on the depths of intimacy and oneness that give us a glimpse of life as it was in the garden.

A legally binding contract is marriage in the physical realm. The spiritual and emotional intimacy that cumulates in physical intimacy is what brings marriage closer to echad- oneness and unity- that we were designed to have in the garden. All of those things are important, and all of them together make a marriage.

If you only have spiritual and emotional intimacy with your partner, you have an obligation to make it legal and provide your beloved with those protections in the physical realm before moving to physical intimacy. If you are in a legally binding contract with no spiritual and emotional intimacy, you need to remain faithful to that in the physical realm until you’ve been released from it. If your partner has broken their spiritual vows through infidelity (porn use and emotional affairs included), or by consistently failing to uphold what they promised to do (love, honor and cherish or however those vows were worded), then the marriage is over and it’s just a matter of finalizing the paperwork in the physical realm.

If you’re not yet married, please strongly consider having all of these Biblical elements in place before you have sex, move in together, or consider yourselves bound to each other.

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