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I have been reading the story of David, Nabal, and Abigail. It occurred to me that this wise and kind woman may have ended up saddled with Nabal because of an arranged marriage, and not because she would actually have chosen him otherwise.That got me to thinking.... Do the same rules for divorce apply in such a situation--i.e., one where you absolutely had no say in the matter? Consider if you were, say, the victim of a true shotgun wedding. Are you now obligated to spend the rest of your life with this person (barring adultery)? Does it matter if you are male or female?Would it be even fair to argue that Yes, what GOD joins together, let not man put asunder--but God didn't put this together? And if we did argue that, wouldn't that cause a lot of otherwise legitimately married folks to argue the same thing in order to find a loophole out of their situation?It is MY OPINION that if the marriage is forced upon a person, that there is some legitimacy to allowing for divorce without the cause of adultery--at least in SOME cases. If someone is in an arranged marriage and stays married for 30 years when he/she could have divorced at a far earlier point...I think I could argue that at some point the marriage takes on the same legitimacy as any other marriage.Lastly, do you think that there is any argument to be made (as I have heard it made) about, since God didn't put them together, it was not a problem to divorce for, basically, not being able to get along.

I have to say my opinion of divorce has modified over the years. In the case of arranged marriages, it seems to me there should be an out.Divorce itself? I personally know a couple who married a few months after my wife and I. They too have now been married over 60 years, and right now, and for the last 50 years they do not even like each other. BUT she being died in the wool 'OLD COG' believe they 'made their bed and should lie in it'. They have been happily miserable for 60 years. I can't fathom it.I think a couple who does not love each other are better off divorced. It is not an unpardonable sin. I may be wrong but I think a Christian should be happy. A miserable marriage does not produce happiness.Of course I HAVE BECOME an OLD liberal. I once was a Strict 'toe the line' you are going to Hell if you do not follow the COG teachings TYPE OF GUY, but as time goes on and I get closer to 'the end', my views have changed Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/

A better set of questions are these?Are non-arranged marriages valid?If a couple get married without the bride's father's permission, is the marriage valid?Question 1 is not as good of a question, of course. A groom could 'arrange' the marriage with the potential father-in-law in Biblical accounts. If the pagan Shechemites knew better than to just marry off Dinah to the heir to their throne. Jacob had to approve for it to be legitimate. The Bible doesn't exactly state this, but the need for bridal consent is a strong Jewish tradition. In the story of Isaac and Rebecca, Rebecca gave her consent.But I suspect that the original readers of the Old Testament would have considered a man taking a woman off somewhere without the father's permission and having some kind of ceremony in which they made promises, instead of covenanting through giving the bride price, to each other to have been the wrong way to go about it. The legitimacy of the marriage might have been in question.The Benjamites did, with the national leaders approval, steal some brides, because the Israelites had put themselves under a curse if they gave a bride to a Benjamite. Since the fathers could not give the daughters in marriage, the men stole their brides. God actually required 'forced marriages' in some cases in the Old Testament. If a man raped or seduced a virgin, he was required to marry her. The requirement was on his side. The father of the girl could refuse to give her to him as a wife, but he still had to pay the bride price for virgins.With a lot of arranged marriages, there is consent by those being married. It may be, for cultural reasons, the kids go along with their parents choices, because that's the way it's done. But they still stand there and go through whatever rituals, and don't run away. In the proverbial shot gun wedding, the groom has the choice to get married and take responsibility for the bride and unborn baby, or risk his chances running and evading the shotgun fire from the bride's father.There are still arranged marriages in Indian, and some modern India young people (could be 20's) are a part of the process along with their parents. Some Koreans practice arranged marriage and the young adults looking for spouses may be asked to approve the choice after a meeting or two, I hear, if the parents agree. India has a very low rate of divorce. When I lived in Korea, I heard that arranged marriages had a lower divorce rate than marriages where couples found their own spouses. When I was there, they separated girls from boys in school from age seven up through high school. In college, girls and boys mixed. Senior classmates would match up freshmen on blind dates. The three of them would meet. They called this a 'meeting.' It was a kind of blind date. I heard a lot of the Freshman would go to several 'meetings' a week. Eventually, many of them settled with girlfriends and boyfriends. So even their dating was 'arranged' in a way. The ones who didn't marry off soon after college or who didn't meet on their own in their early working years had a high expectation to find a wife. At the time, a woman who hit 30 who wasn't married would have faced a lot of pressure from family to marry. When girls got close to 30 and men got a little past the 30 mark, their mother's, aunts, grandmas etc. would go around with pictures of them. Little old ladies would show pictures of their single relatives to each other at the bus stops. I had a Korean grad school classmate whose parents were thinking of trying to set her up with her father's bosses son. He had an advanced degree and a good career. Parents want their children to match on education level.Six year olds girls in Afghanistan may be more like what you have in mind. Muh. ham. mad had a child bride and Mus|ims think it is a good thing to imitate him, and some of the Afghanistan groups may be applying that to marriage.In Indonesia, a lot of people find their own spouses in the city, but parental approval to actually get married is a very important cultural norm. For people who get to old without getting married and in some rural areas, parents can be active in setting up marriages. I've got an in-law who was arranged with a relative that had a relationship with her that, by custom, they were allowed to marry. (Same father's name is forbidden, just like with Koreans.) My wife had a cousin who she heard was arranged. She had a college degree and was good-looking so my wife was surprised to hear that. On the negative side of this, I talked with a maid who was a former Mus|im whose father was trying to set her up from someone of that religion.Ideally, it think it would be good if there were more parental involvement in choice of spouse and the whole dating culture. Maybe a 100 years or so into our cultural trend of letting young people choose their own spouses, the divorce rate skyrocketed. Of course, there was also feminism and the sexual revolution, so we can't blame it all on that. And there was a slow progression toward it. The sexual revolution and divorce rate happened a few decades into the slow introduction of our modern dating culture. Parents having a big say over who their kids court or marry works better in a culture where this is the norm. Individuals accept it better that way. Our constantly being bombarded by images of people who are in the 95 percentile for looks on TV and other media and cultural emphasis on certain concepts related to romantic love, Disney stories about the evil father trying to keep the two young people in love from getting together, and various other influence would work against a return to parents having a bigger say in helping their children in this way.Jeremiah 29:6says,Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished.This was in a passage of instructions for how Judah was to behave in captivity. There is a context to it, of course. But the LORD's words imply the parents had a responsibility to find the husbands and wives for their children to marry. When did the Lord say anything about young people finding spouses apart from their parents' help?I'll admit, this topic is more interesting to me as a father than it was as a teenager. I remember my mother suggesting some teenage girl in church and saying, Don't you think she's cute? when the girl in question wasn't my type. The idea of arranged marriage and parents picking out someone for me would have made me cringe back then. But parents could take children's personal tastes into account as well

Many, perhaps most marriages today are not Biblical marriages and are not what God has joined together. As such many of the divorces today do not meet the definition of divorce in the Bible.I do not think the Church should even consider a marriage contract entered into before civil authority as rising to the standard of Biblical Marriage anymore. With the civil authorities allowing sinful and unnatural couplings to receive licensed marriage contracts, it is clear that the grounds in which the relationship was formed is not binding.With the rise in feminism and sexual immorality I have seen many cases where the marriage contract entered into is not a marriage. There are good reasons to put her away as Joseph well knew.

I don't know about that (not considering civil unions valid) Mat. There are reasons for Christians to be married by a Justice of the Peace. I was told that it costs $1000 to be married at Central Church. I was shocked, if I am wrong I will apologize. the person telling me had planned to be married there.My wife and I were married by JP Nunn in York, SC and it has lasted 60+ years, cost $20.But I do agree that most marriages today are not blessed nor joined by God. Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/

I don't know about that (not considering civil unions valid) Mat. There are reasons for Christians to be married by a Justice of the Peace. I was told that it costs $1000 to be married at Central Church. I was shocked, if I am wrong I will apologize. the person telling me had planned to be married there.My wife and I were married by JP Nunn in York, SC and it has lasted 60+ years, cost $20.But I do agree that most marriages today are not blessed nor joined by God. Praise the Lord for 60 years of marriage. My wife and I will be married 41 years next week.As to civil unions, 60 years (and even not that long ago) ago civil unions in the US mirrored Christian marriages. I was speaking to the current condition, not the validity of marriages that were entered into under Biblical principles in the past.As to the cost of using a church, wedding are hard work for pastors and churches. Most churches require (should require) pre-marital counseling, meeting with the pastor (minister) on the ceremony, rehearse time, media and music ministry involvement, building preparation before (including decorating) and cleaning up afterwards. Proper building use documentation and proper completion and filing of marriage license. So I can see where a large church with paid staff would charge, even for members.My church had a wedding two Saturdays required an all hands on deck effort from our volunteer staff to prepare the church, have the ceremony and reception and clean and prep the church for the next day's services. We do not charge faithful members or their children, but we do expect the families to be VERY involved in every aspect.How, even weddings in a church that come off as the greatest show on earth are not necessary a union that deserving the blessing, what God has joined together... Most people today want the traditions of a Christian marriage (white dress, scripture, vows, prayers, etc) but they have no intention before or after the ceremony living a Christian life. They want the Cinderella Wedding and Beyonce Reception.

Tom Ford is a fashion designer who is married to his husband. I had heard his name on NPR and simply looked him up to find out more about him, since he also apparently directed a movie, etc.He said something that I hear on here at times. He said that he believed that all secular marriages, gay or straight, should be considered civil unions, and to leave it to the church to determine marriage.

C S Lewis said this 80 years ago

There are situations where it may be questionable as to whether a marriage is legit. I think we'd all agree that so called 'gay' so called 'marriages' are not legitamite. Then there are incestuous marriages. There are also marriages where we might debates whether they are legitimate as to whether they violated Jesus' teaching on marriage and divorce. That last topic is highly debated.I don't want to read into other posters' comments, but we need to be careful not to think that God only joins marriages together in specific cases. Two people can be legitimately married when they have no specific intention to serve God. Pagans can be really married. The idea that marriages are joined by the preacher is not a Biblical concept. Fathers gave their daughters away in the Old Testament. This still goes on in countries that are not Christian throughout the world today. People of other religions commit to be married. Men agree to take women as their wives. It is not a matter of a religious ceremony or even of sincerely committing to serve God.The Bible has certain teachings on marriage and it is reasonable for us to expect Christians to follow that. Also, if we think that some people are legitimately married and God hasn't particularly blessed their marriage, that is different from saying that they aren't really married because God hasn't blessed them.There is a bearded man on YouTube who runs some kind of religious commune who seems to think that a couple could get legally married but not be married in God's sight if it wasn't His will for them to be married, so you have to hear Jesus tell you to get married to know it is legitimate. This kind of hyper-charismatic thinking can be really dangerous, and I heard a testimony of someone who left her husband to pursue a relationship with someone she thought it was God's will for her to be married to, and eventually got married, though not registered with the state, with a preacher who taught this doctrine, who had legally been married and divorced himself. Anyway, I just wanted to point out that God ordained marriage for mankind. It is not just a Christian ordinance. We have our church customs and traditions, and we should teach people God's will for marriage. But we should be careful not to have teachings that break up marriages and promote what the Bible identifies as legitimate marriage