What Makes Marriage

A lively conversation moved through the Patched men this week that got a lot of engagement. Usually that means the question was worth asking, and the answer is worth considering together.

The question was this: What actually makes a marriage valid in God's eyes, and does a piece of paper from the county have anything to do with it? 

Genesis 2:24 gives us the first framing: a man leaves his father and mother, holds fast to his wife, and the two become one flesh. All three things are necessary: 

    1) Public departure from one household 
    2) Permanent attachment to one woman. 
    3) A covenantal union that is sealed and honored and lived. 

Just as we teach that declaring with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in our hearts that God raised him from the dead is our minimum definition of salvation, Genesis 2:24 gives us our minimum definition for marriage. It’s worth acknowledging that a government license doesn't appear here because God isn't a bureaucrat…

However, scripture’s direction on marrying doesn’t end there and we must look at the whole context. Boaz doesn't marry Ruth and tell his friends and family about it later (Ruth 4:1-12). He goes to the city gate, convenes the elders, makes his case publicly, and the community joins in the ceremony. Marriage as a covenant has a communal dimension that most other covenants don't, because it reorganizes households, transfers authority, creates legal and relational obligations to a broader community, and establishes a new family unit that the community has a stake in.

A man who loves a woman the way Christ loved the church (Eph 5) is not looking for the minimums. He's not asking what's the minimum required for this to count but rather what does it look like to honor her fully, protect her completely, and make her position in his life unmistakable to every institution and authority that might one day affect her? The Patched guys also got to the legal concerns of her being shut out of medical decisions if he's incapacitated, left fighting for property, or pensions in the case of his death. The covenant you made before God is sound, but the world your widow inhabits won’t be convinced. Instead of a theological discussion, it is rather a probate one.

So yes, a man and a woman who have made genuine vows before God and witnesses have met the biblical standard for marriage, but a man who loves his wife is going to want every available structure to reinforce her position in his life. That means taking vows before witnesses, seeking Godly counsel and accountability and filing out whatever forms and paying whatever fees the bureaucrats require in order to protect and provide for his bride in life and in death. 

Sheepdog