Quick interjection then run:
Seems to me most folks in most cultures think that most of the time, the oral vows or written contract make the marriage, and then "it's okay to have sex now because now we're married". The sex "seals the deal", perhaps, but the "now we can have sex because now we're married" is pretty robust across cultures (and ties in, I think, with what Keith is saying: they're cutting a deal so they can have sex).
Exit stage left....
I think I see where you’re coming from, please correct me if I’m wrong.
1. You are asserting that covenant or none, when sex with intent happens, marriage officially starts?
Or
2. You are asserting that covenant or none, when sex happens, with or without intent, marriage officially starts?
Or
3. Prostitution, shacking up, disrespectful immature disregard of fellow high school students, or adultery, it appears that you do not categorize these as marriage, correct?
OK.
Great questions,
@Verifyveritas76. My short answer
could be to respond, "Yes to what
@andrew said about what I said," because that, across cultures and times, has been the dominant motivator for getting married: sex and its byproducts (children, bonding, relief). Bring me the man it didn't dawn on until after he got married that the woman he married was someone he could have sex with, and I'll get him a lucrative advance payment for being willing to be stuffed and mounted by a taxidermist so he can be put on display after death in a museum for rare mammals.
My answers to your questions, though, @Verifyveritas, are much more nuanced. Before answering, however, I believe it is time for full disclosure to remove any mystery about where I'm coming from. I've already posted and shared in multiple ways that I spent about 25 years (from approximately ages 23 to 48) as a non-believing agnostic, sandwiched in between being a devout believer in Christ's Resurrection.
To give those who want to write off my musings on the basis of their coming from a man who has demonstrated more than his share of hypocrisy in the matter, though, I should also share that I've been legally married 4 times, each and every marriage and divorce having occurred during my wasteland years. The first was a long, troubled 8 years that began with vows in which we stated that we did
not intend to spend the rest of our lives together and ended with a 5-year custody battle. I was guilty of leaving my 2nd wife for insufficient cause after 1 year and have since invited her to join Kristin and me (she considered for over a year, then declined). My 3rd wife left me after 6 months; I told her when she left I would take her back, no matter when she might seek me out again, and I meant that. I fully intended, at the time of making my 2nd, 3rd and 4th commitments to make them last forever (I'm an open book about all this, but I won't bore you with any further details here). Kristin and I got married in 1987 and are permanently soldered together. The point of all this is to acknowledge that I recognize that some of what I assert could reasonably be considered to be contradicted by my own behavior over the years.
I really can hardly remember a time when I didn't want more than one wife at a time. Additionally, based on mountains of serious Bible reading and study that started as a young kid, I concluded more than half a century ago, after taking everything into account that is said about marriage in Scripture -- most especially that which is attributed as having come directly from God's lips -- that, while the rest of the world has structures for marriage that center around getting permission from authorities in order to legitimize sex and reproduction, in the Divine Word something different is asserted. So, yes, we want to be given Get Out of Jail Free cards for prostitution, concubines, mistresses, employees of Planned Parenthood and high school boys who just can't figure out any other way to make that boner behave, but God seems to make it clear:
His rule is that if the two of you lie down together, one covers the other with his 'skirt' and/or the other lets her nakedness be uncovered, and the result is penis-vagina intercourse,
that is the beginning of the marriage. Old Testament, New Testament. Sex was designed by the Creator Who Makes No Mistakes, and anyone who fails to recognize that sex is the most powerful dynamite on the planet is a textbook fool.
So, @Verifyveritas, my answer to #1 is a resounding, "Yes." I do not adhere to the belief that asserting a profound difference between a marriage and a covenant is an exercise worth the energy required, as the distinction just becomes differentiating between those who give themselves permission to fail and marriage and those who officially try a lot harder to keep their promises. I'm not saying I think there's something wrong with striving for something with a higher level of commitment, but what I
am saying is that the whole covenant idea is just another man-made layer of bureaucracy piled on top of the man-made layer of church-and-state marriage licenses, when we already have enough legitimacy for believing that we should be committed to our spouses, given that God has already spoken on the issue. He provided the framework, He was clear where He stands on what we should do, and what He asserted our responsibilities are is fully within the capabilities with which He endowed us.
Do we fall short of consistently following our Father's directions? Of course we do. We give women money after f***ing them and convince ourselves that that eliminates our ongoing responsibilities toward each other. We tell ourselves that early lovers were just 'practice' and that we were young and stupid. We even justify putting to death the resulting new lives we create with talk about how we have more monumental things to do like getting a degree in music education and having a 1 in 350 chance of ever getting a job with it. But that's just delusion supported by one man-made philosophy or another, when, if we search our consciences after reading God's Word, we don't have to guess about what was
really expected of us.
The fact that we provide excuses and/or that we fail to do the right thing every time even when we try doesn't change our (One-True-God-Worshiping) awareness that, when we rock and then roll away, we are disobeying The Rule about Sex and Marriage.
So, yes, I'm asserting that, covenant or none, when sexual intercourse happens, marriage officially starts.
2. You are asserting that covenant or none, when sex happens, with or without intent, marriage officially starts?
The answer to the "without intent" phrase in #2, though, is, "No." Rape is right at the top of the list of heinous examples of adultery, and, practically speaking, no rapist should be left above ground to whom his victim could be forced to marry.
Or
3. Prostitution, shacking up, disrespectful immature disregard of fellow high school students, or adultery, it appears that you do not categorize these as marriage, correct?
However, to #3 I answer, "Yes," with certain allowances for working out the often twisted logistics in cases of adultery. There is profound disrespect of both God and the person with whom we engaged in sexual intercourse without a commitment to be permanently bonded. With adultery, the situation would almost have to be negotiated along with other affected individuals in order to determine how to formalize marriage relationships going forward in order to maximize people taking long-term responsibility for their actions. With the others, though, the only reason why people
don't take on the marriage commitment after sexual intercourse is that, within a culture, the majority silently agree to wink, nod and look the other way about it. Entirely eliminating those disrespectful sexual behaviors might be a fool's errand, but, on the other hand, behavioral scientists have already provided evidence that re-stigmatizing any of those choices would be an effective deterrent for most people.
And I believe it's always important to avoid conflating conversations about what God wants with conversations about whether or not human beings are going to misbehave. However, just because most of us consistently exceed the posted speed limits doesn't mean that those who set them didn't want us to follow them.