Marriage as one man and one woman
The doctrine that marriage is the lifelong covenant union of one man and one woman, as established in Genesis 2:24 and reaffirmed by Christ in Matthew 19. This is the position held continuously across Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and historic Protestant traditions. Some bodies (UCC, TEC, ELCA, PCUSA, post-split UMC) have departed since the 2000s and now recognize same-sex marriages. Look for phrases like "open and affirming", "reconciling congregation", explicit wedding policies, or "all couples welcome" as signals of departure from the historic position.
This doctrine distinguishes traditions but is not a boundary of orthodoxy.
Who binds this
Every affiliated congregation inherits its denomination's position. Follow a chip to see the confession's language.
Key scriptures
- 1Cor 7:2 — Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
- 1Pet 3:7 — Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.
- 1Tim 3:2 — A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
- Col 3:18 — Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.
- Eph 5:31 — For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
- Gen 2:24 — Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
- Heb 13:4 — Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
- Mal 2:14 — Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.
- Mark 10:6 — But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.
- Matt 19:4 — And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
- Prov 18:22 — Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.
- Prov 31:10 — Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.
- Rom 7:2 — For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
- Song 8:6 — Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.
What the confessions say
Articles of the historic confessions that address this doctrine.
- Reformed Westminster Confession of Faith 24.2 — Of Marriage and Divorce
- Reformed Westminster Confession of Faith 24.1 — Of Marriage and Divorce
- Reformed Baptist 1689 London Baptist Confession 25.1 — Of the Civil Magistrate
- Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion Article 32 — Of the Marriage of Priests
- Lutheran Augsburg Confession Article 7 — Of the Church
- Roman Catholic Council of Trent (Decrees) On the Eucharist · Chapter VIII — On the use of this admirable Sacrament
The Church Fathers
The earliest Fathers who commented on the Scriptures above.
Above all, with His holy and undefiled hands He formed man, the most excellent [of His creatures], and truly great through the understanding given him — the express likeness of His own image. For thus says God: "Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness. So God made man; male and female He created them." [Genesis 1:26-27]…
But rather, he says, "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: looking diligently, lest there be any fornicator or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel surrendered his birth-right; and lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled." And then, as putting…
There were more ribs in Adam, and hands that knew no weariness in God; but not more wives in the eye of God. And accordingly the man of God, Adam, and the woman of God, Eve, discharging mutually (the duties of) one marriage, sanctioned for mankind a type by (the considerations of) the authoritative precedent of their origin and the…
Wherefore the apostle says: "The wife is bound by the law so long as her husband liveth; but if he be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband."
For he indicates this also in what follows, where he says: "While her husband lives, she is bound to the law;" and the very order of the example that has been taken up declares the same thing more fully: for he has put the law in the place of the husband, and concerning it he says: "But if her husband dies, she is loosed from the law…
Moreover, that Nicostratus, having lost the diaconate of sacred administrations, because he had abstracted the Church's money by a sacrilegious fraud, and disowned the deposits of the widows and orphans, did not wish so much to come into Africa as to escape thither from the city, from the consciousness of his rapines and his frightful…