Love and Marriage

Bill and Melinda Gates are getting divorced after 27 years of marriage. "We no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives," they say. That, apparently, is a primary purpose in marriage.

Doing some research into changes in the concept of marriage, I read, "Right up until the end of the 18th century, though, love and marriage were mutually exclusive." Really! So, prior to today's modern world, marriage was defined as "without love" and if you did love your spouse, well, then, you just weren't married becaue "love and marriage were mutually exclusive." Strange. Of course, the problem is not in the statement. The problem is in the definition of love. If by "love" you mean "a relationship built on warm affection and deep sexual passion," then there may not have been "love" in standard "marriage" in years past. But if the command of Scripture is "Husbands, love your wives ..." (Eph 5:25), then apparently God didn't think that love and marriage were mutually exclusive.

So one of the similarities between older times and today is it appears that defining marriage has always been botched. In the early 1900's people began to think that "marriage should be based on sexual attraction and fulfillment." If you would offer that reason today and you'd get a "Duh!" response. But is that biblical? The Gates believe it is based on being able to grow together as a couple. Is that biblical? Since then changes have included increasing sexual immorality, rising divorce rates, intentionally childless marriages, and, most recently, "same-sex marriage" which, at least statistically, appears to be putting an end to marriage at all. Since the 1970's, the marriage rates have dropped by 60%. No, of course it's not just "gay marriage." It's also the "free sex" revolution and women preferring careers to relationships and women's liberation and cohabitation and divorce rates and, well, sure, "gay marriage" which managed to singlehandedly, self-consciously redefine marriage to ... well ... not much at all.

What, then, is marriage? If we don't really have a grasp on it anymore, what is it? Marriage was instituted by God despite what "modern science" might suggest. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." (Gen 2:24) In that single sentence is some serious information. "Therefore," because it is a commentary on what just happened. God had just made Eve from Adam and Adam called her Woman (Gen 2:21-23). "Therefore" -- out of the connections that God built into the male and the female -- marriage. "A man shall leave his mother and father." This doesn't suggest or require an exit from the family, but it does indicate a new family. It isn't a division as much as it is a multiplication. A family -- mother and father -- produce an offspring who then joins with a woman. This new couple then forms a new family -- a mother and father -- and so on. "And hold fast to his wife." The King James says "cleave," as in "leave and cleave." The word is to adhere, to cling to, to be joined. Leave parents and be joined to a wife. How joined? "They shall become one flesh." A new family is now a new organism. Eve literally came from Adam's flesh; husbands and wives become one flesh still. Marriage is a union. It is certainly sexual in nature (1 Cor 6:16), but so much more. It is emotional, social, financial, spiritual, and more. Now, considering all of that, in what sense would we say that marriage is about "growing together as a couple"? In what sense would love and marriage be mutually exclusive or would marriage be predicated on sexual attraction and personal fulfillment? How small are these views??

There is one other critical aspect of marriage to consider here. In his instructions to husband and wife in his epistle to the Ephesians, Paul makes a large claim. He quotes that Genesis 2:24 passage and then he writes,

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (Eph 5:32)

A profound mystery. That is, all that marriage is exceeds our meager understanding. One aspect here, by God's design, points to the relationship of Christ and His Bride. What do we know about that relationship? We know that "Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish." (Eph 5:25-27) We know that "God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom 5:8) He didn't die for a lovely bride, but a weak and ungodly (Rom 5:6) enemy (Rom 5:10) bride. He joins Himself to that bride to sanctify and cleanse her and present her without spot or wrinkle. Given that image, how do we work "marriage is about self-fulfillment and sexual attraction and warm fuzzy feelings" into the mix?

The Bible has more to say about marriage, but I think that it should be clear at this point that our version today, even among Christians, is an anemic devolution of the original. Yes, love and marriage go together, but nothing like the plain affection and sex we define as "love" today. Yes, "grow together" is part of it, but not in a self-serving, limited, "we've run out of that" possibility. Indeed, biblical marriage has commands to love and instructions to never divorce and the certainty of a union that will, in a very real sense, tear us apart if we try to break it. One can hardly find examples of this view of marriage in our culture today. Perhaps we need to become exceptions to that problem.