What Is Marriage?

You are probably about to begin one of the most important stages of your
life—marriage. Marriage contains unique and interesting potential. As one
bright optimist put it, “Marriage is the only game of chance in town where
both players can win or both lose!” This manual has been developed to help
you remove the risk element from marriage. We trust that as you and your
fiance work through this program, your present relationship will be
strengthened and enriched as a prelude to an enriching, fulfilling, and
growing marriage. We also hope that you will have a much more realistic
perception of yourself, your fiance, and your marriage.

1. Define marriage. What is its purpose?
2. Do you believe that marriage is a contract? Why or why not?
3. How do you think your fiance would answer these questions?
4. Read the following quotations. After you have read each of them indicate
   which portions you agree with and which portions you disagree with.

“Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be
separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.”

“Is marriage a private action of two persons in love, or a public act of
two pledging a contract? Neither, it is something other. Very much other!
Basically, the Christian view of marriage is not that it is primarily or
essentially a binding legal and social contract. The Christian understands
marriage as a covenant made under God and in the presence of fellow
members of the Christian family. Such a pledge endures, not because of the
force of law or the fear of its actions, but because an unconditional covenant
has been made. A covenant more solemn, more binding, more permanent than
any legal contract.”

“A system by means of which persons who are sinful and contentious are
so caught up by a dream and a purpose bigger than themselves that they
work through the years, in spite of repeated disappointment, to make the
dream come true.”

“… Marriage is a relationship between man and woman intended by God
to be a monogamous relationship, intended to be a permanent bond in which
many needs are satisfied—the need to love and be loved, the need for deep
friendship, for sharing, for companionship, for sexual satisfaction, for
children, the need to escape loneliness. Marriage ought to be a bond of love,
reflecting the love Christ has for His people, a bond of sacrificial love where
husband and wife have become one, one flesh, a unity.”