This is a response to a debate at Sound Politics over the question, “Should Government Be In The Marriage Business?“
The reason government is “in the marriage business” in the first place is to protect children who naturally proceed from traditional marriage, as well as to protect women. It used to be a given that it was a duty of men to protect women and children.
Radical feminism has largely changed this (especially with the baby boomer generation and their offspring), but there was still a remnant of society that continued to hold to this view and it has been steadily growing with converts like me who once embraced the liberal and feminist propaganda.
Society also considered marriage worthy of protection.
Aside from the religious nature of a wedding ceremony, there were and are aspects of marriage that are legally binding upon husband and wife. The vow to live together and love each other “until death do us part” is a legally binding contract, if you will. How a couple arranges their lives around this contract makes each party largely dependent on the other to hold up their end of the contract.
If the couple goes on to having, for example, three children, and the wife gives up her career to stay home and raise these children, she relies on the husband to be the breadwinner. She gives many years to the task of raising children, preparing meals for the family, organizing and keeping a good home, and considers it a good thing even though she is missing years of experience at her career while technology changes and her field of career experience becomes more advance than what she knows. Then one day the husband decides to run off with another woman. He has broken his vows, his contract, if you will, abandoning his wife and children.
Before no-fault divorce policies became the norm, the government would penalize the party in the marriage who had broken the contract (making him liable for supporting the other and the children, the faithful spouse would be granted custody of the children, the rights to most of their assets (which were all considered shared then), etc.
Now, though divorces can still be messy, everyone is considered equal, and there is really not much incentive in the law to hold the marriage together.
As a result, we see a huge increase in the divorce rate and this has more to do with the statistics being pointed (of more babies born out of wedlock in places where gay marriage is permitted) than “gay marriage” does. However, since marriage is less valued, due to its easy-in/easy-out approach in the law, what’s to make Brittany Spears and her 55 hr. (what’s his name) spouse think twice about jumping in and jumping out? It is easier to break a marriage contract than it is a lawn maintanance contract or any other business contract. Of course it’s going to be devalued.
Through liberal activism, marriage has lost its meaning in many circles.
One is considered “full of it” to say that it’s about children. That’s where we are today. And when the gay activists can point to Brittany and her first husband as a mock example of traditional marriage, and simultaneously point to a “committed gay man and his monogomous partner,” we wonder why our argument doesn’t hold up.
The truth is, we need a complete restoration of traditional marriage in this country on a personal level as well as within the culture, and government needs to get back to recognizing the fundamentals of what marriage exists for and do their job in protecting the marriage contract, making it clear to couples entering marriage, what the responsibilities and liabilities are within that contract. Simultaneously, we can restore the meaning of marriage and “gay marriage” becomes a moot point.
Marriage is a God created and ordained institution that exists prior to the state and does not require any permission from the state to be formed. The state’s only proper function is to recognize its independent existence and protect the sanctity of this institution and the parties involved. That’s the gov’t's proper role.
When the state issues a marriage license they are creating their own institution rather than recognizing a pre existing God ordained institution. These are two fundamentally different things that modern people have confused with each other so much that unless a couple has a marriage license they are not considered truly married because for them unwittingly they have attributed the final authority for marriage to the state rather than to God.
This is one of the many facets of statist philosophy that most of our modern population unquestionably accepts and believes in. This is the main cause of the current crisis in massive numbers of divorce through no-fault divorce laws. Now we’re facing homosexual marriage because of this statist philosophy.
One only has to look at the definition of marriage in Scripture and compare it to the definitions of marriage in Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, Blackstone and Black’s Law to see that marriage is an institution of God and has been redefined by man.
Let’s start with Scripture (KJV) to define marriage:
Genesis 1:27:
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
Genesis 2:24:
“Therefore a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife and they shall become one flesh.”
Matthew 19: 3-9:
19:3
“The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?
19:4
And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
19:5
And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
19:6
Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. (That includes the state! My emphasis)
19:7
They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?
19:8
He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.
19:9
And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.”
In Mosaic law a man was permitted to put away his wife in order to protect the wife from being abused or killed.
Also read the entire chapter of I Corinthians 7.
Compare the Scriptural definitions with Blackstone – Commentaries–1765, Bouvier, and Black’s definition of marriage throughout history:
Book 1 chapter 15
Three Requirements:
1. Willing to contract;
2. Able to contract;
3. Actually did contract;
according to the proper forms and solemnities required by law.
Bouvier’s Law Dictionary 1870 Volume 2.
A contract made in due form of law, by which a man and woman reciprocally engage to live with each other during their joint lives, and to discharge towards each other the duties imposed by law on the relation of husband and wife. Willing, able and actually contract.
3rd Black’s Law: 1933 & 4th Black’s Law Definition of Marriage: 1968
Marriage . . . is the civil status of one man and one woman united in law for the discharge to each other and the community of the duties legally incumbent on those whose associations is founded on the distinction of sex. A contract according to the form prescribed by law, by which a man and a woman, capable of entering into such contract, mutually engage with each other to live their whole lives together in the state of union which ought to exist between a husband and a wife.
5th Black’s Law: 1979 & 6th Black’s Law: 1990
Marriage . . . is the legal status, condition or relation of one man and one woman united in law for life, or until divorced, ( a very contradicting term negating the phrase “for life”) for the discharge to each other and the community of the duties legally incumbent on those whose association is founded on the distinction of sex. A contract according to the form prescribed by law, by which a man and a woman, capable of entering into such contract, mutually engage with each other to live their whole lives (or until divorced–not mine) together in a state of union which ought to exist between a husband and wife.
In conclusion, we see the change of the definition of marriage between 1968 and 1979 but in both cases it was man’s definition of marriage and not God’s definition. A question has to be raised: If man’s definition states that marriage is a civil and or legal contract, subject to the jurisdiction of human government how does this compare to the Scriptrual definition?
In the beginning God called the process of forming one man and one woman into one flesh as marriage.
Believers need to carefully think about all of the consequences and ramifications of obtaining a marriage license. By doing so, a Believing Couple places themselves voluntarily under the jurisdiction of ungodly and unbelieving judges and makes themselves unequally yoked with the state, a legal entity completely different in character than a living soul created by God. See I Corinthians 6.
G & T (Names withheld for privacy sake) –One flesh under the Laws of God–married for ten years, and because the state of Washington refuses to recognize God’s authority over HIS institution of OUR marriage, our marriage is NOT RECOGNIZED BY THE STATE OF WASHINGTON.
If “gay marriage” was ever instituted I have often considered getting a state “divorce”. Of course, my real marriage would still be valid.
If government were to get out of the marriage business, by default, there would be no common recognized definition of marriage, therefore society would be forced to accept all forms of “marriage”.
When marriage is outside the law only outlaws will get married.
I picture old Western Outlaws on horses with chaps and spurs. Cowgirls and cowboys with their kerchiefs pulled up over their noses to conceal their identity and ceremonies held in graveyards for secrecy and solemnity.
The “Homosexual Community” has absolutely no interest in real marriage, legal or not, that is to say, an unbreakable lifetime committment to one person, prior to which, and outside of which, there is no sexual intercourse. The only reason this debate has been engaged is because of the dilapidated state of existing marriage as a concept and as a legal entity and the only purpose for it is to destroy what remains of that heterosexual marriage.
Few recognize that this is a life or death struggle for the continuance of Western Civilization. If this battle is lost then “let them which are in the cities flee into the mountains, let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house, neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.” We would have to turn out the lights, the party’s over.
Joan -
I’ve thought the EXACT same thing.