Introduction

When it comes to secular and religious issues, the topic of marriage is a minefield.

The vague notion that some religious people have towards what defines a marriage (based on their religion) is revealing, and it’s pretty much impossible for a religious person to come up with a satisfactory definition for what a marriage is (when just based on the writings of their religion).

Luckily, the government of every country has provided a legal definition for what constitutes marriage in that country. Every country is different so the points raised on this page have to be adapted and filtered for the rules and practices that apply around the world. Note that not all countries recognize a marriage that is considered legal in a different country.

The problems start when religious people begin to add extra bits on top of what the law says and what their own religious texts say.

What is marriage?

Marriage is a recognized social, legal, and cultural union between spouses. Marriage establishes personal rights, shared responsibilities, and legal bonds.

Key aspects of marriage include:

• Legal recognition: In most societies, it gives partners rights to property, tax benefits, and medical decisions.
• Social and cultural bond: Publicly validates a couple’s commitment before family and friends.
• Personal commitment: Involves emotional support, shared daily life, and long-term partnership.

Here’s the first shock for some religious folk: the ceremony that they have invented around a marriage means nothing when it comes to the legal definition of marriage in their country.

So, at a legal level, it doesn’t matter if you stomp on a glass, or put rings on each others’ fingers, or recite vows at each other. What matters is that you have met the legal requirements for marriage in the jurisdiction under which you want to be married.

The legal side of the equation usually involves filling out paperwork. Very often, the legal part of a marriage is absorbed into the overall events of the marriage, and it often appears that the legal aspects take on a subservient role to the ceremonial aspects of the marriage. Many of the guests at a wedding may not even be aware of the legal aspect of the marriage.

So a legal marriage will always come down to official paperwork that has been filled out by authorized people and witnesses, signed by required parties, and registered with the applicable government authority. Beyond that, people are entitled to layer on whatever religious and cultural aspects they feel are important.

What is religious marriage?

Here is where the minefield opens up.

Religious people are not entitled to ignore or alter the legal definition and practice as applies to marriage in their country. That doesn’t make some religious people happy or comfortable with the legal definition of marriage in their country.

The fascinating part about religious marriage is the examination of what actually constitutes marriage via the text of each religion. This is something that the average religion person really hopes will never happen. It’s also something that the vast majority of religious people have never examined and hopes that no one will ever examine.

So, here we go …

Christian marriage

To start: would any Christian who is reading this please turn to the relevant section(s) in the bible and reveal the precise steps needed to formalize a marriage? E.g. What are the rules that must be followed for two people to be considered married according to the Christian scripture?

No? Couldn’t find it? Well that’s a bit strange, isn’t it?

This is an inconvenient truth that bugs many Christians because it exposes them to (justified) allegations of just inventing things to suit whatever current argument they are attempting.

It’s surprising that an omniscient god didn’t provide an exact definition for marriage, for example:

• Who can be married? This isn’t just the “one man and one woman” bit, because it should also define age limits and how distant two people need to be, e.g. via their blood relationship. Also, does their current or previous sexual or marital status matter?
• The ceremony? Who needs to be present? If someone needs to officiate, then what qualifications do they need, and what do they need to do?
• The act? What do the people getting married need to do? Do they have to recite certain sacred vows? If so, what? Do they need to sign something? If so, what?
• The aftermath? What needs to happen (if anything is permissible) should the marriage not work out? What rules apply to a person if their marriage partner dies?

Honestly, how hard would it have been for a god to have defined all that? There are 613 laws, rules and commandments in the old testament and over 1,000 in the new testament, so how would it have hurt to have a few more so that believers would end up in no doubt as to what constitutes marriage?

In genesis 2:24 we get “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh“, and in matthew 19:5-6 we get “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder“. In matthew 19:9 we get the instruction that it is okay for a man to marry someone else if his wife has committed adultery.

Those instructions don’t really cover that much, and certainly not with any precision. They suggest that a man can’t get married while still living with his parents, and that divorce isn’t okay – unless it is.

But the bible is a large work and when it comes to “marriage”, it tends to lead by example. Here are some types of “marriage” (well, union between people) that it explicitly depicts:

• Monogamous. This is your classical “adam and eve” (one man and one woman) union. For some reason, this is the only one that Christians today acknowledge. Unfortunately for any sort of definition, the bible describes this as including incestuous marriages, e.g. abraham and sarah (genesis 20), and isaac and rebekah (genesis 24). For instructions about how to offload a wife in which no favor is found, feel free to consult deuteronomy 24.
• Polygamous. This is when one man decides it is a good idea to get hitched to more than one woman. There are a lot of these, including by: lamech, abraham, jacob, esau, gideon, elkanah, lot, king david, and king solomon. The case of lot is just weird because technically he “married” twice, but unfortunately they were both his daughters (genesis 19). Another example of incest is when esau married his third wife (genesis 28). To round it out, jacob also dabbled in incest (genesis 29). See also deuteronomy 21 for some how-to instruction if you happen to have two wives.
• Levirate. This is where a brother-in-law has to marry his brother’s widow. E.g. genesis 38:8.
• A man (with one or more wives) and some concubine(s). E.g. a levite (judges 19), and nahor (genesis 22), and ishmael (genesis 25), and eliphaz (genesis 36), and abraham (genesis 16), and jacob (genesis 30), and reuben (genesis 35).
• A man and a female prisoner of war. See deuteronomy 21 for instructions.
• A man and his female rape victim. See deuteronomy 22 for instructions.
• A male slave and a female slave. See exodus 21 for instructions.

For Christians who hand-wave away the above with “that’s just irrelevant stuff from the old testament”, be careful because that argument also flushes away the beloved “adam and eve” example. It’s also necessary to remember that jesus himself is supposed to have said that he supports the old testament (matthew 5:17).

There is one thing that should become obvious from the above list: there is not a single “marriage” in the bible that can be described as being consensual. I.e. there isn’t a single union that is described as being desirous by the woman in the relationship. The bible doesn’t say that the woman involved always hated the union, however it never gives the woman’s point of view stating that it is what she wanted.

The reason for that is that the woman never got a say in the events. It was always a union arising from: what the man wanted, or what the man arranged with the woman’s father, or what was imposed via circumstances or biblical law, e.g. after the man had raped the woman.

So according to the bible, the rules for marriage are:

• Between a man and one or more women. The woman will be of the man’s choosing unless other laws force a woman onto him. The woman will never get a say.
• An age limit is not mentioned.
• It’s okay if the relationship is incestuous (at least to some relative distance).
• The man must no longer live with his parents.
• There are some extra rules if the missus is a servant slave.
• To make the marriage official, the man just has to have sex with the woman. There is no defined ceremony, words, or paperwork.
• The marriage can be ended when a man no longer finds “favor” with the woman.

Done. Nice and easy – as long as you are a heterosexual, misogynistic and patriarchal male. Admittedly, it’s not so great if you’re a woman and/or homosexual.

Somehow, from that definition, Christians today establish all sorts of implied rules when it comes to marriage. For many of them, they have somehow distilled what they want their bible to have said into the rules that they want to apply to everyone in society.

If you ever get into a debate with a Christian on the topic of marriage, simply ask them to turn to the page in the bible that defines what a marriage is. When they say “adam and eve” (and that’s all they will ever say), be ready to respond: “Oh, you mean the one where no instruction about marriage is actually given, and the woman was constructed specifically for the man from his rib, and she was forced into it and didn’t get a say”?

(More – coming soon …)