“Marriage is so last century!”

“Marriage is so last century!” said a colleague during a conversation to a group of us during a tea break. When I heard that, it dawned on me that I got married last century! “Wow, maybe she has a point”, I thought to myself.

Then I read a headline online, “Is Marriage obsolete?” by ABC World News. “Not only are more marriages on the rocks these days, so is marriage itself, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center” wrote Jessica Hopper.

What is marriage, anyway? I know a couple, Thabo and Lulu (not their real names). After a few years of being in a relationship (not complicated as some facebookers would say), Thabo sent his family to Lulu’s to ask for her hand in marriage. So in January 2010, Thabo’s family went to Lulu’s family, who named their lobola (dowry). In June 2010, Thabo sent his family to pay the lobola. In November, Thabo and Lulu went to the magistrate’s offices to sign the “marriage register” and came back with their marriage certificate. They then started planning their wedding. So, in September 2011, they had a fabulous wedding in their church officiated by their pastor. Their four year old daughter was the flower girl in her beautiful pink dress.

I ask again, what is marriage, anyway? When did Thabo and Lulu get married? Did they get married in June 2010 when Thabo paid the lobola? Or did they get married in November 2010 at the magistrate’s offices? Their marriage certificate says they got married on 19 November 2010. Or did they get married on 24 September 2011 at their church? Or did they get married on 30 September 2007 when Lulu moved in with Thabo at his townhouse after their daughter was born? Or did they get married on New Year’s Day 2007 when Thabo and Lulu “moved their relationship to the next level” and had sex for the first time?

For us to know when Thabo and Lulu got married, we must know what marriage is. Only when we know what marriage is, shall we know whether “marriage is so last century”, or whether it is even obsolete.

I want to address the question of marriage, “unmarried” couples living together, sex before marriage, polygamy, serial monogamy, and other related issues. This article is not for sensitive readers, but it is not x-rated.

Marriage has several dimensions, that is, the spiritual dimension, the socio-cultural dimension, and the legal dimension. The latter two are human inventions.

The original dimension of marriage is the spiritual dimension. This is what God instituted when he created humans male and female. In this dimension, marriage is consummated by sexual intercourse. The first time a couple have sex, that’s the time they get “married”. It is on the basis of that sexual act, that God fuses the man and the woman into one flesh. As it is written, “they become one flesh”(Gen. 2:24, NRSV). It does not matter whether it is two teenagers having sex, or two colleagues having an office fling, or a man picking up a prostitute in the street and taking her to a hotel room, or a man having sex with his wife on their wedding night. That act constitutes marriage!

“And don’t you know that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, “The two are united into one.” (1 Cor. 6:16, NLT). When Rebekah arrived with Abraham’s servant, it says that “Then Isaac took Rebekah into his tent; he married her, and thus she became his wife.” (Gen. 24:67, New American Bible). There was no wedding, no fanfare, no magistrate. He simply took her into the tent, had sex with her, and they were married!

In the Old Testament, God told Moses to tell the people of Israel, “If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged to anyone and sleeps with her, he must pay the customary dowry and accept her as his wife.” (Exo. 22:16). Regarding people ordained as High Priests, God gave this instruction: “The high priest must marry a virgin. He must not marry a widow, a divorced woman, or a woman defiled by prostitution.” (Lev. 21:13-14, NLT).

Talking about divorce, Jesus said, “a man who divorces his wife, unless she has been unfaithful, causes her to commit adultery. And anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (Matt. 5:32, NLT).

What does all this mean? It means that a man and a woman become one flesh when they have sex together. When two teenagers have sex as virgins, they are de facto getting married. When a man has extramarital sex with another woman, he has effectively divorced his wife, and married the mistress he is sleeping with. When a polygamous husband sleeps with his wives, he effectively divorces and remarries each time he sleeps with any of them. When a man picks up a prostitute, he effectively divorces his wife and becomes one flesh with the prostitute. This is why premarital or extramarital sex is prohibited by the orthodox Christian teachings. It is not prohibited on social, cultural, moral or even religious grounds. It is prohibited on spiritual grounds. It is because of what sex means. Sex = Marriage.

When a virgin sleeps with a person for the first time, God makes the virgin one flesh with the other person. “Making one flesh” is a deep spiritual truth which goes into the very being of the couple. That is why many people, after they are divorced, they end up with the same kind of person they divorced. In fact, they may divorce and remarry ten times; they will more often than not end up with the same kind of person. It is probably because the first sexual relationship they had made them one flesh with that kind of person, and their soul continues to look for that person.

Most polygamous men marry the same type of woman. Why? It is probably because they have been made one flesh with that kind of person. Every time they look for a spouse, their soul is yearning for a particular kind of person. It is extremely dangerous to have premarital sex or extramarital sex. It is like having organ transplant without checking for organ compatibility. It is a medical disaster. In this case, it is a spiritual disaster.

By his grace, God can undo the spiritual damage you do to yourself by having premarital or extramarital sex, but the scars remain for the rest of your life. It is just not worth it.
Going back to our couple, Thabo and Lulu, they got married on 1 January 2007 “when they took their relationship to the next level". “The socio-cultural and legal dimensions of marriage were human inventions to deal with promiscuity. Speaking of divorce, Jesus said “Moses permitted divorce as a concession to your hard-hearted wickedness, but it was not what God had originally intended. And I tell you this, a man who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery—unless his wife has been unfaithful” (Matt. 19:8-9, NLT). When the disciples understood what Jesus was saying to them, they said, “Then it is better not to marry!” (v. 10)

Throughout the ages, societies and different cultural groups started defining what it means to get married. So in many African cultures, we still have a practice of paying lobola to designate the beginning of a marriage. In western cultures, they added a legal requirement, which is what we call a civil marriage. So married couples are given a certificate of marriage. Of course many of these certificates are not worth the paper they are written on, because even as they sign at the magistrate, they are still involved in extramarital relationships.

You will be surprised to even hear that even the wedding in the church is a cultural invention by Christians. Christians do not have to be married in a church to be spiritually married. Wedding celebrations come in many forms around the world. Most of them are good, but they do not constitute the marriage. The wedding tradition is a great tradition, and I encourage Christian youth to get married in this way, and to remain celibate until their wedding night, when God will make them one flesh with their husband or wife. The wedding itself does not constitute the marriage. It is the sex on that wedding night that consummates the marriage.

Is marriage so last century? Of course not! As long as sex is happening, marriages are taking place all the time. In fact, Jesus said that “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage." (Lk. 17:26-27, NIV). Marriage is not about to become obsolete. There will be more of it until Jesus returns.

We live in a confused, messed up society which does not know what marriage is anymore. What we now call marriage is the devil’s lie to hide the truth of what damage we are doing to ourselves when we have premarital or extramarital sex. “Run away from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.” (1 Cor. 6:18, NLT) Don’t do it!

If you are living with your boyfriend or girlfriend, surprise-surprise! You are married! You may just as well legalize it. Make it official. Pay the lobola or go to the magistrate, or call your pastor today. If you break up, you are as good as divorcing. Those who have gone through break ups, will tell you that the pain is as bad as getting a legal divorce. You see, the heart knows it is not just a break up, it is divorce. I hope this article will stop you in your tracks, and make you do the right thing. God bless you.

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