Marriage – God’s plan

 

 

Most people would agree that few topics are as important to our lives as marriage. However, this long-standing institution has been under attack in our culture for the past few generations! Is marriage, as traditionally defined as a legal union between a man and a woman, worth preserving for society? Is there an advantage to this form of union to individuals’ mental and physical health, and to society in general?

Marriage is a foundational institution in our society as it replenishes the country’s population for the next generation. It also provides: an important social unit for community function and order, helping the weak in society the poor, children and the elderly. Marriage additionally assists its participants. Numerous studies have shown the benefit of traditional marriage on personal and mental wellbeing, health and finances (1-8).

Marriage also represents an important entry into society for married couples. Emotionally, marriage provides love, acceptance, as well as intimacy for the spouses and care for children.

As important as these attributes are regarding marriage, spiritually it is even more important. The Bible describes the main purpose of Christian marriage as demonstrating to society the precious relationship between Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:21-33). Stated another way, marriage is primarily an evangelical tool!

Marriage – Primarily reflects the relationship between Christ and the church

Wow! Why is this, considering all the other important reasons for marriage? Please consider the following:

• God’s goals – God’s plans are greater than our own and His plan is to sum up all history in Christ (Ephesians 1:10-11). Consequently, viewing marriage and its purpose within the overall construct of God’s plan is important and appropriate. God wants all people to come to know Him and so marriage is primarily evangelical as we demonstrate Christ’s loving relationship to the church.
• Importance to us – Although marriage as a witness to society, it is also vital to our own marriage relationship, as it reminds us that we were married for God’s purposes and not primarily for our own desires such as: sex, a wonderful marriage ceremony, and having children (as wonderful as they are). Remembering God’s goal in marriage also minimizes whatever expectations for marriage we might hold such as the responsibility for household tasks and interactions with extended family.
• God defines the relationship – Knowing that the purpose of marriage is to reflect Christ and the church reminds us that we primarily serve Christ and our spouse. When we leave and cleave from our prior families our priorities are clearly to be toward our marriage partner and God (Ephesians 5:31-32).

How then does marriage reflect the relationship between Christ and the church?

• The love between a man and a woman reflects the love Christ and the church have for each other.
• The love of the husband, and his complete devotion to his wife, reflects the love and devotion of Christ to the church.
• The submission of the wife to her husband reflects the submission of the church to Christ. The prescribed order of people and institutions in the Bible is important not only for the function of society, but for the church and family as well (1 Timothy 2:1-2; Romans 13:1-7; Colossians 3:18ff, 1 Peter 2:13-20; Ephesians 6:1-9). It is within the confines of order that the gospel best goes forward to bring people to Christ.
• This combination of order, love and devotion provide a productive, caring picture to society of what Christ does for the church. Marriage should attract people to the gospel.

Marriage is a wonderful institution that God has ordained and provides marvelous benefits to the church, society and individuals. However, at its highest purpose is an evangelical tool that God uses to attract people to the gospel.

Teleios Research – The benefits of marriage: A medical literature review

We reviewed past studies in the medical literature which evaluated the benefits and disadvantages of legally binding, heterosexual marriage (9). We went back as far as 1966!

The analysis showed overwhelming benefits of traditional marriage on general wellbeing and specific parameters that might affect wellbeing, including:

• Physical and mental health
• Sexual satisfaction
• Family income
• Children’s outcomes

Of the 42 articles evaluated, only 3 did not describe any marriage benefits. Even more, the stronger the relationship commitment, the greater trend of enhanced wellbeing. Never married, widowed and divorced individuals suffered the lowest wellbeing.

Interestingly, individuals in a committed relationship, even unmarried, generally had improved elements of wellbeing compared to those uncommitted. But marriage relationships, which typically demonstrate the strongest legal and outward social commitment to a relationship, generally had the highest wellbeing of all relationships. Further, some evidence in diseased and depressed individuals indicated that the better quality of the marriage relationship, the better the wellbeing-related outcome (Please see Figure 1).

A Gallup polling found similar findings (Table 1; 10).

How to explain these results? We speculate on several reasons.

• A committed partner helping with income, household tasks, and raising children can lessen the burden compared to a single parent.
• Socialization with a marriage partner provides a potential source of personal enrichment, encouragement and empathy.
• The more committed the relationship, the greater confidence spouses can have in each other thus conserving time, money and emotion required to correct problems in their relationship.
• Marriage partners can help maintain good health by encouraging each other to keep medical appointments, take medicines and develop a healthy lifestyle.
• The marriage commitment may facilitate sexual satisfaction by building confidence that no competing love interest is diverting the attention of the spouse.

Why would a committed marital relationship have a positive impact on children and the community? Again, several potentials are:

• A couple can help each other provide time and income to better raise children and serve the community.
• Satisfied couples who are not dealing with internal problems can more easily look outwards to helping their children and community.
• Committed couples who agree together how to raise their children can provide a more consistent, productive, secure and supportive home environment.

Our review suggested that traditional marriage generally provides numerous benefits to the relationship partners through enhanced measures of mental and physical wellbeing, and benefits to their children compared to other heterosexual partnership arrangements or single status.

Should the US government institute policies that encourage traditional marriage as a method to enhance societal wellbeing and economic success?

Teleios study #1 – Young Christians’ view of marriage: A survey summary

Recently we surveyed a mostly evangelical group of adolescents and millennials recruited from the Instagram account, godsholyscriptures, regarding what the Bible teaches about marriage (11). There were 321 participants.

The main question in the survey was the Christian purpose of marriage and participants almost equally identified the main purpose of marriage as demonstrating the relationship between Christ and the church, or the love between a man and a woman (about 40% each).

Other answers, < 5% each, were: sex, a wonderful marriage ceremony, producing children, or continuing the human race. Participants also correctly identified many of the biblical aspects of marriage that reflect Christ’s love for the church (Table 2).

Teleios study #2 – Sex and commitment in adolescents and young adults: A medical literature review

Teleios recently reviewed the medical literature evaluating committed and non-committed heterosexual sexual relationships and its impact on mental health in adolescents and young adults (12).

The review showed a very consistent disadvantage of early sexual debut, adolescent sex, hookups, and casual sex compared to committed unmarried and married relationships. Specific reported measures that were associated with adolescent sex included: increased depressive symptoms, depression, suicidal ideation, aggressive behavior, psychological distress, anxiety, stress, loneliness, poor wellbeing, regret, and guilt. Regarding the relationship itself there was reduced general and sexual satisfaction.

Further, adolescent sex was associated with increased negative social behavior including: substance use and risky sex (e.g., engaging in unprotected sex, drinking or using drugs during sexual activities), and in later adolescence increased risk for physical and sexual abuse, drug use, poor academic performance, and antisocial behavior.

In contrast, waiting to initiate sex until marriage, or at least some element of commitment was associated with better: communication, relationship satisfaction and stability, sexual satisfaction, life satisfaction, self-esteem, and a more positive view of sexuality. Commitment and sexuality were also associated with lower symptomatology for psychological disorders including depression, general and social anxiety, and stress.

Nonetheless, we do not understand from the results from this review if uncommitted sex was the complete cause of the adverse mental health findings and risky social behavior found in the participants or if a certain personality profile predisposed a young person to be attracted to this behavior.

In a separate review of 137 studies, Allen and Walter identified several factors related to such behavior: first, extraversion was associated with increased sexual activity (including casual and uncommitted sex) and risky sexual behavior; second, lower agreeableness and conscientiousness were associated with greater sexual activity (especially in younger people) and casual sex, and lastly, openness was related to liberal attitudes toward sex (e.g. “sex before marriage is not wrong”). Further, drugs and alcohol are common correlates of early sexual engagement (13). Additionally, another study identified that exposure to sexually explicit internet material was a predictor of willingness to engage in casual sex in their 2017 study (14).

The negative impact of uncommitted sex in our review was observed in both sexes but if any differences were reported between genders the adverse results typically were greater among women. The reasons women were influenced more than men were not apparent by our review. One study evaluated the effects of casual sex on women and concluded that they more likely felt they had let themselves down and were worried about damage to their reputation (15). Further, women found the experience less sexually satisfying because they did not sense appreciation by the man. The women perceived this lack of gratitude as implying she would have sex with any available person.

Our review suggests that sexual debut, adolescent sex, hookups, and casual sex are associated a number of negative effects on the relationship, general wellbeing and lifestyle behavior compared to unmarried or married committed sex.

In summary, marriage between a man and a woman is God’s wonderful plan not only to repopulate humankind but as an evangelical tool to bring people to Himself by demonstrating Christ’s love for the church through the love of a man and a woman.

Further, marriage between a man and a woman brings benefits of better wellbeing, while Christian marriage in particular brings the principles of scripture to enhance the wellbeing of each individual marriage partner by building into and encouraging each other. Certainly, God has blessed us with such a great institution.

 

1. ^{Horwitz AV (1996). Becoming married and mental health: A longitudinal study of a cohort of young adults. J Marriage Family, 58:895-907.}
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8. ^{Killewald, A, & Gough, M. (2013). Does specialization explain marriage penalties and premiums? Am Sociological Review, 78:477-502.}
   
9. ^{https://teleiosresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Benefit-of-marriage-data.pdf}
   
10. ^{https://news.gallup.com/poll/154001/separation-divorce-linked-sharply-lower-wellbeing.aspx}
    
11. ^{https://teleiosresearch.com/index.php/marriage-survey-summary/ ‎}
    
12. ^{https://teleiosresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/2018-08-29-Sex-review-FINAL.pdf}
    
13. ^{Cooper M. (2002). Alcohol use and risky sexual behavior among college students and youth: Evaluating the evidence. J Stud Alcohol Suppl, (14), 101–117.}
    
14. ^{van Oosten, J.M.F., Peter, J., & Vandenbosch, L. (2017). Adolescents’ Sexual Media Use and Willingness to Engage in Casual Sex: Differential Relations and Underlying Processes. Hum Commun Res, 43(1), 127–147.}
    
15. ^{Campbell, A. (2008). The morning after the night before: Affective reactions to one-night stands among mated and unmated women and men. Human Nature,19(2), 157–173.}