Really well written. There is no question that views of, and reasons for, getting married have shifted over the last several decades. I recently watched a segment on Ch 13 with two guests who study marriage and its role in our culture and both agreed that people marry today simply out of love whereas years ago it was a destination whose genesis could be found in a woman’s financial reliance on her husband, remaining married simply to avoid the stigma of divorce, or the need to be married in order to raise children. These pressures exist no more. The older I become, the more I look around, the stronger I feel that marriage has become merely a flawed human-created construct that has outlived its usefulness in our society.

But what do I know; I’m a single guy living in Manhattan.

-John

Great job Ms. Chevry.

Here’s the thing, people are perfectly free to marry without a license. No federal law against doing so exists and the few states that have archaic laws against doing so are overturning such laws. The problem is that people do not question the status quo. As a result, they have no idea what marriage truly is. Most people will tell you that it is a legal contract first and a relationship second. In some cases, it’s not even the relationship that matters (as in cases of people being separated for decades with no intention of reuniting), but ONLY the contract.

What really gets to me is that Christians buy into this concept despite the fact that legal marriage often starkly contrasts marriage as it is depicted in the Bible. These same Christians will label children bastards and shun neighbors who aren’t legally married, but will celebrate second and third legal marriages as though they are legit even though the Christian Bible characterizes these marriages as nothing more than adulterous relationships. They will also seek to block certain people from legally marrying as though they have the right to do so even though legal marriage and Biblical marriage are not one and the same.

It’s a fascinating subject, really. I’m not against legal marriage…just opposed to people cluelessly entering it. I’ve published more of my thoughts about it in an ebook available on Amazon called Marriage Without a License. It is remarkable how uninformed people are about a relationship that existed long before any government ever did.