Does Marriage Have to be Legal? Or can it Just be a Commitment Before God?
The process of marriage can be messy
Getting the government involved in anything is guaranteed to turn it into way more of a hassle than it needs to be. And marriage is no exception.
I’m never even been married, and I can already imagine how much of a headache it would be to change last names, file piles of paperwork, merge bank accounts, figure out financial complications… and all of those wonderful kinds of things.
So if marriage is primarily a spiritual unification, then would it be ok for a couple to get “married” without having to jump through all the paperwork and legal formalities?
Marriage is fully committed
Before trying to answer this question, I want to consider what marriage is and what its purpose is.
“Marriage” can be described in a lot of ways, but the aspect I want to focus on is the fact that it’s a commitment. Marriage is two people FULLY committing themselves to the other person.
Scripture talks about marriage’s purpose in verses like Ephesians 5:31–32. This passage says that the union found in marriage is a profound mystery that “refers to Christ and the church”. In other words, the purpose of marriage is to symbolize the way that Christ loves the church. And Christ is so so fully committed to his bride that he dives head-first into death for her.
In order for a marriage to fulfill its purpose of depicting Christ’s love, both people need to be so fully committed to the relationship that they are willing to DIE for their spouse.
That’s some pretty serious commitment.
Full commitment should be willing to take on the mess of legal formalities
Compared to the sacrifice that Christ made for his people, jumping through the hoops of making a marriage legal seem pretty minor.
If marriage is supposed to mimic that same kind of all-in, fully-maxed-out commitment that Christ has for his bride, then going through the legal process shouldn’t be a big deal, no matter how messy or complicated the specific situation is.
Because marriage is supposed to represent Christ’s self-sacrificial commitment, then taking on your partner’s messes is a great way to start representing that self-sacrificial spirit.
As a side note: personally, I might feel hurt if my partner wanted to marry me but wasn’t willing to go through the hassle of making it legal or taking on my messes. I think that if my partner didn’t want to go through the legal process, that would make me feel skeptical about how committed she was to the relationship.
Making it legal adds accountability
While getting the government involved in a marriage is guaranteed to increase its headache levels, it’s actually guaranteed to increase its accountability levels too—and that’s a good thing.
For example, if two people aren’t legally married, they can just dust off their hands and go their separate ways if they ever get tired of the relationship. The process for renouncing their commitment would be really easy, and it’d be easy for them to think, “Well, I was never REALLY married to that person anyways”.
Making the marriage legal adds that extra level of accountability. If the feelings start to fade, then the government will be there to remind the couple of the commitment they made to each other.
Conclusion
While marriage is primarily a spiritual union before God, the standard way to get married in today’s context is through the state. If someone wanted to go around the standard process, I think they would need to have some pretty good reasons why. Whatever the process looks like, when someone decides to commit their life to someone, they are making that commitment with God as their witness, and they should be all-in and fully committed just like Jesus is with his bride.