“Maowage is the bond that bwings us togetha today,” said the priest in the movie The Princess Bride. Marriage, in my opinion, can be defined only as the sacred bond between a man and a woman. In the Bible, it is plain to see that marriage is not only meant to bring man and woman together and complete them, it is also a symbol of the loving relationship between Christ and His bride, the Church. Marriage is definitely sacred, but that does not mean that it should be treated as something strictly defined.

For instance, one of the fairly recent phenomena of our age is the degradation of marriage. This is due to many things - like the sexual revolution of the 1960’s and 70’s and the media’s constant devaluing comments - but is in large part due to society’s view that marriage is dull, unexciting, and monotonous. And perhaps it is all those things, but not so much due to Christianity or the Church.

Remarkably, the Bible gives very few, vague references to what marriage should look like. Jesus commands once that husbands should love their wives, and that wives should submit to their husbands. Another instance, Jesus says that husbands should give themselves up for their wives and that wives should give their husbands the leadership of the relationship. The Bible leaves a huge hole where one might expect to find the guidelines for marriage. That leads me to believe that marriage, as long as it fits into the loose frame the Bible gives, can be defined however couples want it to be. Get married at any age that seems right, use birth control, have any kind of consensual sex, have any amount of children you collectively want to raise, adopt children, get tattoos of each other’s names on your backs, elope, get married in space, go to nightclubs together, drink alcoholic beverages, get matching eyebrow rings, stay up late watching movies, text message each other constantly, go on extravagant and romantic dates - all of these things should be left up to each individual married couple to decide as right or wrong for them.

After all, what place in the Bible could a fellow believer point to and say “It says right here that you should not do this, so you shouldn’t do it”?

Marriage is a blank slate, and I believe it is part of the excitement that God wants each married couple to experience to define their marriage however they want. They should not feel that they have to live out their married lives exactly how their parents did or how their married friends do or how their mentors do.

I believe that if everyone had this open-yet-Biblically-minded view of marriage, this special bond would not be held in such low societal regard today.