...‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,[a] 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Mark 10:6-8
Marriage between a man and a woman clearly creates a unity that even the unregenerate can, for the most part, see a difference between it and any other unity on earth. Few people deny there is a relationship between a husband and a wife that goes beyond that of any other relationship on earth.
It takes a regenerate person to understand the true depths of that unity but most people can see and acknowledge there is something more to marriage than what is in any other relationship. Or so I like to think. As I write this I am questioning myself on just how true that statement is. Today people, as a whole, seem to be embracing all manner of almost-marriages and giving them the same respect that should be reserved for Biblical marriage, or marriage between one man and one woman.
I would be the first person to say that a marriage certificate does not create a marriage. My husband and I married each other before the Lord several months before we married before the law. We both had family that did not consider us to be married until we said those vows before someone to make them legal. There was a distinction in the eyes of our family members that said we weren't married until we had a piece of paper issued by the state giving us the legal status of marriage.
The family members that were quick to let us know that our commitment to each other, one made before the Lord, did not count as marriage are the same people that have no issues whatsoever with an unmarried couple living together. One of those relatives had even told me not to bother getting married, to just live together, and that was quite a while before I met my husband. Then when I married my husband without legal status that same relative was one of the first ones to say we weren't truly married.
I can't help wondering what it mattered to this person. If they did not hold the status of marriage as super important (and they don't, I could give several examples to prove that) then why even bother weighing in on my and my husband's decision on how we married?
But to get back on topic, there are some that say my husband and I weren't married until that legal paper was in our hands, a paper we did not have for several months after we were married before the Lord. In those months we lived together as man and wife, made choices together, bought things together, conceived a child together...all things married couples do and yet there are some that would say we were not married during those months.
Those same people don't normally bat an eye at people living together without any intent of marrying. It's normal and accepted in our society. At least it is in America. I know someone that used to work in an Arabic country and that person saw the difference in that country and ours. Apparently the majority of people in prison in that country are unmarried mothers and they are in prison because they are unmarried mothers.
What marks the line between a couple living together without benefit of marriage and a couple living together in marriage? Strictly from a human standpoint? Or a Biblical one? Where is the line that defines marriage verses adultery? I have two close relatives that had babies while living with men they did not even come close to claiming as their husbands. One of those relatives has married the daddy of her children, the other has not. Where is the line between married and not married? When do the two become one?
I'm not asking that Scripturally but from a human, earthly, standpoint. Why were my husband and I condemned before men for marrying without a legal status of marriage while those that choose to simply live together, living in sin with no intent of marriage, or with a vague 'we'll get married someday' plan, are treated the same as if they were married.
I don't support the whole homosexual marriage thing but plenty of people that are either homosexuals or those that support the homosexual lifestyle can clearly see there is something different in the marital relationship. They saw it so well that being accepted in society as a couple, even couples with legal rights, wasn't/isn't good enough, they want the same legal and social rights and acceptances as man/woman marriages are given.
So marriage creates a line that takes two people from who and what they were before marriage and pushes them to the other side of that line where they are something different as a married couple.
There are states that are what is called community property laws, meaning what one spouse owns, so does the other. They are treated as one when it comes to legal things in those states. But that is only one side, a legal side, to some of what happens in marriage. What of all the other, little and not so little things that move two people from being separate to being one person in marriage?
My husband are married. We are one before our Lord yet we are still two separate people. My husband likes things I do not like. I like things he does not like. I go places he does not go, he goes places I do not go. We both live our own lives within our marriage and yet the very fact that we are married creates almost an entirely whole world that the two of us live within even as we live our own lives. That might be a convoluted way of saying it but it's true. It's kind of like the earth rotates on it's own axis while circling the sun. A married couple has an entire life that is a shared, we are one, life but that oneness happens in the midst of each person living out their own life.
I was recently talking with a friend, technically, I was writing a letter to a friend because that is how we do the majority of our communicating, and I was telling this friend of my life back when I met my husband. I knew this friend for several years before my husband and I met, so this person saw the changes in my life as they were made but I was sharing some of my own thoughts and memories. In that letter, I told my friend how in the early days and months of my marriage I had to learn how to be a wife. It was new to me and there were many other things going on in my life and in my husband's life but in the midst of all of that we were learning to me a married couple too.
I remember those days. I remember the experiences that took my husband and I from two people and pushed us into one. Scripture says we became one when we married, that is the line that makes two people into one, but there are earthly experiences that strengthen and deepen that marital bond. We learned to depend on each other, trust each other, work together, and generally how to mesh our two lives into one.
There are other relationships though that are not defined by Scripture as creating one person from two. I tend to base my understandings of life off Scripture but I'm only human and occasionally something comes along that makes me wonder just how something can be or it makes me question my understanding of how something is.
Science has 'proven' that a mother and her newborn are one person. I read an article on it several years ago and there is a connection in the mother and newborn that causes their bodies to work together, often reacting to each other as if they are one person. The mothers chest can sense the infants temperature and will regulate to keep the baby at the right temperature. A baby kept next to or on top of mom will change it's breathing and heart rate to match the mothers.
There are plenty of things that go wrong with that connection. Even something as seemingly minor as formula feeding can and does have long reaching effects on the mother-child bond. My husband remarked many times on how breastfeeding strengthens the bond between mother and baby. His observations are correct. There is something in the nursing relationship that is different than in any other relationship. They say a mother is much more patient with her 'nursling' than she is even with the same child once that child is weaned.
From an earthly standpoint, it would seem that a mother and child are one person, at least for a time. And that's just taking the first year of life into account, what of the nine months before birth, when the baby literally is a part of the mothers body?
Scripture does not tell us that mother and child are one. There are no verses that speak of the mother being one with her baby. That distinction is given only to man and woman in marriage. Yet, the Lord has put something into the mother and baby that make them one, so much so that they share the mother's body for nine months and once that precious time ends there are physical and physiological things in the mother and baby's interactions that make them react to each other as if they are still one person. Their bodies recognize each other and interact and respond accordingly. Just as my body will work to warm up my foot if it grows cold, my body also warms my baby if it grows cold. It's a miraculous thing to experience and yet the Lord does not say mother and baby are one.
Just this morning I read an article about a set of conjoined twins that have one body but two heads. This set of twins appears just from looking at them to be one person with two heads. They are supposedly a medical anomaly. They have two names and, according to the article, do things like buying two movie tickets, getting two separate college degrees, but also travel on a single airline ticket.
I do not know the logistics of living as these two women do and I do not know what it would be like to raise children with this particular condition. I do know that my thoughts as I read the article, and in times past when I have seen things about this same set of twins, is that if they were mine I would raise them as one child. From what I can gather they have been treated as separate people.
Today I found myself thinking that I'm not so sure I would have wanted them even having two names and two separate birth certificates. These were my thoughts as I read the article and I do not know what I actually want or do if I were faced with a child or children with that condition. I just know that today, and in times past, when I read of these two girls I could not help thinking that because they cannot be separated, they are literally one person with two heads. Logically, I understand that there are many things that must be consider, only one of which is what the law requires in such cases.
If the law says a set of conjoined twins must be issued two birth certificates than obviously there is no getting around that even if the parents prefer only one birth certificate. There are also things like the fact that each head on this set of twins has her own thoughts and feelings. Therefore, there would be times when one side would be misbehaving while the other side was not. Logistics in such a case could get mighty confusing very quickly.
And still, my thoughts are that this set of twins, no matter their ability to think and reason, must live life as one person. They can be seen one of two ways...two people that share one body, or one person that has two heads. This set seems to be seen as two people, one body, and maybe that is best but my thoughts lead me to think of the one person aspect. There is no separating one of these girls from the other. They are forced to live one life whether they want to or not. They cannot even do basic personal care without the other.
It seems to me that they are one person but Scripture does not cover situations like this. There is no discussion of conjoined twins at all. Does the Lord see them as two people or as one? We cannot know. The article I read said they have two souls but we really cannot know that either. We do not know the line where the Lord takes one soul and makes it two. People have one soul. One person, one soul. Conjoined twins, though, are not one person even though they may not be fully two people either. That is one of those cases where I am happy to leave it up to the Lord. But even though I am happy to do so, I still can't help wondering where that line is...are they one person or two? Does the fact that the two must live life conjoined make them one person?
Scripture only defines the turning of two people into one where marriage between one man and one woman are concerned. All the other scenarios are things we can only wonder at but never really know or understand just where the line is drawn.
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