Theme · ethical
Marriage and Family
God creates humanity male and female and establishes marriage as the foundational human relationship: 'A man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife.' The patriarchal narratives are family stories — promises of descendants, sibling rivalry, barrenness and miraculous birth. The prophets use marriage as a metaphor for God's relationship with Israel, with infidelity as adultery. Jesus affirms marriage's creation design and elevates singleness as an equally valid calling. Paul casts marriage as a mystery pointing to Christ and the church, and the household codes shape family life around mutual love and sacrificial service.
Related doctrines
Passages expressing this theme
- 1Cor 7:2 — Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
- 1Cor 7:3 — Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.
- 1Cor 9:5 — Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?
- 1Cor 11:3 — But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
- 1Pet 3:1 — Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;
- 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 hinder
- 1Tim 2:9 — In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;
- 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;
- 1Tim 4:3 — Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
- 1Tim 5:3 — Honour widows that are widows indeed.
- 2Cor 11:2 — For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
- 2Kgs 4:1 — Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the LORD: and the creditor is c
- 2Tim 1:5 — When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also.
- Col 3:18 — Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.
- Col 3:19 — Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.
- Col 3:20 — Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.
- Col 3:21 — Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.
- Deut 5:16 — Honour thy father and thy mother, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
- Deut 6:6 — And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
- Deut 6:7 — And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
- Eph 5:21 — Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
- Eph 5:22 — Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
- Eph 5:25 — Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
- 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.
- Eph 5:32 — This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
The Church Fathers on Marriage and Family
Marriage is a good in all the things which are proper to the married state. And these are three: it is the ordained means of procreation, it is the guarantee of chastity, it is the bond of union. In respect of its ordination for generation the Scripture says, "I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear…
Let no one think however that herein we depreciate marriage as an institution. We are well aware that it is not a stranger to God's blessing. But since the common instincts of mankind can plead sufficiently on its behalf, instincts which prompt by a spontaneous bias to take the high road of marriage for the…
For they can no longer die. Because marriages are for the sake of children. Children are for the sake of succession. Succession is for the sake of death. Therefore, where there is no death, neither are there marriages.
(Hom. 36.) But although marriage is good, and appointed by Divine Providence for the propagation of children, some seek therein not fruitfulness of offspring, but the lust of pleasure. And so by means of a righteous thing may not unfitly an unrighteous thing be represented.
Since the Fall no organization or way of life whatever has a natural tendency to go right. In the Middle Ages some people thought that if only they entered a religious order they would find themselves automatically becoming holy and happy: the whole native literature of the period echoes with the exposure of that…
Marriage is a spiritual gift, but not if it is contracted with unbelievers. The Spirit of God is not given to dwell in those who are not believers.