Couples who "can't" marry

[cinder]

So this came up in another thread and it is an important and relevant enough topic to deserve its own thread. I'm sure that most of the regulars here will agree that love then marriage then sex is God's normal and proper order for things, but for some marriage may be significantly more costly in financial or other practical terms than for others. The example was given of two middle aged people on disability who would end up with severely reduced income if they married. I'm also thinking of someone who may be severely in debt from previous medical expenses with more treatment in the future, and marrying (at least in some cases I believe) would mean that the new partner becomes responsible for that debt as well. So how do we as people who want to obey God and encourage others to obey God respond to situations in which people are committed and would marry except for significant practical reasons? I realize this can quickly become a slippery slope in which everyone finds some reason why they are exempt from the norm, but too often to not ask these questions leaves those already struggling and feeling marginalized feeling even worse or more hopeless. So questions to ponder (and respond or this will be a really short thread):

1) What makes a marriage marriage enough so that marital relations between two people are right and not sinful in God's sight?

2) Is there a moral difference between a couple who is committed and never marries for practical reasons and a married couple that feels forced to get a legal divorce for practical reasons but stays together?

3) Are love and marriage only for those who meet a certain set of requirements or circumstances?

4) How do we view committing to unknown misfortunes in a relationship differently than knowingly entering into a difficult situation? Is one more of a commitment than the other?

5) How do we promote obedience to God and show support and compassion for people in this kind of difficult relationship circumstances?

 

[Lynx]

A slippery slope indeed. Where is the line drawn? If two marry and then one becomes sick and the other decides to divorce for reasons of financial liability, how is that different from two unmarried who choose not to officially marry for the same reason?

I'm just glad the line is not mine to draw. As a lifelong single guy I have no place to give any advice either way, and I'm glad of it.

I believe the verse about working out your own salvation with fear and trembling comes into play somewhere in this topic. But I should mention it does not preclude the topic being discussed, and indeed the topic should be discussed - mostly to get people thinking about what-ifs. It's something few contemplate when they first get married, but everyone who wants to get married should soberly consider this matter.

 

[spunkycat08]

Here is my response...

This is regarding the couple my husband and I know. Both of them are on disability. For both of them their doctor told them that they cannot work full-time.

The female does not want to spend her entire life alone. She wishes she could get married at some point, but government regulations regarding disability prevents that from happening. Even if that couple had a civil ceremony, they could not live together as a couple. The government would find out, and both of them would loose their benefits.

I do not know her feelings regarding the OP's post.

 

[Ultimatum77]

Get legally married in another country to get a valid certificate without a financial burden wouldn't that make sense? IDK just a suggestion....

 

[zeroturbulence]

Its not required that married couples share a bank account. It's their choice if they want to keep separate accounts or not.

Its also their choice to file their taxes jointly or individually.

All they need is to pay a minister and have a witness. They do it all the time in Las Vegas. Just pay a one time fee, plus the marriage license. Also, you can get married by a judge. Weddings are optional..

 

[zeroturbulence]

Here is my response...

This is regarding the couple my husband and I know. Both of them are on disability. For both of them their doctor told them that they cannot work full-time.

The female does not want to spend her entire life alone. She wishes she could get married at some point, but government regulations regarding disability prevents that from happening. Even if that couple had a civil ceremony, they could not live together as a couple. The government would find out, and both of them would loose their benefits.

I do not know her feelings regarding the OP's post.

Wow that is crazy!

 

[coby2]

Get legally married in another country to get a valid certificate without a financial burden wouldn't that make sense? IDK just a suggestion....

That's what my ex did. The government wouldn't let them marry because she's from Brazil and you're only welcome here if you have money or if he earned more than a certain amount and then still it would take years. They married there and every 3 months she has to go away for 3 months to her own country.

 

[cinder]

Here is my response...

This is regarding the couple my husband and I know. Both of them are on disability. For both of them their doctor told them that they cannot work full-time.

The female does not want to spend her entire life alone. She wishes she could get married at some point, but government regulations regarding disability prevents that from happening. Even if that couple had a civil ceremony, they could not live together as a couple. The government would find out, and both of them would loose their benefits.

I do not know her feelings regarding the OP's post.

Thanks for responding. I think my question is more along the lines of if such a couple didn't have a legal civil marriage but live together as if they were a married couple 1) would the government disability restrictions still apply and 2) would they draw lots of criticism from the Christian community because they weren't married (and would such criticism be justified) ? For today I'm just glad this isn't a situation that I personally have to deal with now, but I think too often people who are in such situations don't get fair consideration of what the real cost would be for them to just do things like "everyone else" does.

 

[jamie26301]

From my understanding of the Creation account, God joined the two, and it became marriage. Notice we don't have a Church, or a State declaring them married, but God does, and even then, we don't have it clearly spelled out they were married. It's blurred. We assume it a marriage because Jesus did so, quoting Genesis as a rebuttal to frivolous divorce.

I guess my opinion would be two people are living together - they're not married before God. Two OTHER people are living together - they are married before God. The divorce of Moses was instituted because of hardness of heart... wouldn't it stand to reason, then that marriage has to do with the heart?

You can't say "they're married" or "they're not married" because God decides that based on the things only He sees. Some people have a "marriage of convenience" and there isn't really any sacrament there at all - but many Christians go "oh, they're married because the Church and the State sanctions it with paperwork and benefits."

I've thought a lot about this myself, because I was on disability. Yes, I lost it, to get married. We could sure use it now, but we're ok. I guess my point is this is a very complicated subject because first you must define: what is marriage? Because the FIRST marriage didn't require what we require of it today.

 

[spunkycat08]

Thanks for responding. I think my question is more along the lines of if such a couple didn't have a legal civil marriage but live together as if they were a married couple 1) would the government disability restrictions still apply and 2) would they draw lots of criticism from the Christian community because they weren't married (and would such criticism be justified) ? For today I'm just glad this isn't a situation that I personally have to deal with now, but I think too often people who are in such situations don't get fair consideration of what the real cost would be for them to just do things like "everyone else" does.

To reply to your questions...

I really do not know.

And if the state that they live in has common law marriage, I do not know what the government would do regarding their benefits.

 

[cinder]

From my understanding of the Creation account, God joined the two, and it became marriage. Notice we don't have a Church, or a State declaring them married, but God does, and even then, we don't have it clearly spelled out they were married. It's blurred. We assume it a marriage because Jesus did so, quoting Genesis as a rebuttal to frivolous divorce.

I guess my opinion would be two people are living together - they're not married before God. Two OTHER people are living together - they are married before God. The divorce of Moses was instituted because of hardness of heart... wouldn't it stand to reason, then that marriage has to do with the heart?

You can't say "they're married" or "they're not married" because God decides that based on the things only He sees. Some people have a "marriage of convenience" and there isn't really any sacrament there at all - but many Christians go "oh, they're married because the Church and the State sanctions it with paperwork and benefits."

I've thought a lot about this myself, because I was on disability. Yes, I lost it, to get married. We could sure use it now, but we're ok. I guess my point is this is a very complicated subject because first you must define: what is marriage? Because the FIRST marriage didn't require what we require of it today.

First off, it's great to have you join the discussion Jaime. Always great to hear from those who have real life experience in making the hard choices the rest of us just theorize about.

As to your conclusions on marriage though, I take a very different view. I'm more and more coming to see marriage as primarily a social construct, not necessarily a religious one and certainly not an exclusively Christian one. Pretty much every culture (even those with no history of Christian influence) has the institution of marriage and a way of publicly acknowledging that this man and this woman now belong to each other in a legal, social, civil sense. Add to that the fact that the New testament doesn't prescribe any form of explicitly christian wedding or marriage ceremony and in places like 1 Cor 7 even seems to call believers to honor the marriages they committed to in pagan ceremonies before becoming a believers, and I'm just not finding the standard Christian idea that marriage is exclusively Christian and not the province of government is all that biblically or historically supportable. That would lead me to the conclusion that marriage is not something primarily decided by God based on people's hearts, but by people and societies based on social norms.

As for divorce being allowed under Moses, I always took the hardness of heart idea to mean that some men were going to be hard hearted and abandon their wives no matter what so God allowed there to be a way for her to be legally recognized as abandoned so that another man could marry her and take care of her. That that was preferable to a woman being abandoned and having no way to be taken care of by another. And then Jesus point in saying that was, as you implied, to point out that just because there was a legal mechanism for it, didn't mean that frivolous divorce wasn't an affront to God and a betrayal of the marriage vows.

And yes I will agree that it is a very complicated topic, and not one we as a forum will probably develop a good answer to anytime soon. But full respect to you for putting your money where your mouth is and getting married in spite of the cost.

 

[DuchessAimee]

From my understanding of the Creation account, God joined the two, and it became marriage. Notice we don't have a Church, or a State declaring them married, but God does, and even then, we don't have it clearly spelled out they were married. It's blurred. We assume it a marriage because Jesus did so, quoting Genesis as a rebuttal to frivolous divorce.

I guess my opinion would be two people are living together - they're not married before God. Two OTHER people are living together - they are married before God. The divorce of Moses was instituted because of hardness of heart... wouldn't it stand to reason, then that marriage has to do with the heart?

You can't say "they're married" or "they're not married" because God decides that based on the things only He sees. Some people have a "marriage of convenience" and there isn't really any sacrament there at all - but many Christians go "oh, they're married because the Church and the State sanctions it with paperwork and benefits."

I've thought a lot about this myself, because I was on disability. Yes, I lost it, to get married. We could sure use it now, but we're ok. I guess my point is this is a very complicated subject because first you must define: what is marriage? Because the FIRST marriage didn't require what we require of it today.

First off, it's great to have you join the discussion Jaime. Always great to hear from those who have real life experience in making the hard choices the rest of us just theorize about.

As to your conclusions on marriage though, I take a very different view. I'm more and more coming to see marriage as primarily a social construct, not necessarily a religious one and certainly not an exclusively Christian one. Pretty much every culture (even those with no history of Christian influence) has the institution of marriage and a way of publicly acknowledging that this man and this woman now belong to each other in a legal, social, civil sense. Add to that the fact that the New testament doesn't prescribe any form of explicitly christian wedding or marriage ceremony and in places like 1 Cor 7 even seems to call believers to honor the marriages they committed to in pagan ceremonies before becoming a believers, and I'm just not finding the standard Christian idea that marriage is exclusively Christian and not the province of government is all that biblically or historically supportable. That would lead me to the conclusion that marriage is not something primarily decided by God based on people's hearts, but by people and societies based on social norms.

As for divorce being allowed under Moses, I always took the hardness of heart idea to mean that some men were going to be hard hearted and abandon their wives no matter what so God allowed there to be a way for her to be legally recognized as abandoned so that another man could marry her and take care of her. That that was preferable to a woman being abandoned and having no way to be taken care of by another. And then Jesus point in saying that was, as you implied, to point out that just because there was a legal mechanism for it, didn't mean that frivolous divorce wasn't an affront to God and a betrayal of the marriage vows.

And yes I will agree that it is a very complicated topic, and not one we as a forum will probably develop a good answer to anytime soon. But full respect to you for putting your money where your mouth is and getting married in spite of the cost.

Long time, no type at folks.




First, what you're referring to Jamie is indeed a wedding. If you flesh it out it's an old fashioned wedding that's still practiced in some form or another across the globe. The government just got smart and started charging for it.

It used to be two people going from house to house introducing themselves as man and wife. The village, or whatever group of people they lived with, had to witness that they now belonged to each other. From there it grew into what we have now. Different cultures and governments ran with it. You used to really be married in the eyes of God only.


Second, Cinder, of course marriage isn't just Christian. Christians tend to be stupid and claim that we invented things that we didn't. We get marriage from God, sure, but we didn't invent it. We like to forget that he started with the Jews because of pride and various other reasons. Marriage is social; anything with another person or people is social and people need people. The bible says to be social, and how social we all need to be is between us and God. If you need to get married that's between you and Jesus. A man and a woman can live together and be completely holy, but it gives off an appearance of evil the bible says to stay away from.

The couple's options are slim.

1) They can live together but can't sleep together.

2) They can get married, sleep together, and deal with government consequences.

3) They can move to another country or state.

4) They can live separately but date. I knew a couple that did this vary thing. It seemed to work for them.

 

[JosephsDreams]

Well, you will probably be criticized in a church. Most of them anyway. This is a subject that is a sore point for me because of personal experience in something kind of similar.
I have no clear spiritual response, sorry to say. God is the ultimate judge of what is in someones heart as far as there commitment and love for each other, but it is also important for the participants to believe there is something binding not only spiritually, but in a way that society honors there proclamation that they are married.
God is, from what I understand, a God who seems to want us to be mindful of the cultural standards and laws. Jesus being a rabbi at 30 is just one example.
I do believe that family is the backbone of society, and that healthy families make it publicly known that the man and wife are married, whatever that means to that particular society.
From a secular point of view, would a prenup help war of the govt?

 

[Grace-Like-Rain]

Here is my response...

This is regarding the couple my husband and I know. Both of them are on disability. For both of them their doctor told them that they cannot work full-time.

The female does not want to spend her entire life alone. She wishes she could get married at some point, but government regulations regarding disability prevents that from happening. Even if that couple had a civil ceremony, they could not live together as a couple. The government would find out, and both of them would loose their benefits.

I do not know her feelings regarding the OP's post.

This situation isn't really about whether or not they can marry. It's about them not wanting to lose money by getting married. I imagine the government would take away some of their benefits because they would be living in the same house and drawing TWO sets of benefits, and therefore would not need as much money as they did when living apart. It kinda makes sense.

Which brings up another question... how honest should we be with the government on these sorts of things?

I don't have an answer on this... just adding more complication, sorry!

 

[spunkycat08]

This situation isn't really about whether or not they can marry. It's about them not wanting to lose money by getting married. I imagine the government would take away some of their benefits because they would be living in the same house and drawing TWO sets of benefits, and therefore would not need as much money as they did when living apart. It kinda makes sense.

Which brings up another question... how honest should we be with the government on these sorts of things?

I don't have an answer on this... just adding more complication, sorry!

The problem is that neither one of them receives enough benefits to support 2 people if one of them lost their benefits due to getting married. The benefits they receive is based on one person, and so no, one disability check per month cannot support 2 people.

 

[Swede17]

Glad to read your post...yes and AMEN!!! God in the center of two hearts joined in true love, and desiring to walk together for Him for the rest of their Earthly days, following Christ Jesus. This constitutes the kind of marriage that really matters~

 

[Swede17]

The above message was in response to Jaime26301. I haven't any idea why it posted here...thanks for a great, heartfelt post Jaime!

 

[GaryA]

The answer is "Do what is right." -- it is that simple.

My suggestion:

"Get married and learn to trust in God a whole lot more than the government."

He can supply all your needs...

 

[JeniBean]

So this came up in another thread and it is an important and relevant enough topic to deserve its own thread. I'm sure that most of the regulars here will agree that love then marriage then sex is God's normal and proper order for things, but for some marriage may be significantly more costly in financial or other practical terms than for others. The example was given of two middle aged people on disability who would end up with severely reduced income if they married. I'm also thinking of someone who may be severely in debt from previous medical expenses with more treatment in the future, and marrying (at least in some cases I believe) would mean that the new partner becomes responsible for that debt as well. So how do we as people who want to obey God and encourage others to obey God respond to situations in which people are committed and would marry except for significant practical reasons? I realize this can quickly become a slippery slope in which everyone finds some reason why they are exempt from the norm, but too often to not ask these questions leaves those already struggling and feeling marginalized feeling even worse or more hopeless. So questions to ponder (and respond or this will be a really short thread):

1) What makes a marriage marriage enough so that marital relations between two people are right and not sinful in God's sight?

2) Is there a moral difference between a couple who is committed and never marries for practical reasons and a married couple that feels forced to get a legal divorce for practical reasons but stays together?

3) Are love and marriage only for those who meet a certain set of requirements or circumstances?

4) How do we view committing to unknown misfortunes in a relationship differently than knowingly entering into a difficult situation? Is one more of a commitment than the other?

5) How do we promote obedience to God and show support and compassion for people in this kind of difficult relationship circumstances?

Marriage in the eyes of GOD is different than marriage in the eyes of the state. Two people can make a commitment to each other and god and be married, without marrying in the eyes of the government to protect incomes, disability, social security benefits, etc. It is often called a commitment ceremony. You are committing to each other through the love of god and married under the laws of GOD.

 

[PennEd]

The problem is that neither one of them receives enough benefits to support 2 people if one of them lost their benefits due to getting married. The benefits they receive is based on one person, and so no, one disability check per month cannot support 2 people.

I obviously don't know the circumstances of these people, and I certainly don't want to judge them, having no idea what disabilities they have, but does anybody else have a problem with this "benefit entitlement" stuff?

I mean we have all gotten so use to this socialism mentalty that nobody is questioning the premise of them getting Government (taxpayer) money.

They can't do with less? They don't have relatives to help them? Their Church family can't help them? Are they really so disabled that they can't work at all?

Honestly, I don't want to come off as callous. I love them as all my brothers and sisters. It's just this mentality that will be the death of us.