What Is The Purpose Of Marriage? – African Christian Authors

If you are considering getting married — for what purpose do you want to get married? If you are married, why are you married? Are you using marriage for the right purpose?

Have you ever seen the body of a car being used as a store or a sword used to weed a garden? Or a couch being used as a bed? Certainly, such use is not for the purpose for which the equipment was intended.

Marriage is an institution with great potential but also incurs great losses and mismanagement when people in it don’t understand its purpose.

Why Do We Need to Get Married?

1. Universal Institution

Now, marriage did not just happen. It is a universal institution found among both sophisticated and simple societies. It is a way of life for the rich and the poor, the educated and the illiterate — all alike. The source of marriage is not man, but God.

It was God who said, “It is not good for man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18). And, He proceeded to take woman out of man and designed her very well to fit the purpose of marriage. Then He brought her to the man and joined them in a wonderful wedding. The man made his vows:

 "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called "mine" [woman] for she was taken out of "me" [man] (Gen. 2:23.)

On His part, God, as He solemnized the marriage, blessed them and said,

"Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and over every living creature that moves on the ground," (Gen. 1:28).

Jesus too, God’s Son, confirmed God’s support for marriage by doing his first miracle in a wedding at Cana, in Galilee.

We will look at seven biblical purposes for marriage. I will draw the purposes from the Bible, because the Bible is our blue print. It communicates the will of God. It is the final authority in all matters of life. What it says is superior to what your people, clan, tribe, country or leaders say. All else must be tested by what the Bible says. And those who obey what it says stand to benefit from the Father of all creation. The order of purposes in this message is not in order of importance, but convenience. You cannot take some and leave others. They all work together to form the purpose.

2.Companionship

Life is lonely in some way and humans generally want to share life with another.

After he was created, Adam was busy doing many things for himself and carrying out his family cores. He had no idea what problems he had, but God saw his need and said,

"It is not good for man to be alone," (Gen. 12:18).

This says clearly what was God’s intention from the beginning.

This does not change after you are married, or when economic pressures are high. Human traditions separate men from their wives — because we must have a home (up-country) and a source of income (office) to ensure a future.

Modern arrangements that separate husbands and wives are actually against God’s will. They in return produce the devil’s purpose on people’s life — immorality, stress, way-ward children, para-wives and para-husbands, etc.

Remember it was God who saw the need and intended it solved — by the married couple sharing life together. Secondly remember, the woman was the suitable companion, not like animals. She was a “helper”.

3.Completing Man and Woman

In my house, I have several, very nice socks. But I cannot use them because I cannot get the other piece to complete the pair. Each of those socks is incomplete. They have no defects, but they are incomplete.

I once had a new, expensive, imported pair of shoes, but after I had used it for only one week, my neighbor’s puppies came through the fence and took away one of my shoes to the other side of the fence. They played with it until it could not be used. I came to realize that I had only one part of the pair. That shoe was still good, but not complete.

"It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him," (Gen.2: 18).

This does not refer to a defect in Adam, but to incompleteness.

First, man is a social creature and therefore exists in the context of relationships. That is why men need to live in communities — beginning from the family, to village, clan, tribe and the broader community. The answer to this need could only be found in a marriage. Marriage produces all that community is. And God meant it to be so. It was His purpose. That’s why it is important to have healthy homes, because they will produce healthy nations that bring glory to God.

Now we must be quick to point it out here — single people have no defects; they can live a normal life and be fulfilled as singles. But to be complete, they need marriage. And I encourage all who are eligible for marriage to seek to be married — get complete! And to the married, don’t to stay only as one piece of the set — be complete!

4.Produce Children

Jacqueline and Mike were planning to get married. But Jacque had no interest in producing children. Mike was eager to have them. After endless debates, they decided to seek counsel. They sought it from the Bible. For all the arguments and reasons, they concluded, the Bible is more for family planting than family planning. They went for six children. Teased by friends why they got so many, Mike only made a joke of it. “By the way is it a curse or a blessing?”

Githae and Truphosa had no business caring how many children they got. After the twelfth, Truphosa was so weak; their doctor advised that unless she stopped having more, she risked losing her life. They ignored it. When she was in hospital to deliver their thirteenth child, she lost her life. Githae has real trouble raising twelve children, and his new wife wants some that are her’s.

One of the purposes of marriage is to produce children. It was God’s intention from the beginning that man and woman in their physical union be fruitful and produce children.

 "God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth,'" (Gen. 1.28).

In the same line of thought, God tells us in Psalms that children are a gift from the LORD and a reward from Him. “Children are a gift from God; they are his reward. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them” (Psalms 127:3–5,LB). Nevertheless, we need to realize that the prerogative to give children rests with God. It is Him who gives, or rewards.

Eunice had big trouble with Karani, her husband. Although she could give him children (as is widely said), she could only get one sex of children. And for this, he would give her the warning: “If you get another girl, you must find place take her.” What this man failed to recognize is, that it was God’s job to give children of each of the two sexes. In any case, children are no longer a kind of pension for old age, or a source of wealth. Any sex is as good as the other!

Our traditional way of viewing those who cannot get children is also wrong. Children do not make a marriage valid or invalid. Marriage takes only a man and a woman who publicly before God and man declare their commitment to each other. Children are a fruit of that relationship, but that’s all. They will one day leave, but even then, the marriage will be complete.

Without dictating how many children one should have, the Bible points out that one important purpose of marriage is to produce children. It is the thing to be expected from any married couple — that they produce children.

God does not merely expect and intend that children be raised; He is seeking a godly offspring from the unity between man and woman in marriage (see Malachi 2:14–15). This ought to encourage godly parents to raise a godly offspring for God.

For those who cannot raise their own biological children, I recommend without any hesitation that they seek to adopt some children. It is not in any way ungodly, after all we all are God’s children by adoption (Rom. 11).