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14.01.2019 Feature Article

Will You Marry Me?

Marriage Defined
Will you marry me?Will you marry me?
14.01.2019 LISTEN

Marriage is a part of normal life.
Life, fully lived, includes marriage. In dealing with marriage we are dealing with life, for marriage consist of the blending of the lives of two individuals. Marriage has often been regarded as the cornerstone of socity. In pre-modern and modern societies alike, it has been seen as the most basic unit of social organization and one that carries out vital tasks, such as socializing children. Marriage is a phenomena that has been prevalent in society for almost as long as society itself has existed. Although marriage rituals evolve and change throughout societies, the concept of marriage remains an essential part of human civilization.

Marriage is the institution that perpetuates our faith and values from one generation to another. The Christian Church throughout the centuries saw it as the basis upon which a society is consolidated and enhanced.

While every marriage is never perfect and while there has always been spectacular failures, there nevertheless has been an ideal as expressed by Jesus: “And answering, He said, Have you not read, The Creator from the beginning, a male and a female He made them, and said, On this account a man shall forsake his father and his mother and shall be joined to his wife, and they shall be, the two, one flesh, insomuch that no longer are they two, but one flesh? Therefore, that which God once for all yoked together let man not be separating. … But from the beginning it [namely, the right of divorce] has not been thus, right down to the present moment, and as a result it continues to be at variance with the original enactment. Moreover, I am saying to you, Whoever dismisses his wife for any other cause than fornication, and marries another, is committing adultery.” (Matthew 19:4-6, 8-9 Wuest NT)

And also by the Apostle Paul: “The wives, be putting yourselves in subjection with implicit obedience to your own husbands as to the Lord, …. In this manner ought also the husbands to love their wives as their own bodies. ….. This mystery is great. However, I am speaking with regard to Christ and the Church. Nevertheless, also as for you, let each one in this manner be loving his own wife as himself, and the wife, let her be continually treating her husband with deference and reverential obedience. (Ephesians 5:22, 28, 32, 33.Wuest NT)

Jesus, the God-man who came to fulfil all the wishes of the Creator-God explained that marriage is forever and whatever marriage situation one finds him or herself God expects the marriage to be forever. The Apostle Paul, who was the greatest interpreter of Christ, also tells us that human marriage is a shadow of the relationship between Christ and the Church. All marriages are to be representative of that relationship, therefore whatever peculiar problems faced in it; it must be worked out in the marriage.

When identifying the central components that constitute general social structures, one cannot overlook the integral role that marriage, in its many manifestation, plays in the make-up of human societies. Marriage, the ultimate extension of pair bonding, developed because God, the Creator, ordained it through Adam in these words therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh (Genesis 2.24, ESV).

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