When are we married?

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Dai3234

Senior Member
Sep 6, 2016
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It's probably a daft question, but when are we married according to the Bible. Is it through ceremony, sexual activity, or when a born or unborn child is created.

I ask because the Bible says you become one flesh, potentially during conception.
 
Through a ceremony---saying our vows----committing ourselves to each other before man and God...
 
Two become one flesh when a man & woman get married. The ceremony includes the marriage vows. People having sex outside of marriage is considered fornication. A child that's created from a man & woman is only their offspring. The marriage union is only between a husband & wife. God designed sex to be between a husband & wife anything outside of that is perversion
 
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Joseph and Mary were considered to be betrothed before they said their vows to each other in a ceremony and long before they consummated the marriage... although Roman Catholics believe the latter never happened, there is no Scriptural support for that view.
 
But why say one flesh. They are not one flesh? Until childbirth. The child is the one flesh. Being betrothed, and having the partner die before vows means they don't get married. So betrothed is just an agreement by parents or each other. Agreements can be broken. I'm probably wrong but the one flesh thing just says children to me. You can have children and sleep with others, fornication, adultery etc. But can't you fornicate without being married, but if you have a child from fornication, aren't you then deemed by God as married? Because of the one flesh?
 
I have heard the one flesh concept being put forth as being attained through childbirth, the formation of another single solitary human being, but that view denies married couples who remain childless from being considered as being of one flesh. They are to be united as one person, treating the other as part of or even more important than themselves. It is as much a spiritual bonding as physical...
 
I have heard the one flesh concept being put forth as being attained through childbirth, the formation of another single solitary human being, but that view denies married couples who remain childless from being considered as being of one flesh. They are to be united as one person, treating the other as part of or even more important than themselves. It is as much a spiritual bonding as physical...

Isn't this saying the same thing as how a Christian should be to anyone anyway. Not even involving marriage. Just without sexual contact?
 
Isn't this saying the same thing as how a Christian should be to anyone anyway. Not even involving marriage. Just without sexual contact?
The cleaving of yourself to one person is to take precedence over all others, so no, it cannot be the same, for a marriage partner is to be acknowledged as being more important/above any and all other attachments. Here is a page on it: https://www.gotquestions.org/one-flesh-marriage.html
 
I think that marriage begins when you do what the society you are living in requires for a marriage to be done. It can be different in time and cultures.

To be one flesh is about sexual act, not about children:

"Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh."

1Cor 6:16
 
Its quite simle really...here's what Scripture says: (regarding one flesh)

23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”


24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
 
People become one flesh when they have sex. God's way of experiencing His quality kind of life is being one flesh with your spouse only.

1 Corinthians 6:16 (NASB)
[SUP]16 [/SUP] Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, "THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH."
 
Its quite simle really...here's what Scripture says: (regarding one flesh)

23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”


24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

I don't think this point is very clear as eve was made from Adams rib. So definitely one flesh anyway. But the cleaving point posted before has some point. But not definitively.
 
I don't think this point is very clear as eve was made from Adams rib. So definitely one flesh anyway. But the cleaving point posted before has some point. But not definitively.[/QUO

I think it is more the case that you don't want to see it. It's been very clear to all who read it for 3000 years (v.app).

Even none Christians understand the point the text is making!
 
People become one flesh when they have sex. God's way of experiencing His quality kind of life is being one flesh with your spouse only.

1 Corinthians 6:16 (NASB)
[SUP]16 [/SUP] Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, "THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH."

Exactly, so in god's eyes they may be married at the one flesh sexual activity, but not through children or ceremony etc.
 
Exactly, so in god's eyes they may be married at the one flesh sexual activity, but not through children or ceremony etc.

I think its quite clear from the context that in God's eyes it is adultery, not the beginning of "another" marriage.

"Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body."
1Cor 6:18
 
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I think its quite clear from the context that in God's eyes it is adultery, not the beginning of "another" marriage.

Yes, sorry, it is adultery. If married already. Otherwise it is fornication and becoming one flesh through sexual activity?
 
Yes, sorry, it is adultery. If married already. Otherwise it is fornication and becoming one flesh through sexual activity?

Probably. If we would say that the sex automatically makes you married to the girl, what would be all the warnings in the Bible about fornication about?

And what about already married men? It would mean he has two wifes now? What if the girl had sex with several men in her life (so common today)? Is she married to all or just to the first one or the the last one?

I think such concept would be a very complex one and practically unusable in our society today.
 
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Exactly, so in god's eyes they may be married at the one flesh sexual activity, but not through children or ceremony etc.

Having sex that makes one flesh from the act is different than being married in God's mind. How that looks is different depending on cultural settings. Isaac when he saw Rebekah took her into the tent of Sarah and she became his wife.

Having sex and becoming one flesh with any one is not God's quality of life. Becoming one flesh as God sees it - is belonging to another for life. - not to use for oneself.
 
Probably. If we would say that the sex automatically makes you married to the girl, what would be all the warnings in the Bible about fornication about?

And what about already married men? It would mean he has two wifes now? What if the girl had sex with several men in her life (so common today)? Is she married to all or just to the first one or the the last one?

I think such concept would be a very complex one.

Yes, complex, but stoning was the penalty. Now people can get married many times with many children, repent, be forgiven. But who are they married to? All, the first, all with children?
 
Yes, complex, but stoning was the penalty. Now people can get married many times with many children, repent, be forgiven. But who are they married to? All, the first, all with children?

If I remember correctly (I may be wrong), the death penalty was only for adultery.

When two unmarried people had sex together, they had to get married, right? I.E. sex is not marriage, but should lead to it, IMHO.