What is Marriage? 2B (or not 2b, I suppose)
Marriage is about Sex
So, Andrew has written his next ‘letter’ in our series.
The series so far includes this post, and…
1A By Andrew: Where he lays out a bunch of questions and thoughts about what marriage is, dealing with both historical issues (how our view of marriage has changed over the years) and definitional ones (legal vs religious).
1B By Von: Where I ask and answer the question, “Is Marriage Real?”.
2A By Andrew… In it he deals with the idea of marriage being real; the differences between legal, religious, and actual marriage; and wonders how these both relate to ‘gay marriage’.
In his most recent letter he gives two definitions of marriage, including:
Marriage is a sacred covenant between a man and a woman, established and blessed by God. It is a lifelong commitment to love, honor, and support each other and represents the unity of two into one. Two imperfect people making one person that actually has a chance to be “whole”, considering children NEED the entirety of what it is to be, to live, to exist, and to thrive this point is crucial.
Not sure where he got that definition, and while I like it I think it has a couple of issues. So I think it would be good to start this post with a definition of marriage, and then I will go off a bit into an interlude of anti-gnosticism.
—
To start with I will be using this abbreviated definition:
Marriage is a permanent covenant to exclusive sexual[3] union between a man[1] and a woman[2] that has been and is being consummated. It was ordained by God for the purpose of producing a Godly seed, in order that man should take dominion; to which end the woman is his helpmeet, and their children are arrows.
Some have decided that because it was ‘instituted’ that that makes it an institution, and thus of no value. Let us be clear, even if marriage itself is an institution (not a clear proposition), that does not make your marriage an institution. Your marriage is a covenant, a commitment, indeed a series of covenants which bind you to your spouse, your children, your community, your church, and your God. The penalty for breaking that covenant is death.
The above definition is stated in specifically Christian terms, but I wish to make it clear that I am not claiming only Christians can be married, or that there is some definition of marriage that applies to Christians and some other definition that applies to others. That’s the result of believing that marriage is a real thing: the definition applies to everyone (in its own way).
Most Christians won’t need references for the above statements, but if you do, here are some quick, partial, references:
Permanent: Malachi 2, Christ and divorce
Covenant: Malachi 2, Christ and divorce
Exclusive: Job 31:1, Ten Commandments, I Cor 7
Sexual union: Genesis 2, Proverbs 5, I Cor 7, one flesh
Man and Woman: Genesis 2, Christ and divorce
Has been and is being consummated: Law of betrothal, Proverbs 5
Producing a Godly seed: Malachi 2, saved in childbearing, I Tim 5, Titus 2, Psalm 127, 128
Dominion: Genesis 2
Helpmeet: Genesis 2, I Cor 14
Arrows: Psalm 127, 128
(If you wish further clarification or support, that’s what the ‘comment’ button is for!)
Now that I have my definition out of the way, and have given everyone lots to think about and yell at me about, I would like to take a quick, anti-gnostic interlude to talk about one aspect of the above definition: the idea that marriage is a ‘sexual’ union.
I have a complaint about the way people use the word ‘puritan’. People use the word when they see someone avoiding talking about sex. But the puritans weren’t puritanical when talking about sex.
Oh, they were puritanical about sex in a lot of ways that moderns find abhorrent. They didn’t believe in sex before marriage, they didn’t believe in sex outside of marriage, they didn’t believe in sex between men or between women.
But they were all about sex… in marriage. Lots of sex in marriage, and rather open about it too. Indeed, given that an entire family of a dozen people might be all living in a ten by ten house (read room) together…
But this post is about the definition of marriage. What is marriage? Well, my quick interlude here is to say that… marriage is about sex.
The word that moderns may be looking for when they say ‘puritan’ is ’gnostic’. Modern definitions of marriage, and even Websters, often skip right over the sex part. They go all spiritual or emotional about love, and tenderness, and compassion, and caring, etc etc etc… but they don’t mention sex.
So this quick interlude is just to say… marriage is about sex. Marriage is not gnostic.
There is a logical fallacy, I think it might be sort of included in the ‘can’t see the forest for the trees’ thing, altho I don’t think that is the best analogy. It goes like this:
1) We start with some basic thing. In this case we start with a guy and a girl who are both horny and decide to have sex. But the girl, no dummy, knows that she might get pregnant and have to breastfeed and the like, so she gets the guy to agree to stick around, chop down trees, bring home the occasional deer, etc. The guy, also no dummy, says, “Well, OK, but that means they’ll keep having sex, right?” That, put crudely, is marriage.
2) Now, once they are in this relationship, and the girl is popping out babies and putting them to her breast, and the guy is getting better and better at chopping logs and killing deer and bringing them home and even barbecuing them, they discover that living together like this involves lots of other things. Like talking about when he will bring the deer home (he doesn’t know) and does he love her (he doesn’t know) and will he please bring Billy on the next deer hunting trip because he’s being a pain around the house (sure, about time that kid started pulling his own weight around here). And so they talk about these things, and others, and when the guy is sitting around the campfire with some other guys (while theoretically hunting deer, but Billy won’t tell) he talks about how much work this whole living with a woman thing is. Sure, the sex is great, but she wants to do all this talking!
And the older guys say, “Yup, that’s what this whole living with a girl thing is all about. Talking and spanking children etc etc.
”
3) And then some wise guy comes up with a name for the whole thing (marriage) and starts writing books about it. And he doesn’t write about sex, since that’s way too obvious and none of his business anyway, he writes about communication and emotional commitment and spiritual oneness etc etc.
4) To the point where a whole ‘wedding’ can happen and there isn’t one word said about sex in the whole thing! And the young people get the idea that the whole spiritual commitment and oneness etc etc was the point of the whole thing! And so when a young woman gets married if she doesn’t feel the right amount of spiritual oneness she starts to think that her marriage is a failure.
5) And then we end up in a situation where people think they can marry their toaster.
So I wish to reiterate that marriage is a sexual relationship. Sex, children, breastfeeding, the whole nine yards. And by ‘sexual’ I mean frequent vaginal intercourse between a man[1] and a woman[2]. I may, at some other time (or in the comments) discuss the edge cases or the ‘what if’ cases; what I present here is the core definition, created by God and applied for thousands of years of human history.
Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.
So in this exchange I have written two posts so far, and made two points:
1) Marriage is real
2) The definition of marriage is something like: “Marriage is a permanent covenant to exclusive sexual union between a man[1] and a woman[2] that has been and is being consummated. It was ordained by God for the purpose of producing a Godly seed, in order that man should take dominion; to which end the woman is his helpmeet, and their children are arrows.”
I am certainly not done defining marriage, but I hope that this moves the discussion forward. In direct response to Andrew’s question, “If it was not called marriage in law, would gay marriage be disputed in any way?” My answer is ‘yes, in every way, and from both directions.’ There was a time before the government recognised ‘gay marriage’ in law, and there certainly was a lot of dispute then.
And since not only ‘gay marriage’ itself but the underlying activities are against the nature of reality and specific revelation then, again, yes.
Links to further posts
What Is Marriage #1A (Dad Explains) Questions on what marriage is / How marriage has changed / Legal vs. Religious Questions
What Is Marriage #1B (Von) Asked and answered “Is Marriage Real?”
What Is Marriage #2A (Dad Explains) Expands on marriage being real within the framework of “names” or nomenclature.
What Is Marriage #2B (Von) Marriage is a sexual union. That’s not all it is (by a long chalk), but that is its core.
What is Marriage #3A (Dad Explains) Asks the question, “Is marriage solely about children or are children a critical part of marriage itself?” and raises the spectre of infertile couples.
What is Marriage #3B (Von) “Marriage is… ordained by God for the purpose of producing a Godly seed…”
What is Marriage #4A (Dad Explains) Andrew summarizes a bunch of his thoughts and adds several aspects
What is Marriage #4B (Von) Marriage is a covenant. Also, post more scripture!
What is Marriage #5A (Dad Explains) All about commitment.
What is Marriage #R1B (Von) A bit of a discursion deeper into covenant
What is Marriage #5B (Von) Marriage is Obedience
I love comments, and especially love comments that disagree in an intelligent way. If anyone reads this post, finds it interesting, and would like to get involved in an exchange of ideas, I’m your man. Put in a comment and lets get it done.
[1] By ‘man’ I mean, for the purposes of this definition, a human being with XY chromosomes, all appropriately male primary and secondary sexual characteristics, who accepts and applies the ‘male’ role in his society. The definition of marriage might apply to someone who does not fully fit all of this description, but I am not addressing those edge cases here.
[2] By ‘woman’ I mean, for the purposes of this definition, a human being with XX chromosomes, all appropriate female primary and secondary sexual characteristics, who accepts and applies the ‘female’ role in her society. The definition of marriage might apply to someone who does not fully fit all of this description, but I am not addressing those edge cases here.
[3] I define ‘sexual’ later in the article, but at the very least, “frequent vaginal intercourse between a man[1] and a woman[2].”
Sure!
*gasp* you said the word SEX
The horror!
Wonderful as always Von.
I will be re-reading this a few times in the coming days. I found my mind pre-occupied with the passages from Malachi so I am confident I didn't get it all in.