Hello,
can you tell me what someone has to do to get/be married according to the Bible?
Dose one have to make a ritual or ceremony or anything like that according to the Bible
so that a marrige is valid in the eyes of God?
Is being one in every sence of the word the same as marriage?
Thank you very much and
God bless
Dani
I don’t believe in ceremonies. Christ said not one dot or tittle would pass from the law until all was fulfilled. I believe all was fulfilled in 70 A.D. when Christ destroyed the temple and old Jewish system. It’s not about following rules. I think if a man and woman love each other and are committed to each other in a relationship then that’s all that matters.
I agree that the essence of marriage is life-long commitment. As far as I can determine, legal contracts were not required for marriages in early Christian times, or in early Hebrew times for that matter.
However, one important element that is often missing in modern marriages which are not legalized, is the public affirmation of the marriage. That was the purpose of the wedding at Cana, for example. I think that when a couple publically acknowledges their marriage, they have made a public statement of their life-long commitment to each other, and that because they have declared it publically, the couple might not be as likely to separate if the relationship becomes rocky, but to attempt reconciliation instead.
Paidion,
I don’t think it’s required though. You don’t need to be right in the eyes of the world. Only God and your partner.
So is it sinful without public affirmation?
I wouldn’t go that far. But the thought is more likely to arise, “If it doesn’t work out, we can always separate.” And, of course, save the expense of a legal divorce. And, our Lord commanded no separation (divorce). We read in the OT that God HATES divorce. That is where the sin come in. So we should not marry in a way that facilitates divorce. What other reason could there be in not having a wedding or public affirmation?
Before the time of Moses there was no documentation to prove either marriage or divorce. So the problem arose where people left their significant other if they were unhappy and pretended to be single and marrying again while they were still in marriage bonds with their previous spouse and the new spouse was inadvertently led into adultery without knowledge. So Moses allowed the bill of divorcement so that people could show that their marriage had been dissolved and protecting the new spouse from sinning.
I believe the act of sexual union is what makes us one flesh. Especially before ceremonies began, but once they had the tradition was for the families to witness the first time through veils and witness the bloody bedclothes afterwards as proof for various reasons. 
Of course, we have the example of Joseph being engaged to Mary. The emphasis here is that they haven’t yet consummated, and supposedly wouldn’t until their marriage was formalized. Yet in Matthew 1:19, Joseph is referred to as her husband. Since the discovery of Mary being pregnant would have caused some kind of public shame, that would imply that some kind of formal ceremony would normally take place before the act of consummation, otherwise Joseph wouldn’t have necessarily put her away privily. Or what would putting her away privily mean as opposed to making her a pubic example?
It’s not out of the realm of possibility that Joseph and Mary had a Ketubah, which is a prenupital agreement that protects the wife should the marriage end. The earliest extants of the ketubah dates back in 440 B.C. and formalized 300 years later by the Sanhedrin. The Ketubah superceded a dowry called a mohar, which was the price was made to the parents or bride for marriage (ie, bride price). A ketubah would rather be paid out only in the event of the husbands death or cessassion of marriage (divorce). It was a contract for the husband to perform both financial and conjugal obligations.
The Ketubah was signed by at least two witnesses in a ceremony with just close friends and family, and thus not a public event. So if Joseph did divorce Mary, then only they probably would know, hence the reference of putting her away privily, and of course would have involved the mohar be paid at that time.
Marriage is a covenant, which is a legal binding agreement that is established differently in differing cultures. In 1st century Jewish culture, the marriage covenant was established when the bride-price (typically a year’s salary for a virgin) was paid. The couple was considered married once the bride-price was paid though the couple did not typically cohabitate or were intimate until some time later when the man came to claim his bride and take her home to his father’s house where he had added a room for them. But the couple was considered married once the bride-price was paid, this established the marriage covenant, which was later written out (marriage contract). (If a married/engaged couple was intimate between the paying of the bride-price and before the ceremony, resulting in a child, the child was considered legitimate, not a bastard.)
The father would then take the bride-price and add it to his daughter’s family inheritance, the lump sum became the dowry which was given to the daughter at the marriage ceremony. This dowry was legally the woman’s and if the man divorced her for illegitimate reasons the husband had to give her the dowry, possibly 5-10 years salary. During the time of Christ there were two divorce philosophies/practices, the Hillites and the Shammaites. The Hillelites promoted a No-fault divorce philosophy/practice; if the man was willing to pay the full dowry, he need not publicize the reason for the divorce. In the case of Joseph and Mary, Joseph was willing to loose the bride-price, divorce Mary, and thus not publicize her apparent infedelity. This was considered the more “righteous” means of divorce.
The Shammaites insisted on the reason for the divorce being publicized. A panel of three judges would then judicate how much, if any of the dowry the man had to pay. The Hillelites and Shammaites (two largest groups of Pharisees) argued over other aspects of divorce procedure also. I think they forgot completely the reason God inspired Moses to enact the bill of divorce which was to mitigate the oppression of women. In the ancient Middle East, once a woman was married, the husband could leave or expell her from the home and she could not legally marry another man, thus virtually forcing her to become a prostitue. And if she did marry another man it was not considered fully legal. It was a hateful, mean thing to do. The bill of divorce legally freed an expelled woman to marry another man and not fear her ex-husband reclaiming her or condemning her.
Well, anyhow, Marriage is a covenant that is established in different cultures in different ways and is primarily a familial affair but is governed by civil government to a greater or lesser degree depending on the culture. Most “civilized” cultures require a marriage liscence and legal recognition of the marriage. And I believe that we Christians should seek to obey our civil governments as best we can.
P.S. I cover this in detail in my book, “God Is A Divorce’ Too!”
Thanks Sherman, for expounding on the topic. I learned something new.
To answer your original question Dani, marriage is a personal/familial covenant that is under civil authority, to some degree. Thus one should follow the dictates of whatever local civil government in which one lives, as best one can assuming the dictates do not counter one’s spiritual convictions. For example, for a season the Roman government forbad marriage because married men were less willing to serve in their military. In response to this St. Valentine secretly married people. Marriage covenants usually are made with witnesses and some formal ceremony. If you want to study how marriage occured in biblical times, I recommend “Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible; The Social and Literary Context” by Instone-Brewer, though of course, my book would be good too.