May 17, 2012
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What Makes a Marriage?
Does saying marriage vows and signing a marriage license bind you together
in the eyes of God and Man or is it just legally binding?When ARE you truly married?
Is it as soon as you make the vows to one another and say I do?
Is it when the marriage officiator pronounces you man and wife?
Is it when you sign the license?
Is it when the marriage is consummated?
If you are married but have never consummated the marriage ,are you married?Has it nothing to do with law but with living together daily sharing a life?
If two people commit to one another for life
without the benefit of church and law are they married?What is a marriage?
Comments (54)
Woo Hoo!
I think that is for the couple to decide on their own terms.
Good question. The answer is simple: She is always right. When the husband realizes this, he will know he is happily married.
Law is irrelevant considering the number of divorces granted shortly after the marriage, as well as the number of couples STILL together without the benefit of the legally binding license of marriage.
The term "Marriage" no longer has the same meaning as 15, 30 years ago. It certainly does not mean the same as 200 years ago.
When two people affirm their love before family, friends and God, they are making promises to each other. That the State need regulate that love, is a ridiculous notion. If we have to pay the State to love, why are we not fined we we fail to love enough? Where is the warning citation when we have an argument and fail to love? You cannot regulate love any more than you can regulate the amount of air I need to breathe.
Marriage is love, pure and simple, passionate and dangerous. It knows no bounds both in good, and in bad.
Marriage has 3 aspects to it: social, spiritual and legal. The federal government must define the legal aspect and enforce it or else marriage need not be recognized by anyone who doesn't want to do so. Without federal sanction institution of marriage would cease to exist.
Also, without a formal definition, marriage could mean all things to all people. That, too, would destroy the marriage as an institution.
I was first!
I would say in a way, what makes marriage is love.
I would also say, that in a way, it should mirror the the nature of the love that God would want of us.
All through out the Old and New Testament, there are rules and regulations, but it all boils down to what God wants from us. Our love for Him and others. When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, he made it simple: Love. Love God, Love others.
So while there may be all sorts of legalities about what makes a marriage, the standing before God and others and speaking, consummation, daily life together, etc. While none of that is irrelevant, once again the key to your answer is not to be found there - but rather in Love.
Then the question that remains is about love - and what does love "be and do" in a marriage?
@Thatslifekid - i agree.
for me? me and my husband became married when we said i do and were pronounced married.
I think what it isn't is more relevant.
It's not magic...if there is a huge issue unresolved, getting married won't make it go away.
It isn't a cure-all...it can create more problems than it solves.
It's a formal declaration...a legal reality...and yes, a religious ceremony for some.
It's when you say you and yours become part of me and mine...and use crazy glue to make it stick.
I consider it to be when the license is signed because that's when the tax laws and--shoot, can't think of what they call it when a spouse legally owns half of all property. Being an atheist, I don't think it has anything to do with a god, but everything to do with commitment, determination, and love.
Having never been there, I think a marriage is when two people come together in a commitment to one another. I don't think it's about a license, a ceremony, or sex. I think it is that bond of commitment. I think all the other things are cultural rituals observed that provide certain benefits to married couples, but aren't necessarily things that actually make the marriage.
To me, it doesn't matter whether two people have a license, or have had a religious ceremony. It has nothing to do with having sex or raising a family to me, either. It is two people who commit to each other, love each other, and work together in their mutual best interest.
Donkey expressed it well...I agree!
Marriage is a binding social/legal commitment. Feelings and experience have little to do with its legitimacy, although we want marriage to be good. Shacking up is not marriage, regardless of how well the couple gets along. People are married once they marry and remain married until they divorce or one of them dies.
I think a marriage is when 2 people sincerely desire to work and play together, in a close relationship, for the rest of their lives.
To elaborate more, in a humorous way, love in a marriage also depends on the individuality of the two people involved.
Say, for example, you married Spazzzz.
If you love Spazzz, you gotta give her chocolate! If you hated chocolate, and refused to let her have it in the house, and would never buy any for her, and you concealed this fact before you got married, Spazzzz would have grounds for an annulment!
On the other hand, anybody who loves you has got to give you guacamole. If Spazzz hated guacamole, and refused to let you have it in the house, and would never buy any for you, and she concealed this fact before you got married, then you would have grounds for an annulment.
Now, if you both accepted this chocolate and guacamole hating in the marriage for an extended period of time, I would say it becomes a bit murkier. Love might seek to work out compromises on the chocolate and guacamole issues, as it should. But denying chocolate to Spazzz is just wrong. And denying guacamole to you is just wrong.
And perhaps the issue is a bit more serious than chocolate or guacamole. You would still try to live in love to seek out what works for both. Sometimes it works... Sometimes...
Is anything more serious than chocolate??? Sometimes my arguments fall down on points like this...
Anyway, I think love is the answer.
I think I will go watch Casa Blanca...
when marriage contract takes place..
relationship doesn't necessarily means marriage
when you are married, doesn't automatically means that you have a good relationship either, or a wonderful life
so, marriage is marriage, and i sometimes don't know what the fuss is all about (but then again, that is because i live in a country when this kind of things is mostly straight forward)
Beth,
Please check your inbox for a message from me. I believe that I have recently discovered what (my) marriage really means. If you read what I send you and agree, I don't mind it you share.
"You must remember this...A kiss is just a kiss... A smile is just a smile... The fundamental things apply as time goes by..."
I'm married to the invisible. It's like, guys, think; you don't want to marry me, so why would anyone else? What they do is trash me out to try to get me with the hobo.
@Roadkill_Spatula - to me the social/legal aspect doesn't make it a marriage. A close, intimate, committed relationship makes a marrige, otherwise it is just a piece of paper. Society has defined it in legal terms to control aspects such as insurance, parental rights, property rights, etc. I know couples who don't have a license, have lived together for years, and who are more united than many legally married people I know. I don't think a commitment can be defined by a piece of paper, if that commitment can be nullified by another piece of paper. Just sayin.
Answer this question, and the gay marriage "debate" disappears like a vapor.
Marriage is not what it was when my parents got married. I see it as a legal agreement with somebody that I love. Now the act itself, the reason I would get married is what matters. The love, that's more than a piece of paper to me.
To me what 'makes it' is the promise to stay together. The state can change the legal benefits any time. Unfortunately that 'promise' isn't worth much these days. people run away when it gets uncomfortable, so I would never believe it anyway.
If
the two people are totally committed to each other, then I think they are
married in the eyes of their peer group. I also believe that being married in
the eyes of God requires a man and a woman to go through the
ceremony....preferably in a house of worship....and be faithful to their
marriage vows.
No
offense is intended. People need to respect how others feel about marriage.
Politics, local laws, insurance companies, and other factors have certainly
blurred the classical definition of marriage.
@WakeUpLaughing - I'm not saying a legal marriage is necessarily a good marriage. But throughout history marriage has had fundamental social and legal functions involving property rights, the legitimacy of children, mutual responsibilities, etc. Other relationships don't necessarily provide these things and aren't marriages, good though they might be. Of course, a marriage should be much more than a legal covenant.
In the United States, you need a marriage license to be considered married. IMO, you need that license. So, polygamists married with 20 wives in a religious ceremony are not really married, and thus living in sin! (haha, That's fun to say for some reason.) I don't think in America you can be married without that license, it is the law in many states.
A lot of people cry foul about the state government having to issue marriage licenses, but I think the point is more to ensure the rights of either married person not to control people. Rules on divorce is where you see the control. (Of course there is the measure of control when it comes to gay marriage or polygamy or other forms of non-traditional marriage.)
I think once the ceremony and license are signed, you are married. There's no longer any consummation rules, so much. I mean I reckon it's presumed the people have already had sex before getting married.
My wife and I lived together from the time we were in the last year of high school till we graduated from university. We got married shortly after we started our respective careers and have been married now over forty years. I can't say that I found any difference in our relationship before and after marriage. We did it mainly to keep the families happy. In my opinion there is no objective difference between living happily unmarried together in a faithful loving relationship and living in the same relationship but adding church and state into the mix. I suspect marriage as it has been known in the West is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Today the norm seems to be serial monogamy not life long commitments. I see no major harm in this development as long as the interests and needs of the children are being safeguarded.
When you have kids! It's so easy to walk away from a relationship (marriage or not) when the couple does not have kids but when kids are involved, then it's a marriage - "till death do us part"
@Roadkill_Spatula - all I'm saying is that society defining marriage in a legal sense to control insurance, parental and property issues, takes away from what marriage is meant to be...a committed, intimate, relationship between two people who work in each other's best interest. No argument that there are good and bad unions between both marrieds and non-marrieds, but two people who have made a lifelong commitment to each other should be able to to have rights regardless of a piece of paper. The divorce rate is high enough for anyone to realize that a piece of paper doesn't make a union special.
comittment and loyalty, nothing else. not even really great sex apparently
I've questioned this plenty of times, according to the Bible. I once remember reading that to be married, is when two people goes behind a closed door and becomes married. But I don't recall wherever it says how to be married.
But according to the LAW, paper do bind you married. But it is how you FEEL and ACT that makes a marriage. I was married once and I never felt married to him. But we were legal. Now I have lived with my boyfriend for six years and I feel more married to him than my ex-husband. And we are not married by law. This is always a question I've asked but never had exact answer. At least not to clear my understanding.
Accepting each other as is. There is no hoping to change not unless the Spouse wants to change. And communication and sticking together through thick & thin and supporting each others decisions. Communication and being in agreement when also making major purchases, cars, house, etc.....
To me a "legal" marriage is something the (1) church instituted to control people; and, (2) the government figured out they could control or tax people. Some of the longest relationships I know are between two people who "illegally" made a private committment.
I think marriage is being done in church right? But for me you are actually married when you truly love that person who stands beside you in front of the priest. And he's the one you truly want to be with forever that's how I see marriage.
http://www.gourmandia.com
http://brandycgarth.xanga.com/
I just stopped by to tell you I love you~
I 'felt' married the day we moved in together (a little over a month before we got married) I never would've made that move had I not felt 100% committed to my soon-to-be husband.
@joyouswind - THIS, exactly. =) Well said.
Good question. Isaac took Rebecca into his mom's tent and they were married. I agree with Roadkill Spatula's 2nd comment. Some sort of public approval (legal/church/family) is best. Adam & Eve didn't have that, but they did have God's approval. Dfferent cultures have different ideas of what must be done to be properly married.
For my husband and I personally, we wanted to go through the Church to get married versus just going through a JP. It held a deeper meaning for us. I don't know about other churches, and it may be the same, but I know that one set of marriage recognition documents (like the marriage license) go to the state and another set goes to the Vatican. Once the priest signed our marriage license we had to send it back in to be signed and notarized by the state and then the original copy was sent back to us.
On another note marriage means something different to every couple. Some people marry for tax or estate purposes, some people marry on a whim, others contemplate it for years and years, and some couples never marry legally, they just choose to be in a common-law marriage. Like I said, for my husband and I, professing our vows before God and made it so much more powerful and meaningful. And for us we were married but not wholly so until consummation. A marriage can be annulled if the couple "claims" that they never consummated the marriage, no matter how long they've been together. At least from a religious stand-point. I'm not too sure on state regulations regarding consummation.
Good post! Really got me thinking. =)
I think Donkey_Guy_10 is on the right track. Love. And it is blind - to age, race, sex, religion... Love just is. And it is beautiful.
marriage is as meaningful as the swiss guard~
My marriage is a legal friendship. i think marriage is different to each person. TD and I are best friends and have been for years and got married due to legal issues in case he is not in a situation to be able to make decisions about his medical care. This way he feels safe that he wishes will be carried out.
I don't know.
I'm sure you have many people - mostly religious - telling you the absolute God's truth on the matter. not sure it matters what my thoughts are, really. what are your own thoughts?
@plantinthewindow - what I believe about many things has changed so much over the years but I believe two people are married when they say vows to one another before God (if they believe in God) and or witness , in PA a "Quaker Wedding" only requires the signatures of two witnesses in place of an officiant.
@SladeTheGreyFox - lovely comment.
Marriage is no one state of being universal to all people. The meaning changes with the couple or individual.
It's whatever those two people agree on.
I felt like I was married when the pastor pronounced us man and wife. Even though we had the legal paperwork about a week before that, and had been living together, that to me was the defining moment.
I think getting married, however that is defined, is less important that staying married. Through thick and thin.
It is all explained in Genesis. It is God's plan for us and the family is the most important thing to Him. When you say those vows and take them SERIOUSLY you pass on a legacy of a covenant not only with each other but with God. That is why is says not to enter into marriage lightly but soberly, meaning with deep seriousness of what you are doing, because it is a lifetime vow you make, literally, until death do you part. That is why when we married the 2nd time around we have worked hard at our marriage to show Elita just what a marriage should look like. It is committment no matter what life throws at you.
sorry I dont believe marriage and find painful in my mind.....
Marriage is a union of two souls. To me, it's eternal, though I could, conceivably, marry again. My eternal union, though, is with my Penny.
We were married when the pastor announced us husband and wife.
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