Many people, Christians included, grapple with what constitutes marriage according to the Bible. More precisely, at what exact point does the Bible say marriage begins?
This question has no quick answer for the simple reason that the Bible is not explicit about it. This gives scholars and Bible students room to explore Scripture and posit the precise moment they think God’s word—the Bible—considers a man and woman married.
This post will present three leading schools of thought about when Biblical marriage starts. Before we explore them, let’s set the stage by exploring the definition of marriage, i.e., the meaning of marriage and the purpose of marriage.
In God’s plan, marriage is a God-ordained life-long covenant between a man and woman who consciously gets into to start a new family unit. The following Scriptures underpins this:
Genesis 2:24: That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Malachi 2:14: You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.
This traditional definition still applies to marriage today as well.
The purpose of marriage
Marriage is an institution of God and one of the very important covenantal relationships. Here are some important points to consider and the most important passages to anchor the purpose.
Free Resource
Get Your FREE Prayer Guide Now
and join the Daily Way Devotional: Join 25,000+ Subscribers
One essential function of marriage is companionship. Human beings are social beings and thrive in community. Having a partner to share life with and navigate the good time and hard times is important for the well-being of individuals.
Little wonder God brought Adam Eve. He saw it was not good for him to be alone.
Genesis 2:18: The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
b. Helping one another
Genesis 2:18: The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
The goodness of marriage is in helping one another. Many people emphasize the helping role of wives. Yet, help should be mutual for a marriage to achieve its ideal.
Just as there is mutual love, the help should be mutual. The husband helps the wife, and the wife helps the husband.
Each party comes with unique qualities that can complement their partner to be the best version of themselves.
c. Procreation and sexual pleasure
God forbids sex out of the bounds of marriage. As such, marriage gives a married couple the right environment to enjoy sex. At times, sex results in children and hence helps man fulfill one of their core mandate.
1 Corinthians 7:3: The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.
Genesis 1:27-28: So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Transcendent roles
d. Offers pictorial value
Beyond the man or woman in marriage, marriage serves a bigger picture, illustrating the relationship between Christ and the church. Our finite minds grapple with spiritual issues, but such illustrations can help us comprehend spiritual realities more.
Ephesians 5:23-24: Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
e. To give God glory
Marriage serves a bigger purpose than a human purpose. God calls us to give him glory in all we do and use any opportunity we get to advance His kingdom. Marriage is the critical institution God uses to advance that.
1 Corinthians 10:31: So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
When does marriage start in God’s eyes?
Back to the main point: When does a Christian marriage begin? Let’s examine and critique the three common viewpoints.
1. Legal view
The legal view states that a marriage starts when a couple legally marries. Typically, governments set out wedding requirements. A couple must adhere to such legal requirements to get marriage certificates.
The requirements may differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. However, there are general requirements that cut across the United States. The Catholic Church and Protestant Church do it in different ways, so find out which applies to you.
Proponents of legal marriage cite some Bible verses to support their views. For instance:
Romans 13:1-2: Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
1 Peter 2:13-15: Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority,or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people.
The texts explicitly state that all human authority comes from God. Since all authority is from God, everyone, including Christians, must submit to and follow what the government stipulates in life, including how to marry.
If a couple adheres to such legal requirements set by their government, they will do the right thing in God’s eyes.
It follows then that in the eyes of God, marriage starts the day a couple is legally married.
Critique
The legal view falls short for many reasons.
a. The question of precedence
The institution of marriage preceded any semblance of government when you track the creation accounts in the Old Testament. It then can’t be that Biblical marriage starts with government approval, yet it existed before any government. The Lord God cannot author such confusion.
b. Absence of government
For one reason or another, some places have no government or are dysfunctional at best. In other cases, the government exists but is not keen to regulate the marriage space. That is, they don’t give marriage license or marriage certificates.
If the legal view is taken literally, marriages don’t exist in such jurisdictions. That cannot be accurate. That means there is a better way to explain when the holy covenant of marriage starts.
c. Unbiblical legal requirements
Not every government subscribes to Biblical marriage. Some governments impose unbiblical legal requirements for marriage.
For instance, governments run purely according to the tenets of the Catholic church or Islam have different worldviews, which means the government’s laws will not align with the Biblical basis for a Christian marriage.
It would be hard to see how the marriage covenant is sealed by a government that does not abide by God’s design or meet God’s expectations.
What constitutes marriage in the Bible must then be different. Let’s now explore the second view.
2. Cultural view
This view states that in God’s eyes, marriage starts when a couple fulfills some designated cultural norms, which usually culminates in a formal public ceremony.
Since cultural norms differ, how wedding ceremonies are performed varies from community to community. However, for the marriage covenant to be valid, there should be some kind of formal wedding ceremony.
Proponents of this view cite two main texts, one from the Old Testament and the other from the New Testament, for scriptural support.
Genesis 2:21-24:
So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Many people see Adam and Eve’s as the first marriage, and this account as the first time a wedding happened. God the Father is giving Adam a wife to depict the modern practice of a father or their representative giving his daughter to the husband in the marriage ceremony.
Thus, many see this as God’s approval of the cultural way of solidifying a marriage. The Mosaic law and the Bible were set in Jewish culture. Other cultures have unique ways of conducting wedding ceremonies.
Provided they don’t contradict God’s word, you can follow cultural practices.
The other text is in the New Testament.
John 2:1-2: On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.
John chapter two, verses one to twelve, records Jesus’ first miracle, in which he turned water into wine. Noteworthy, this miracle happened at a wedding ceremony. Jesus and his disciples honored an invitation to a marriage ceremony in Cana.
Therefore, some scholars see Jesus’ presence at the wedding ceremony as his approval of marriage ceremonies. Some infer that a wedding ceremony is the gateway to a marriage relationship.
Critique:
a. Scripture not explicit
Many Biblical texts cited for scriptural support are not explicit; hence, they only apply by inference. However rational the inference is, since the Bible is not explicit, we cannot be too sure.
b. Absence of norms
Some communities do not have explicit cultural norms governing marriage ceremonies or the marital relationship. Thus, members of such communities are free to explore. The lack of universality casts doubt on this view.
Some communities have norms, but they contradict the Biblical view of marriage. The Bible calls believers not to follow such norms. This would lock them out of marriage.
d. Potential confusion
If marriage happens by following certain cultural norms that differ from community to community, whose culture would we follow?
Granted, neither Jesus Christ nor the Bible calls us to be uniform, but it would be difficult to apply. What if one community feels superior and demands that others follow theirs? The potential for confusion essentially renders this view unpractical.
3. Sexual intercourse view
As the name hints, this view makes much of sexual intimacy. Proponents of this view say that God considers a man and woman married the moment they have sexual intercourse. Even if a couple is married in any other way, they are not fully married until they come together in the act of sex. In other words, sexual relations seal the marriage covenant.
The principle of one flesh anchors this view, which the following Scriptures allude to.
Genesis 2:24: That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Matthew 19:4-6:“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’Ephesians 5:31:“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”
Some commentators use Isaac and Rebekah’s account as one of the Biblical examples of the covenant relationship of marriage.
Genesis 24:66-67: Then the servant told Isaac all he had done.Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.
The fact there was no elaborate ceremony or authorization from any public institution, the assumption is that Isaac and Rebekah consumated their union through sexual intercourse.
Critique:
a. Not entirely Biblical
This view stretches the one flesh principle beyond the bounds of the text. Indeed, when a married couple engages in the act of sex, they become one in ways our minds cannot fully comprehend.
However, the Bible does not suggest that every act of sex starts a marriage covenant. Neither does every act of sex make a couple married in God’s eyes.
The Bible distinguishes sexual relations. For example, some texts forbid fornication and adultery. Let’s highlight one for each.
1 Corinthians 6:9: Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites…
Hebrews 13:4: Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
If sex made people married, then an unmarried couple would become married in the eyes of God when they have premarital sex. Yet that is not what we see. The Bible condemns fornication as an immoral and not a unifying act.
The same principle applies to married couples. If one were to commit adultery, hence defiling the marriage bed, the Bible does not recognize illicit sexual intercourse as the start of another marriage but as an immoral act.
It’s still the same thing about concubines. The Bible distinguishes other sexual engagements from sexual intercourse between a wife and a husband.
As much as the ultimate fulfillment of the oneness principle is in the sexual act, it happens in the context of marriage.
It appears marriage precedes sexual oneness; the intimate relationship cements the union between the man and woman committing to marry.
b. Not everyone can have sex
As much as sexual desire comes naturally to just about any living creature, including human beings, not everyone can act on this desire. Due to birth defects, medical conditions, etc., not every couple can have sex. At times, it may be due to human factors like physical distance.
It won’t make sense, and it would be unfair of God to put sex as the only way of getting married when some human beings, for some reasons beyond themselves, cannot have sex, no matter the level of sexual desire.
Conclusion: what constitutes marriage according to the Bible?
If the legal view, cultural view, or sexual intercourse view does not conclusively explain when marriage starts, what then constitutes marriage according to the Bible?
Genesis 2:24 points us in the right direction: That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
It boils down to one thing: a man and a woman consciously decide to marry. It’s a product of mutual consent. A man and woman leave their parents/ people, come together as one, and start their family.
They can decide and do it alone without the involvement of any government or by following any legal requirements. That’s still marriage in God’s eyes.
The unmarried couple can consciously decide to come together and start their family without following any cultural norms. And they will be rightly married in the eyes of God.
A man and a woman can also be fully married even though they don’t get a chance to engage sexually or have kids. Nowhere in the Bible does God mention sex or kids as the determinant of marriage.
Now that people, men and women, can decide to marry without involving the government or community, does that mean they should ignore them altogether? Or choose to avoid sex when they have the sexual desire, and they can have sex?
Not at all. That’s not God’s way.
The Bible implores believers to obey the authorities. When planning to marry, the unmarried couple that fears God should seek to comply with the legal requirements set by the state as long as they don’t contradict Biblical principles.
The same applies to culture. Everyone is born into a given context, and it is just right to identify with your people by following their cultural norms, even regarding marriage. Should the norms be ungodly, only then can you respectfully opt out so as not to burn bridges unnecessarily.
And indeed, once married, if a couple can, let them consummate the marriage in sexual intercourse. And they are to continue having it as regularly as possible to leverage this mysterious oneness the act of sex brings.
Kendrick Ong'anya is a freelance Christian writer based in Nairobi, Kenya. As a believer in Christ, he is passionate about writing Christian content to deepen believers' faith, even while drawing those who are yet to believe into the fold. He is open to collaborating with individuals and organisations to curate blog posts, articles, devotionals, prayer guides, verse/ chapter commentary, and e-books, among other Christian content. You can follow Kendrick on Facebook.
