Marriage is a natural sacrament of divine love.

 Despite the fact that the Bible raises human sexuality and the relationship between man and woman to such a high level, it never deifies sex or erotic love in the way that it was  deified in other religions of the ancient Near East. The finite  and limited love between man and woman is rather the image of an unconditional limitless love which God has for human beings. We may say that marriage is an earthly reality which prepares human beings to enter into that perfect communion with God. "It is therefore possible to speak, in this sense, of a natural sacrament of marriage, as indeed the Church's tradition  does.

Marriage in the Old Testament. here we deal with the practice and understanding of marriage in the life of the Israelites beginning with Abraham.

 Types of marriage .  The marriage practice of the Israelites was very much influenced by by the neighboring peoples. There are four types of marriages in ancient Israel:  Polygamy (David and Solomon) which seems to have been the privilege of the rich, bigamy (Ieah and Rachel for Jacob), concubinage (Abraham, Sara and Hagar), which involved a legalwife and a concubine, and monogamy which received more insistence manly in the post exilic period.

Marriage celebration. Marriage wasa family affair which required actually no public or religious ceremonies . It became effective by the mere act of bringing the bride into the house of the bridegroom. Though as an institution it was never in the hands of the priests, it was still celebrated with some religious elements for it was considered to be sacred.

Theology of Marriage

 From the account of the creation it is clear that the sense  of complementarity and equity is the way that God intended the relationship between man and woman to be from the  beginning (Gen. 1,27). But the story of the fall clearly shows that the inequality of the sexes in the life of the Israelites was a punishment that resulted from the fall and was not intended by God from the very beginning. Obviously marriage was presented as God's plan to increase the human race (Gen. 1,28). There is a deep sense of complementary, sense of bonding, sense of unity in the narrative of the creation of Eve. This is manifested in marriage as is evident from Gen. 1, 20-24. The Genesis account clearly shows  that God intended marriage in terms of monogomy. The other trends entered into marriage practice through the influence of the people in the midst of whom the Israelites lived. In the later periods of the history of Israel, the concept of fidelity to the covenant between God and  Israel becomes aIs. model for marital relationship ( Is. 54, 6-7). Marriage is relationship that should not be taken lightly. In the book of Deuteronomy the indissoluble character of marriage is presented with some exceptions which Jesus would explain as a concession for human weakness (Deut. 24, 1-40). But prophet Malachi speaks of a significant change in the matter of indissolubility: "For I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel" (Mal. 2, 15-16).