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RE: What's the point of marriage? - 10/21/2008 11:41:16 PM
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Acts29
Posts: 369
Joined: 1/14/2007
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quote:
ORIGINAL: fallenstar
Marriage to me is just a legal thing. I don't see how it makes your relationship any better or less complicated, and (in MY OWN oppinion) it seems to establish a role for the man and the woman to have to follow. It seems to be chaining you in a relationship, so that if one person becomes abusive, one cheats on the other, or just does'nt work out, you have to go through a long and painful process that just makes it all the worse for your soul to heal. You can't just leave and move on with your life. If two people truly love each other, they don't need marriage to help them love each other more. And then there's the belief about sex. Why should you have to wait before you get married to have sex? It makes more sense to me to have sex with someone I love, and are not married to, than to have sex with someone I married but I'm not really in love with.
I guess marriage is just to have a fun little ceremony with all your family and friends, and to some people marriage is a religous ritual. It seems so traditional to me, like society has programmed marriage into everybody's mind, so they are expexted to live a certian way and are shunned if they don't. Is it really so bad to decide not to? What's the point of marriage?
I take it you are not married.
There is a difference between making a public promise / covenant and just moving in together. For starters when you have found that "perfect person" for you, you are then willing to make a public promise/covenant. You do it because you want to not because you have to. This is one of those "mysteries" of God.
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RE: What's the point of marriage? - 10/22/2008 10:48:59 AM
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buckifn
Posts: 1868
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quote:
Marriage to me is just a legal thing. I don't see how it makes your relationship any better or less complicated, and (in MY OWN oppinion) it seems to establish a role for the man and the woman to have to follow. It seems to be chaining you in a relationship, so that if one person becomes abusive, one cheats on the other, or just does'nt work out, you have to go through a long and painful process that just makes it all the worse for your soul to heal. You can't just leave and move on with your life. If two people truly love each other, they don't need marriage to help them love each other more. And then there's the belief about sex. Why should you have to wait before you get married to have sex? It makes more sense to me to have sex with someone I love, and are not married to, than to have sex with someone I married but I'm not really in love with.
Unless you have God in your life I don't think one can ever understand His plan...for marriage and other things. When you accept Christ and ask for His guidance in every aspect of your life He reveals His will for your life through the Holy Spirit.
Have you asked Him about this? Perhaps you are not ready for marriage? You mentioned preferring sex with someone you love...do you realize God says that is sin? Are you saying you prefer sin over God's plan?
It sounds like you may just need to pray and invite the Holy Spirit to guide you and teach you about all this. He can explain it and help you understand it a lot better than anything we say here!
My marriage brings me into a deeper relationship with God than I have ever had and I know in part that is because we invite His presence into our marriage daily and each have a personal intimate relationship with the Lord daily.
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RE: What's the point of marriage? - 10/22/2008 12:11:17 PM
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deermousie
Posts: 1946
Joined: 9/26/2007
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quote:
ORIGINAL: fallenstar
And when you said "fickle emotions", are you saying that love comes after marriage? Because again I am confused.
Love grows in marriage. I loved my husband when I married him, but I love him more now. He told me he is embarrassed by realizing the shallowness of his love when we married, and is encouraged by the depth of it now. As we go through trials, hurts and losses in life, the committment of our marriage vows leads us to deeper love. Or people's relationships don't stand the stresses and tear apart when hard times come (health problems, job loss, death of a child, you name it). Life happens, and it sometimes is tough. Our vows before God protect us from our own selfish sin nature.
Christians usually vow before God to forsake all others (prescription against adultery), to be wed for better or worse (prescription against life's downturns), for richer or poorer (prescription against poverty), as long as life lasts (prescription against selfishness short-sightedness). Usually the husband promises his love and all earthly goods (prescription to meet a woman's need for love and security) and she promises to be good to him and respect him (prescription to meet his needs for keeping a good home under him while he's off fighting dragons, so to speak, and meeting his needs to be admired). This also is a prescription to build wealth in the family and provide for the care and kind nurturing of any children.
What could be better and non-destructive? 
quote:
I know two people who were madly in love and have had unwed sex. They have been together for 4 years (their about 23) and I can't imagine them with anybody else. I understand that their relationship is an acception, but I can't see how their "love life" is a sin.
It's a sin because God calls it sin.
God isn't some cosmic killjoy who wants to ruin your fun, but is the creator of the universe that runs on moral tracks. You can no more violate God's command to not have sex outside of marriage (fornication and adultery) than you can violate gravity when jumping off a tall building. He tells you not to do it so you won't get hurt. But if a person insists on sinning, God will let them. Their resulting brokenness might make them open to turning back to God... or vindicates their judgement when they chose sin over God for a lifetime, and they die in their sin. It's a moral universe.
Ffbruce's comment on betting you $100 those two won't be together in ten years is a sucker bet - the odds are highly on Ffbruce's side. Life is very hard and people are very selfish. Recognizing who God is and obeying Him with all the heart is the best bet anyone can ever make, because God is real, life is hard and we are sinners.
All of us have to stand under a very tall sky and decide if we're going to keep trying to force life to meet our standards, or surrender to a God who knows it all, has all power, and has shown He is good and forgives us and waits for us to crawl into His lap in surrender and neediness so He can love on us and make life good for us.
It's the best deal in the universe.
_____________________________
Want to know where a certain word or phrase in the Bible is found? www.biblegateway.com Yay!
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RE: What's the point of marriage? - 10/22/2008 3:16:30 PM
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shadowspring
Posts: 1552
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I don't think it's a given that the couple the OP knows who have been together four years will break up. They might still be together in four years.
The thing is that they are not planning on being together in ten years, twenty years, thirty years, till death do we part.
That kind of love, that lifelong commitment, is what Christian marriage at its best is all about.
In a truly committed Christian marriage, when you feel discouraged and fed up with your spouse, then you focus on YOUR VOWS, not their behavior. We can pray and ask the Lord to help us love like He does, like we vowed to love. He has never failed to help me love when I have asked!
When a spouse knows they are loved so completely, day in and day out, it frees them up for true intimacy- of heart, soul and body. It is something that keeps growing through the years, like deermousie said. For such a couple, even though there are rough patches, all in all life together does keep getting sweeter and sweeter.
However not everyone gets married with this intention. Some do get married just for the ceremony or the tax break. Others write their own vows, where they only vow to stay married as long as they are both happy, or some such silliness. Others might take the traditional vows, but really only mean for richer (not poorer) in health (not sickness) for better (not worse) till death (or divorce) do we part.
That's why the character of the person you are taking vows with is way more important than any feelings you may have for them at the moment! Not that you should get married with no feelings of attraction or affection, just that the feelings of love are not enough. Those will change many times over in many ways, good and bad, depending on things like hormones, stress levels, quality of sleep, diet and exercise.  Feelings are very fickle things!
Character counts more. So if you are not the kind of person capable of making and keeping a vow, I suppose it is better not to take one. 
_____________________________
"Blessed is the man...whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law meditates day and night. He will be like a tree planted by rivers of water..." from Psalm 1
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RE: What's the point of marriage? - 10/23/2008 9:18:28 AM
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emjayzee
Posts: 592
Joined: 4/11/2005
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quote:
I know two people who were madly in love and have had unwed sex. They have been together for 4 years (their about 23) and I can't imagine them with anybody else. I understand that their relationship is an acception, but I can't see how their "love life" is a sin.
That describes my husband and I before we were married. Exactly. We were madly in love, felt we were committed to each other, and couldn't understand how God could possibly call our relationship wrong. We knew we wanted to be together for the rest of our lives and didn't see how a wedding would have any effect on our relationship. Don't get me wrong, we planned to get married, but we just didn't see the point in not having sex until then.
Now, I can't pinpoint for you exactly what it was that changed our minds. But all of a sudden, we realized that we were living in sin. It was pretty simple. We resolved from that point to abstain from any sexual relationship until we were married, and we did.
Deciding to wait until marriage to have sex takes the focus off yourself and your desires and puts it on God and what He wants from you. There are so many things in this world that we can justify, but that is being selfish and thinking of our wants. When we are truly focused on what God wants, we are more willing to do things His way, and we know that he has our best interests in mind. We, unfortunately, do not always choose what is best for us.
_____________________________
unicorns borrowed from Matthew Webber, copyright 2002
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RE: What's the point of marriage? - 10/23/2008 11:21:00 AM
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Auben
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Joined: 4/13/2005
From: Where pines tower and cranberries float
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quote:
The thing is that they are not planning on being together in ten years, twenty years, thirty years, till death do we part.
I think this is worth bringing up again.
Your friends are probably greatly in love, however, they are both flexible enough to realize that this isn't someone they want to get up in front of all their family and friends and swear that they'll be with in 10, 20, 50 years. As together as they are they either don't believe in being with someone forever (keep your options open) or the other person isn't important enough to them yet to make that commitment.
The point of marriage is finding someone, not only someone who you can have great sex with or who makes you laugh, someone who you like enough-admire enough-to say 'I'm going to give this every ounce of my power, I'm going to give up my own way sometimes, I'm going to forgive, I'm going to try to understand your point of view, I'm not going to assume what you're thinking, I'm going to go out of my way for you--not just now but when you're annoying and when I'm tired and when I don't feel like it.' If you're blessed with good judgment it's usually someone who makes you a better person as well.
It's a beautiful promise, one I see often in parents in modern times but rarely in mates. Perhaps we always know there's another person out there to sleep with but we only have a limited number of blood children. The promise should be the same. There are going to be times your child is obnoxious and impossible to live with but you keep that relationship open, give in sometimes and be strong sometimes, until you grow back together again.
There's a reason that the divorce rate for people who live together first is higher then those who don't. Part of marriage is 1) knowing that you care for the other person so much that you can't imagine living without them 2) being able to make the commitment to work on it no matter what.
I really hope you have a chance to experience that love someday.
_____________________________
Tamara
~Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time~
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RE: What's the point of marriage? - 10/23/2008 12:42:28 PM
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deermousie
Posts: 1946
Joined: 9/26/2007
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Some Christian people I know got married last month. At the wedding ceremony, the groom was visibly shaking. When asked, he said it was because he finally understood the incredible step he was taking, how the vows were binding, and the responsibility of being head of a new family that God would hold accountable for the rest of his life.
Thinking it's just a party and a piece of paper is skimming the surface of a very deep sea. Thank God He teaches us and leads us onward; none of us could do it on our own.
I think my friends above are off to a super good start on happily-ever-after (that means you trust God and stay committed to each other's good when a job is lost, the car gets wrecked, and a baby is handicapped or dies).
_____________________________
Want to know where a certain word or phrase in the Bible is found? www.biblegateway.com Yay!
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RE: What's the point of marriage? - 11/6/2008 9:14:17 PM
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fallenstar
Posts: 132
Joined: 11/29/2007
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See, that's kind of the thing, "head of the household." I'm sure that a good relationship makes the man and women equal, but somtimes the marriage gives the man a role as dominant, which spoils the equality.
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RE: What's the point of marriage? - 11/6/2008 9:38:21 PM
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Mrs.Dawgfan
Posts: 11915
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Is that what is bugging you fallenstar? The whole dominance issue? First, "head of household" can vary in definition. Not everyone sees it the same way. Of course, if you see it as something negative then it will be well, negative. No where in the bible does G-d tell us the man to "dominate" the wife. In fact, He tells us that both the man and woman should be submissive. Both need to be submissive in their own special way. And it also depends on how you define equality. Equality how? Please tell us what equality means to you?
To me, we are equal in the sense that both men and women have equal importance in the relationship. I don't see equality as a power issue. When the husband acts as the head, he acts as the one who makes the final major decisions in the family. Being head is not a power trip, nor does it mean that one is more dominating than the other.
So it's not marriage that's the problem, it's how people live them. Do they do it rightly, giving the greatest honor to G-d and to each other? If not, that doesn't mean marriage should be void. It just means we have to examine ourselves and our relationships.
_____________________________
First Photo! BLOG
Formerly known as Above_All
...I will bless those that bless you- GEN 12:3
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RE: What's the point of marriage? - 11/8/2008 12:16:32 PM
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starvin.artist.gurl
Posts: 60
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I don't see how living together before marriage or even having casual sex before marriage creates immunity to the hardships you talk about when a marriage "goes bad". I have a friend whose son dated a girl for about six years. They were madly in love. They bought a house together. Bought furniture. Made plans together, even planned to get married "someday" when all the bills are in order. Well, one day the son woke up and decided he didn't "love" his girlfriend anymore. They broke up, but the irony is that the house is worth half of what it was now than when they bought it. They can't afford to sell the house because they'll wind up owing the bank a ton of money at once that they don't have. So they are still bitterly living together trying to figure out how to undo what they've done. To me this situation seems worse than a divorce.
My point is, no matter what people experience pain. First of all, if they had talked marriage before talking houses, they may have considered the choice they were making more fully. Why would you want to be in a relationship with someone who hasn't promised you everything? Why would you want to share a mortgage or a car payment or most importantly your body with someone who can't say, "hey, I'll be there for you even when times are hard"? That's what marriage is. It's saying I love you, and even when we're having a bad day, I'm going to put aside my selfish wants so we can make it through together. That's what marriage is for and that's what it's supposed to be. It's security and committment. And when it's done right, you will experience a level of love you were never aware of.
And ya know, what about the hundreds of thousands of fatherless kids born to unwed mothers who thought about marriage just as you do? Marriage is security that children will have parents and a family. Not everyone plans on children, but the only method of birth control that is 100% effective is abstinence.
People today are very selfish. We forget that our decisions impact so much more than ourselves.
I am 23 years old. I married the love of my life when I was 20. We dated 5 years before that and waited til our wedding night to be intimate. I am madly in love with my husband. And he's madly in love with me. I view my marriage as the most wonderful decision I ever made and I look forward to planning my future together with my husband. When we talk about our hopes and dreams, we don't have to wonder if we'll be together then. We know each other will be there. We can count on it. We took our vows and we meant them. We have no kids yet, but even if we have a child we don't quite plan on, we know each other will be there 100% for our children and each other.
I just don't understand why someone wouldn't want that kind of security in the crazy world we live in? I know there are plenty of failed marriages out there. I really believe though, that when marriage is done right, it can work beautifully. If all a bride or groom focuses on is the party, then they probably will have problems. It's not a decision to take lightly, but it's something worth pouring your life into.
My husband is my best friend. I loved him enough to marry him. I really believe that if you're willing to be intimate with someone with no intention of marrying them and committing to be there for them no matter what, then you don't really love them at all, or even know what love is for that matter.
< Message edited by starvin.artist.gurl -- 11/8/2008 12:24:25 PM >
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