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To reach this conclusion, Augustine looked to the first chapter of Genesis, where God told Adam and Eve, "Be fruitful and increase in number." He also explored marriage's other advantages. "It is certainly not fecundity only, the fruit of which consists offspring, nor chastity only, whose bond is fidelity, but also a certain sacramental bond in marriage which is recommended to believers in wedlock," Augustine wrote. "Accordingly it is enjoined by the apostle: 'Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church.'"

Paul's comparison of marriage to Christ's love for the church was crucial for the church fathers. The mysterious union of Christ with the church shows how God sanctifies husbands and wives through marriage. Through sacrifice and submission, husband and wife develop godly character. And only in marriage can man and woman express their God-given sexual desires within the secure and Scriptural bond of fidelity.

Civil or Sacrament?
By the end of the early church period, the fathers recognized a threefold purpose of marriage—procreation, sanctification, and chastity (that is, fidelity to one partner, not abstinence). They treated marriage with utmost seriousness. Chrysostom even upbraided his fellow Christians for incorporating supposedly pagan marriage rituals like dancing into the ceremonies. "Is the wedding then a theater?" Chrysostom preached. "It is a sacrament, a mystery, and a model of the Church of Christ, and still you invite dissolute women to it! … But why is there any need of dancing at all? They dance at pagan ceremonies; but at ours, silence and decorum should prevail, respect and modesty. Here, a great mystery is accomplished; away with the dissolute women, away with the profane!"

By the thirteenth century dancing was no longer such a problem, because marriage became recognized as a sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church. As a sacrament, marriage was believed to retain its earlier benefits, and also to help couples onward to heaven. Viewed as a direct conduit of God's grace, marriage became a key part of the Catholic economy of salvation. With the Reformation, however, the theology of marriage once again was up for grabs. Like the church fathers and their Catholic counterparts, the reformers venerated the role of procreation within marriage. But they did not consider celibacy the preferred ideal, nor did they consider marriage a sacrament. Luther exemplified the changing definition of marriage by renouncing his celibate past and taking the former nun Katherine von Bora as his wife.

Protestantism, and Lutheranism in particular, paved the way for marriage's dual function as a spiritual and social institution. This departure from the sacramental model stemmed largely from the Lutherans' rejection of Roman Catholic assumptions. The Roman Catholic worldview presupposed church supremacy over society, while Lutherans recognized a separation between church and civic spheres. In the Lutheran model, marriage, though still divinely ordained, performed essentially earthly functions. As a result, the state took responsibility for marriage.

The modern ascendancy of the state helped entrench Lutheran expectations of marriage in the West. The church continued to exert a strong influence on marriage so long as the state largely reflected church values. But in recent decades, as the church in many Western countries has lost prestige and society has become increasingly secular, marriage suffers from being disconnected from its spiritual roots.

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April (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48