Marriage in the New Testament

Jesus' attitude towards marriage. This is expected most clearly in Mark 10:2-9,  in a controversy with
the Pharisees. Jesus is confronted with the question of divorce. Jesus did not enter into the casuistry,
but raises the whole matter to a higher level. And points to the original order of God's creation. His
conclusion is " what God has joined together,let no man put asunder". It would be wrong to under-
stand the pronouncement of Jesus about marriage as a legal statement.It is above all a prophetic
and messianic proclamation, an affirmation of salvation and grace. In Jesus' proclamation, marriage
 is seen both as part of the original order of creation and as an aspect of the order of salvation of God
in his kingdom of love and faithfulness in future.

The Christological understanding of marriage.There is a change in the
understanding of marriage with the coming of Christ. Marriage which is closely linked to humanity,
as we have seen earlier,will have to be understand in a new way.Paul expresses it by saying that Christians
should marry "in the LORD" (1Cor.7,39). Through Baptism an ontological change or a deep personal transformation takes place in the Christians.They are united with Christ not merely on an ideological plane,
but on a personal level.In marriage the relationship between husband and wife is grafted into the personal
relationship between Christ and the Church established by Christ (Eph.5,25). When Christians enter into marriage relationship the following take place:

The key to unity between husband and wife is in the fact that both are integrated into the self-gift of Christ.
The subjection of the wife to husband should not be understood in a juridical sense,but in a personal and organic sense; in the same way the self-gift of husband to the wife should also be understood. their roles as
husband and wife acquire a mystical dimension through Christian marriage.There is no superiority or inferiority,but only only complementary of function. This expressed very beautifully in 1 Cor. 7,4. "For the
wife does not have authority over her own body,but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have
authority over his own body,but the wife has". thus a new kind of marriage takes place when Christian enter into marriage in Christ. It is not merely a marriage of creation, but a marriage of the new creation which integrates them into the self-giving of Christ.

Marriage in Christian tradition

In the Patristic Period. The early Christian took great care to see that the Christians entered into marriage by choosing partners who were members of the faith community because of the deep meaning that they gave to to Christian understanding of marriage in Christ which we have explained above.Apart from that there were no Christian marriage rituals.They simply got married according to the civil customs and ceremonies of the day.There was little involvement of the clergy and their presence was not required for validity.The only active role of the clergy was the blessing of the spouses, a custom that become widespread without becoming obligatory and without a prescribed formula. In some cases there was a Eucharistic celebration at which the newly wed participated and received the blessing. We have evidence of a nuptial Mass in the Roman Sacraments from 6th century onwards.


In the Middle Ages. From 11th century onwards, due to instability and weakening of civil authority, the Church took over the civil regulations of marriage. Marriage is now conducted in facie ecclesiae
(in the presence of the Church)and the social elements peculiar to earlier secular form were now incorporated
into the marriage liturgy, which had become a liturgical rite conducted by the priest. It is at this time that the Church decides that consent (the Roman juridical element)and the consummation ( the Franco-Germanic personal element) enter  as the constitutive elements of marriage.It is Pope Alexander III who declared consent as the essence of the bond of marriage and that the bond is indissoluble only after consummation.
Hence the concept of marriage ratum et consummatum.


The Council of Trent.The council of Trent in the polemic against the Reformers stressed the sacramental nature of marriage and the power of the Church to regulate marriage. It also sought to combat the evil of clandestene  marriage.It declared that in future the only valid form of marriage for Catholics would be consent declared before a priest and two witnesses. The rite itself become juridical in nature with the focus on consent and ratification of consent by the priest. This form of the rite continued until very recent times.

The teaching of Vatican II.

This represents a change of perspective.Some of the major points are:

There is a shift from the juridical to the more personalistic concept of marriage 'Contract' gives way
to the more biblical 'covenant'. " the intimate partnership (foedus = covenant) of life and the love
which constitutes the married state is rooted in their irrevocable personal consent".

Conjugal love is the concrete essence of Christian marriage,  
 reflecting as it does the covenant love of Christ for his church. " He abides with them in order that by their mutual self-giving spouses will love each other with enduring fidelity, as he loved the Church and delivered
himself for it ".


The terminology of primary and secondary ends is abandoned and the
values of marriage are listed without any hierarchical preference.

The sacramentality of marriage is not something added to the marriage union established through human love. : " Authentic married 
love is taken up into divine love and is ruled and enriched by the redemptive power of Christ and
the salvific action of the Church ".

There is an emphasis on the necessity of faith commitment for the
sacramental of marriage.Marriage is not just between baptized Christians, but between 
Christifideles , faithful Christians.All these elements are reflected in the Introduction to the New Rite of 
Marriage. 

Elements For A Correct Undrestanding Of Christian Marriage. Today

Marriage as part of God's plan.

The religious basis of marriage.. Christian speak of marriage being instituted by God as part of an overall plan
 or design for creation. They are implying that there are some givens which cannot be changed according to human whims of real intention. A religious sense of reality in general insists that people need to be guided in their decisions by the realization of something greater that is present at the heart of the world.They must draw upon the fundamental rhythm of God's creation to keep their sensitivities alive. The human agenda is not the dominant one.


The social basis of marriage.The sense of being part of a greater living whole,the society, is really the background for the Christian insistence that marriage in the Church is not simply an agreement laid down by the mutual consent of the parties involved. The couple chooses to marry in the midst of the community because it is an event that affects the rest of the community as well as their relationship with that community.


The ecclesial basis of marriage. St Paul speaks of Christian marriage as a union between man and woman in Christ. Those who live in Christ through the sacrament of Baptism constitute the Church. Christian social life has its foundation in Baptism. Christian marriage is a special expression of this new life received at Baptism, a sacrament of the Baptismal reality. The self-gift of Christ in his death and resurrection which is sacramentalized in Baptism becomes visible, public and permanent in a personal way in the lives of those who enter into marriage bond. Therefore Christian marry not only in Christ, but in the Church.


Marriage as an authentic expression of love. The underlying principal that becomes permanently operative in every manifestation of Christian life is love. Christians will be known as such by, their love for one another. Christian life consist in translating Divine love into human love. It is necessary to distinguish love from liking.The former is other centered,while the latter is self centered.Since human beings are made according to the image of God, they are complete in their being only when they are related to one another in love by which they reproduce the core of divine life,a life of communion in the diversity of the Three Divine Persons.Every Christian is called to live in communion. Each one responds to his call according to the contribution which they have to make for building up of the kingdom of God.Understood in this  sense marriage is a vocation.The natural attraction which the couples feel towards one another has to be transformed into a response of love. For this it is necessary to free the natural attraction of its  selfish content. Here we have the difference between love and lust.Love is life-giving,while lust is destructive of life. We can distinguish three qualities of love:

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Personal Love.

The book of Genesis clearly expresses the fact that human beings find their true identity
only in relationship with other human beings. "The man gave names to all cattle,and to
the birds of the air,and to every animal of the field ; but for man there was not found
a helper as his partner" (Gen. 2, 20). In relationship people are recognized and accepted
as persons. This is what happens in personal love. This is an essential requirement for
Christian marriage.The following can be considered as the characteristics of this
personal love:


Free to personal and independent existence. An essential aspect of the dialectics of
love is that it joins two persons together in the most intimate way and by doing so at
the same time sets them to be themselves. Only in this way can there be full comple-
mentary in there relationship.

Inter subjective communication mediated through sexuality. It is here that marriage
becomes fully operative. Sexuality expresses and mediates intersubjective communication.
Sexual union is a deep act of personal communication in which the whole person , body
and soul are involved.Just as in God the Three Persons are distinct and yet united in love,
in human communion, of which sexual relationship is one of the best images,there is perfect
personal distinction and freedom and yet a perfect oneness in love.It is only to the extent
that this distinction and communion are integrated into personal bonds that human sexuality
can be realized in the human sense. If these personal bonds are lacking, human sexuality can
only result in the disintegration and loss of dignity of the human person.

It manifest itself as constant growth in personal relationship. The most all-embracing form of
personal bond between man and human is marriage.More than any other forms of human
relationship,marriage embraces the whole person of both partners in all dimensions.This is
the reason why a couple that have lived their marriage union in all its integrity become closer
and closer to one another as they grow older. The permanence of marriage is also the result
of this integral personal relationship which the couples have been practicing throughout their
married life.

This personal character of love includes justice. This personal character of love  also demands
that at least a minimum of physical health, social and economic requirements are needed if a
marriage is to be successful. This means that they give each his or her due and thus restore
equality in the relationship between the persons.

It is love that demands self-denial and sacrifice. The most important service which the Church
has to render is that of making young people capable of loving on the basis of Christian faith.
It is necessary that we bring home to people the fact that the success of marriage consist in
successfully living a life of love which is not possible without self-denial and sacrifice.
The fundamental law of the Gospel animated life is very much valid here: " He who losses his
life will find it" (Mt.10,39). One of the essential elements that should be included in our catechesis
of preparation for marriage is that deep personal relationship is not possible without denying self.
Although this maybe correctly called an ascetical attitude and practice in our traditional language,
this an aesthetic attitude and practice in as much the sacrificial element is given a positive meaning.
It lays  the foundation for a life of complementarity in which the differences are not only accepted
and tolerated, but appreciated and fostered.This will truly bring out the meaning of those words
which we find often in commercial advertisements: "Made for each other"

FRUITFUL LOVE

One of the essential aspects of love is that it does not stay with itself, but tends to be fruitful. In the post fruitfulness of love was explained in a purely biological sense using the Genesis text: "God created humankind
in his image, In the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.God blessed them,and God said to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth" (Gen.1, 27-28). This proved to be quite unsaticfactory explanation in contrast to the sexuality of animals, human sexuality displayed certain distinctive features which showed that its function was not restricted to the preservation of the species.In what way,then
can we express the specificity of the fruitfulness of Christian marriage?



i)Love is impelled to realization,objectification and embodiment in a shared third party.
The child is not a mere biological product; he or she the embodiment of the communion in love between the parents; he or she objectifies the self gift of the parents to one another. The two partners normally find themselves in a new way in their child and the latter can thrive only as human beings if they are secure in the mutual love of the parents.

ii)Love is fruitful also through growth in mutual love of the couple.Every childless marriage is not a fruitless
marriage unless there is a conscious exclusion and deliberate closing in on itself for egoistic reasons;then it    becomes a perversion.Even if the immediate reason for physical union of the partners is not to beget further
descendants,but to deepen and enrich their own experience of mutual love, this is of indirect benefit to the
descendants who are already in the family.

iii) Love of the partners in marriage is fruitful also from a sociological and cultural point of view.Marriage and
and family cannot be regarded by Christians as a merely private matter.

Faithfulness in love.The shared responsibility of the partners for their children is one of the convincing arguments in favour of the indissolubility of marriage. However, this third good of marriage,faithfulness,
can be more directly attributed to the essential meaning of love itself.

i)According to Gabriel Marcel,loving another person means telling him or her: You will not die. The bond that is established through love is not a mere legal bond; it affects our whole person; it sets in motion the whole of
one's being towards the other. If marriage is founded on love and not on likes and dislikes,not on legal contracts alone, but a personal act of self-gift, it cannot be terminated because that will be going against the
very nature of love.

ii) Faithfulness does not impede the exercise of human freedom. Freedom is different from arbitrariness.
The former is the capacity to relate oneself to all; it sets in motion a movement which cannot be stopped.
The latter is to be guided entirely by self,whether it be one's mood.liking or ideology; it sets in motion towards oneself, just the opposite of the movement of freedom.

iii)The love with which we love the other and commit ourselves to the other is love that is participated from God. The definitive bond of faithfulness in marriage has an essential religious dimension,namely it is a participation in the divine love,in the Trinitarian love. Just as God's love is always faithful; so also the love
of those who participate in it will also be definitive.

iv)In the Christian marriage man and woman are able to find their definitive status in this faithfulness.They
become one flesh or one in mind body ( Gen. 2, 14; Mk 19,8; Eph 5, 31); in other words they become a
'we' person.The marital bond of faithfulness creates something that transcends the single person and binds
the history of the two people definitively and at the deepest level together.