How Do You Know Everyone Who Says They Are Married Really Are?

 This may sound completely strange to some but I don't think that everyone who claims to be married actually is. This sentiment stems from the biblical theology of covenants. The covenant parameters in the Bible are based on what is called a suzerain-vassal treaty. This is where a more powerful group/state makes an agreement with a lesser powerful group/state that if the latter group will gives its submission and tribute (usually money, livestock, produce, servants, etc.) to the former group then the former group will come over them and protect them, even provide for them in times of great need. 

This is how a biblical marriage covenant functions. If an agreement is made that a woman will come under the authority of a man in submission to him and offer him up the bed in order to increase his family upon the earth, whether God ultimately gives them any children or not in accordance with His divine will, then he agrees to enter into a covenant with her where he will protect and provide for her. When this agreement is made and he ends up going back on it after being married to her for some time, he is viewed as having divorced her because he has broken the covenant he made to protect and provide for her. She is free to leave, not because she is divorcing him, but because he has divorced her and she has no more obligations to him until he should reconcile to her. This can be seen Exodus 21:9-11.

If he selects her for his son, he must grant her the rights of a daughter. If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights. If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.

Now, this law is about a slave girl who is then married by the son of the man who bought her. Notice, however, the elements in the covenant are the same as one would expect in a marriage covenant: food, clothing (we might say "shelter" in terms of that which protects from the environment), and sexual relations. The last statement in the Bible would not be merely access to the marital bed for pleasure but for children. Children increased the man's family and extended his existence upon the earth through his children. Likewise, having children increased the woman's status from a barren woman to mother, which apparently was what most women sought in the culture.

Think of Jephthah's daughter weeping because she would die without having a child, or Hannah weeping over not having a child, etc. It is an injustice to make a covenant that includes the giving of a child and then refuse to give that child. However, the person may have not even made a marriage covenant at all if this was never included. 

But this is the very question at hand. If a woman agrees to get married in the modern sense of the term, meaning she agrees to sign a piece of paper, wear a ring, and live with a guy with the official title "husband and wife" does that really make them a husband and wife or is that simply some other covenant that is made but is not a biblical one of marriage? In other words, if a biblical covenant of marriage is not made, is it really the same thing we are calling marriage today? And if it is not the same thing as marriage today then is it a biblical marriage? And if it is not a biblical marriage, is it a marriage at all?

This came up in a FB group today that there is a young guy who recently "married" a young woman who will neither submit to him nor have his children, nor ever do so, nor has she ever agreed to do so apparently. She's demanding that he either have his tubes tied or she gets to stay on birth control. She has no interest in going to the church or sit under the elders he has decided they should, so right now they are going to no church at all since they cannot agree and she will not submit to him in anything. We've said many times that the covenant of marriage is sealed by the one flesh union but the one flesh union itself is not a marriage, which is why one can become one flesh with a prostitute (1 Cor 6:16). It seems that such a couple, biblically speaking, would not really be married until an actual biblical covenant is made where he agrees to protect and provide for her as well as open the marriage bed for her to have children and she agrees to submit to him and open the marriage bed for children. I would certainly encourage them to get married by making a biblical covenant, but if the woman (or man) continued to refuse to do so and never did agree to it, I'd be inclined to argue that this is not a legitimate marriage. I say "biblical covenant" even though this is the covenant of marriage in almost every time and place; but it is the one that the Bible recognizes as a legitimate marriage. 

Keep in mind, I'm talking about a situation where these have never been a part of the covenant made, not one in which the covenant has been made and consummated. If someone suddenly changed his or her mind after making a biblical covenant of marriage, that would constitute a divorce and is subject to the wrath of God for breaking the covenant and those individuals would have to work toward reconciliation and fulfilling the biblical covenant. They would not be free to remarry.