THE DEBACLE OF THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY AND RELIGION.

Good morning folks,

One of the reasons that delays marriage in young people is the cost of marriage especially in Nigeria. The moment the thought of marriage comes up in any discuss, the next thing will be the availability of funds – the cost.

So the people who get married are simply those who have the money or those who desire marriage so much that they make it happen by faith, through challenges and at great risk to other relationships.

It’s baffling that this rhetoric still holds through among Christians. An average Christian couple has to go through three ceremonies before he is considered married.

• First is the traditional ceremony, because the girl comes from a family and you need to have their blessing and permission to be joined to her. 
• Second is the church ceremony or white wedding because the Church refuses to recognise that God is involved in the traditional ceremony and so they must do a repeat of the union to involve God in it. 
• Third is the court registry (which is sometimes done co-jointly with the white wedding to give more validity) because the society and government only recognizes the oath of marriage as stipulated by the law. 

To me marriage is fundamentally a religious act (this is arguable) founded in the bible with the merging of Adam and Eve who became the first of family. But isn’t it amazing that the validity of marriage by biblical examples are not as strenuous as we have it today? There was no ceremony for Adam and Eve except Adam’s declaration. (Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh).

Isaac and Rebekah got married virtually. You see, Abraham sent his servant to get her and if you read the story carefully it was simply a matter of agreement. Rebecca’s parents gave her to Isaac before the servant appreciated them by giving gifts to Rebecca (first) and then to her mother and brother (Not to the father). Marriage is not human trafficking. You are not buying and selling the girl.

And so one may ask is there a right and wrong to marriage ceremony? There is nothing wrong with the three marriage ceremonies outlined above. But doing the three does not make you more married than your counterpart that does just one.

In the bible, there is no such thing as a white wedding. So you may ask, does God recognise the traditional marriage? Yes. The same way he recognised the marriage of Isaac to Rebecca and indeed ever other marriage in the bible including Joseph’s marriage to Asenath, and Egyptian highborn woman. By the way, that marriage was done by Egyptian tradition and it was recognised by God.

I dare say that the hallmark of marriage is in knowing your spouse. I mean that both literarily and metaphorically. Consummating marriage is generally recognised as the binding factor that validates marriage. But you may ask, what of all these people having sex indiscriminately does that mean they are married to each other? The answer is no. You see, what’s lacking is the first prerogative for a marriage to occur and that is agreement. Voluntary and responsive desire by the couple to be joined in union to each other for ever.

Hasn’t it amazed you that God also recognizes marriages that are done in various traditions and religions of the world? The union, many have thought, can only be authenticated when officiated by a priest or ordained minister. That is not true. Who officiated the marriage of Abraham to Sarah or Adam to Eve or Joseph to Asenath or Solomon to his 700 wives? Does the absence of an officiator nullify a marriage ceremony or does the non-religious nature of an officiator disturb the sanctity of marriage ceremony?

Many have thought that the higher the status of the officiator the surer the marriage. That is not true. Even great men of God of the topmost status have been known to hit the rocks in their own marriage. NO! The officiator is not the key to the validity of marriage.

Do you not realise that the highest percentage of marriages that are in serious danger of divorce or annulment are those that are religious in nature? This is not to say that religious marriages are doomed to break up but to point out that a religious marriage is not a guaranteed of marital bliss. The fact that you had a white wedding (which isn’t a Christian thing originally by the way) does not make your marriage more valid than the guy that just went to court.

Here is a little advice to intended couples:

The marriage is more important than the ceremony. The ceremony is just a day or period of days. The marriage is for life. Focus on the marriage and not the ceremony. Focus on the union and not how the union will happen.

There isn’t a marriage ceremony that stays in the fore of people’s consciousness for more than 1 year – tops. No matter how much you spend, you will enter the same status of married as the poor man who went to the village just to give drinks only.

No body will ever ask you “what was the budget of your marriage?” But someone will definitely ask you one day “are you happy in your marriage?”.


- E. I. OPUTA