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State Marriage License

steve said:
Is it marriage if it doesn't include witnesses and a covenant between the two?
Is a vague intention to stay together recognized as marriage by YHWH?
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1) Witnesses are not required. Only God. Or another way of looking at it is, God is the Witness. The promise or "intent" to stay together is the covenant. The contents of that covenant are outlined in the Bible. If someone disagrees with or rejects parts of that covenant, they are rejecting the way God designed marriage, but a marriage it still is.
2) This honestly perplexes me. How vague can "I want you to be my woman" be? Let me channel Yoda here: Intention or no intention, there is no vague. You either intend to stay together and it is a marriage or you do not intend to stay together and it is fornication. And, yes, i'm intentionally ignoring the whole sex = marriage debate.
 
NetWatchR said:
1) Witnesses are not required. Only God. Or another way of looking at it is, God is the Witness. The promise or "intent" to stay together is the covenant. The contents of that covenant are outlined in the Bible. If someone disagrees with or rejects parts of that covenant, they are rejecting the way God designed marriage, but a marriage it still is.
2) This honestly perplexes me. How vague can "I want you to be my woman" be? Let me channel Yoda here: Intention or no intention, there is no vague. You either intend to stay together and it is a marriage or you do not intend to stay together and it is fornication. And, yes, i'm intentionally ignoring the whole sex = marriage debate.
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Just my own .02. I don't think this is a black and white - either/or proposition. I think this falls under the good, better, best categorization.

I think that either of the stated examples are considered to be marriage in Gods eyes, one is just arguably more functional and better defined for long term stability and success. (Though it is of course possible to have long term success without a written covenant and witnesses and possible to have failures with covenant and witnesses)
 
In the current mindset of people raised in a culture of legalized marriage contracts, i can see that and agree, in general. However, what defines a marriage according to God has nothing to do with man's laws. period. unless i'm following the wrong rabbit hole, this separation between lawful and legal is the biggest roadblock to fully understanding marriage as He intended. As long as it is understood in the legal sense, I think a lot of nuance is lost.

One way that helped me realize how much more power there is behind a non-legal marriage (bad wording, i know) is this: He's in it because he wants to be. She's in it because she wants to be. They are together because they want to be. Not because they have this legal contract. There is no outside bonding, it's internal. All else being equal, I see two people without a marriage license as a much more powerful representation of a biblical marriage. It is so easy for one or the other to leave when there is no divorce involved. How much more is the desire to remain together necessary by default?

At least that's the way i see it.

The short version is, how we feel about something is rarely relevant. If the question is what is required, then answers are concrete, dynamic and objective. If the question is what is allowable, then the answers are fluid, static and subjective.
 
I would never hand my daughter over to a man who could not make a stronger commitment than: "I want her to be my woman, I intend on staying with her for the rest of my life."
 
"I intend to quit smoking."

"I am signing a covenant to quit smoking."

Which statement has a better chance of being carried through with?
 
steve said:
Is it marriage if it doesn't include witnesses and a covenant between the two?
Is a vague intention to stay together recognized as marriage by YHWH?
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It's like a greatest hits parade in here tonight. Does anyone want to talk about submission while we're reigniting flaming bricks?

There is no covenant involved in marriage in scripture. A young guy and an old guy get together and haggle out a price. They throw a party, get roaring drunk and then the young takes the ok guy's daughter in the back room and has sex with her. Then be comes out and brags about it.

That's biblical marriage. There is nothing mystical or over spiritualized about it. I supposed you could cut back on the drunken roaring if you wanted to class it up a little.
 
There you go trying to cut back on the drinking again. I swear you're no fun at all.... :rolleyes:
 
OMG....
 
Actually, the agreement made between the old guy and the young guy is the covenant.

If the young guy seduces the girl without a covenant with her father, there is no marriage that happened.
If the father makes a covenant with the young feller after the fact, then it is a marriage.
If the father rejects the seducer, he still owes the bride-price. A really expensive roll inthe hay.
 
I'm dodging flaming bricks left and right. He has endowed her to be his what? Oh I didn't dodge that one. Shucks. I'm sorry.
 
Shibboleth said:
It's easier to change your mind in favor of getting a marriage license later if you realize you need one for some reason, than to get rid of one after the fact.
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That in my mind is the biggest and clearest reason not to get a state marriage licence.

The benefits and disadvantages of having a marriage licence are completely different from country to country, and from personal situation to personal situation. For instance, in the USA there are some legal advantages to having a licence (depending on the state), and it is possible to obtain a divorce (depending on the state) provided you're willing to spend silly amounts of money. But in New Zealand cohabitating couples are treated essentially identical to legally married ones, there is virtually no advantage to having a licence at all. And it is next to impossible to get a divorce if you intend to keep living together, because the only allowable reason for divorce is "irreconcilable differences" and the evidence required is a two-year separation, so as long as you keep living together divorce is essentially impossible. Once in, you're locked in. And every other country is different. So we paid $125 for a licence that gives us no advantages and simply locks us into an arrangement that can only be neutral or a disadvantage in the future. If we moved to a different country the situation could be different again.

If you're cohabitating and find that there would be an advantage to being married, you can walk in to the registry office and be married for a minimal fee within a matter of days. If you're married and find there would be an advantage to being "unmarried", you'll probably find you're stuck. So if you have no marriage licence all options are open to you for whatever unforseen legal situation you may find yourself facing ten years from now.

Remember the laws are likely to change over time also, and you don't know which would be more advantageous in the future.

We have one, but if we were marrying today with our current understanding we wouldn't get it.
 
Samuel, do relatively few people bother to get their marriages licensed anymore in New Zealand then? Seems the likely result.
 
Mojo said:
Yikes! What was more painful? The reversal, or the bill?
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I think I'd spend $8000 to *NOT* have to undergo a procedure like that
 
Shibboleth said:
But does he merely intend to cut back, or did he sign a covenant to do so? :cool:
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i lterally burst out laughing at this.
Of course it's 5 am and I'm still up so ...
 
Protecting the sanctity of marriage is more than we are capable. God pretty well sits on this married/unmarried determination question and refuses to budge as God decides if and how marriage fits the individuals. And it takes God-like capabilities to resolve what is correct. (Which is why we need and have a big God).
A short scenario to explain this could be a couple that God does not want to get married, goes ahead and marries anyway. Before getting married, the idea is a sinful one, as God does not want it to happen. They proceed against God and marry. It would be difficult to accept the idea that what is sinful to God, instantly becomes holy. And even if it does happen that way, it takes God to determine this. Our attempt to sanctify such a marriage/relationship involves a spiritual determination that we can not do. The couples best protection from an angry God is in fact because God takes such a hands-on approach and can instantly provide mercy and forgiveness. It belongs to God. God joins you together and with God's own authority you are kept together unless God changes something.
 
mystic said:
Samuel, do relatively few people bother to get their marriages licensed anymore in New Zealand then? Seems the likely result.
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Most people shack up, have a child or two, then decide to get married. Here's a news article describing NZ culture regarding marriage. Marriage has far more to do with children than relationships now. And even that's just tradition, there's little practical reason to do so any more, but since every little girl wants to get dressed up in a white dress one day so they often manage to do it eventually.

So approximately 50% of births are to unmarried parents, but a lower proportion of children actually live in homes where their parents are unmarried, since people who are having children tend to get married at some point.
Ex nuptial births nz.png
The marriage rate is a fraction of what it once was:
general-marriage-rate-wide.gif

And the average age of marriage has increased since people marry after having children, rather than before:
median-age-at-marriage.gif

Now, what I really wanted to find was statistics from the latest NZ census showing how many couples were married vs cohabitating. BUT IT'S NOT EVEN REPORTED ANY MORE! I'm sure it's buried somewhere, but I can't see it. I can find detailed official statistics from back in the 1990's on this sort of thing, but nothing recent. Here's the official infographic on key family statistics from the 2013 census - marital status isn't mentioned anywhere. That's how unimportant it has become!
 
Thanks for the info Samuel. I was talking with a teacher from a local primary school some years ago and she commented that 49% of the children in the school were from homes with only one of the biological parents present. I suspect that figure would likely have increased with the increase in broken relationships. Just a point completely off topic, but she also said that all the problem children in the school were in the 49% group.
 
FollowingHim said:
Most people shack up, have a child or two, then decide to get married. Here's a news article describing NZ culture regarding marriage. Marriage has far more to do with children than relationships now. And even that's just tradition, there's little practical reason to do so any more, but since every little girl wants to get dressed up in a white dress one day so they often manage to do it eventually.

So approximately 50% of births are to unmarried parents, but a lower proportion of children actually live in homes where their parents are unmarried, since people who are having children tend to get married at some point.
View attachment 308
The marriage rate is a fraction of what it once was:
general-marriage-rate-wide.gif

And the average age of marriage has increased since people marry after having children, rather than before:
median-age-at-marriage.gif

Now, what I really wanted to find was statistics from the latest NZ census showing how many couples were married vs cohabitating. BUT IT'S NOT EVEN REPORTED ANY MORE! I'm sure it's buried somewhere, but I can't see it. I can find detailed official statistics from back in the 1990's on this sort of thing, but nothing recent. Here's the official infographic on key family statistics from the 2013 census - marital status isn't mentioned anywhere. That's how unimportant it has become!
Click to expand...
Not much different stateside.
 
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