Com­mon Law Mar­riages
By David Cox

[F12] v1 ©2008

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Mat 24:38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eat­ing and drink­ing, mar­ry­ing and giv­ing in mar­riage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,

Many in our day pro­mote infor­mal unions, which is a man and woman liv­ing together and hav­ing sex with­out the for­mal com­mitt­ments of mar­riage, that is with the under­stand­ing that the rela­tion­ship is not per­ma­nent. This is sup­pos­edly with­out the «strings» of com­mitt­ment, but with the free­dom of sex. Is this really a par­adise sit­u­a­tion or a great prob­lem? What does God say about this situation?

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What is the exam­ple for us?

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.

There are many things that believ­ing peo­ple have done in the Bible that are not nor­ma­tive, in other words, that their exam­ple is not what is right, much less oblig­a­tory on us that we should fol­low there exam­ples just because it is in the Bible. For exam­ple, David saw a woman bathing one evening from his roof, and she was nude, and very pretty. David wanted her, and sent for her, and left her preg­nant, and later arranged for the death of her hus­band so he could take her as his wife. All of this is not exem­pla­tory for us, but shows the fail­ings and spir­i­tual weak­nesses of David. It is an error to make this a bib­li­cal exam­ple as if it were approved of God, nor­ma­tive, or that we have God’s per­mis­sion to do the same. We should notice that the exam­ple of God is to begin human­ity with two peo­ple, male and female, a cou­ple and a fam­ily, bless­ing them with chil­dren. Part of our under­stand­ing should be a strong rule that any other per­son that enters into this rela­tion between a hus­band and a wife is sin, and call it adultery.

1Cor 6:16 What? know ye not that he which is joined to an har­lot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. 18 Flee for­ni­ca­tion. Every sin that a man doeth is with­out the body; but he that com­mit­teth for­ni­ca­tion sin­neth against his own body.

There is a union between these two peo­ple that has a per­mit­ted sex­ual aspect to it. But the rela­tion­ship is as much spir­i­tual as it is emo­tional and phys­i­cal. There is a pro­hi­bi­tion of going into whores, or to enter and leave sex­ual rela­tion­ship «like sail­ers» (on a whim).

Adul­tery is sin

Exo 20:14 Thou shalt not com­mit adultery.

When a mar­ried per­son has a love or sex­ual rela­tion­ship with some other per­son (a sin­gle per­son or some other mar­ried per­son other than their legal spouse), then it is adul­tery, and it is so evil that God com­manded the death penalty in the O.T.(Deu 22:22–24).

God seri­ously con­demned the destruc­tion of homes by out­siders (or even ini­ti­ated by one within the home), say­ing «what there­fore God hath joined together, let no man put asun­der.» Mat 19:5. So mar­riage is holy in the eyes of God.

Heb 13:4 Mar­riage is hon­ourable in all, and the bed unde­filed: but whore­mon­gers and adul­ter­ers God will judge.

The sex act is not sin, rather it is holy, but alway when it is done within the bonds of mar­riage. When peo­ple have sex with oth­ers out­side of the proper bonds of mar­riage, it is a sin God will judge.

Com­mon Law Marriage

There is an evil in our day that is very pop­u­lar, which is this con­cept of «com­mon law mar­riage». Some refer to this as «free union», which is not a free union, but free to breakup with­out com­pli­ca­tions sup­pos­edly. When two peo­ple live together with­out the mar­riage bond, they have no mar­riage vows to guide and restrain them in that rela­tion­ship, and they don’t put seri­ous­ness nor real impor­tance into that rela­tion­ship. Sim­ply put, they don’t want a seri­ous oblig­a­tion, and this is the prob­lem with it. The duty and respon­s­abil­ity of mar­riage exist none-the-less though. They get upset when one doesn’t com­ply with the unspo­ken but oblig­a­tory respon­s­abil­i­ties. Even civil author­i­ties rec­og­nize that liv­ing together out of wed­lock causes the same respon­s­abil­i­ties as being mar­ried. When the two have a child, they are both its par­ents, and the rela­tion­ship can­not eas­ily dis­solve and the child goes back where he came from. The agree­ments between two peo­ple often will go out­side of those two along legal lines.

The idea that two peo­ple can just get together for a while, and then when they so want, they can just break up like noth­ing ever existed between them is just a dream. Liv­ing together as man and wife causes emo­tional and spir­i­tual bond­ing between them, and hav­ing sex with another per­son like­wise makes bonds (1Cor 6:16) that can­not be bro­ken with­out dam­ag­ing con­se­quences. While it is heart­break­ing to have to sep­a­rate the mutual pos­s­e­sions they have accu­mu­lated liv­ing together, it is sim­ply not pos­si­ble to divide a child in two. The child is the one who is hurt most here. Par­ents who break up sim­ply force their chil­dren to hate one par­ent and love the other, and the child wants to love both. To erase love in another per­son is just unthink­able, and God will judge the lack of com­mitt­ment and respon­si­bil­ity of those who do this. In Malachi 2:15 «And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And where­fore one? That he might seek a godly seed. There­fore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treach­er­ously against the wife of his youth.» The point of God here is that sex­ual union is for the for­ma­tion of godly fam­i­lies, for the trans­mis­sion of moral prin­ci­ples from one gen­er­a­tion to another, and sex with­out the moral com­mitt­ment of mar­riage is exactly the oppo­site of what God wants.

Mar­riage is until death do us part

Rom 7:1–3 Know ye not, brethren, for I speak to them that know the law, how that the law hath domin­ion over a man as long as he liveth? 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. 3 So then if, while her hus­band liveth, she be mar­ried to another man, she shall be called an adul­ter­ess: but if her hus­band be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adul­ter­ess, though she be mar­ried to another man.

Accord­ing to Paul here, an adul­ter­ess per­son is one that has joined to some other per­son while they have a liv­ing spouse from a pre­vi­ous mar­riage. Mar­riage is a com­mitt­ment for life, and when some­body despises mar­riage and enters into a sex­ual arrange­ment or «live together» arrange­ment, it greatly dis­pleases God. There is a respon­s­abil­ity to suf­fer and endure the prob­lems and dif­fi­cul­ties that come in a rela­tion­ship between two peo­ple. Because this is dif­fi­cult, is not to say it is right to sep­a­rate from any cause.

Mat 19:5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? 6 Where­fore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What there­fore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

When God forms a fam­ily, a mar­ried cou­ple in the bonds of mar­riage, God does not want this union to dis­solve until God dis­solves with the death of one of the cou­ple. Nobody else, not even one or both of the cou­ple, has the right or author­ity to end the union, espe­cial not because of a loss of inter­est by one of the two, prob­lems, etc. or because one of the two wants to end it. Once a man and wife are joined through sex, God seals that rela­tion­ship mak­ing it wrong for even the cou­ple them­self to dis­solve the union.

Divorce in the Bible

Matt 19:7 They say unto him, Why did Moses then com­mand to give a writ­ing of divorce­ment, and to put her away? 8 He saith unto them, Moses because of the hard­ness of your hearts suf­fered you to put away your wives: but from the begin­ning it was not so. 9 And I say unto you, Whoso­ever shall put away his wife, except* it be for for­ni­ca­tion, and shall marry another, com­mit­teth adul­tery: and whoso mar­ri­eth her which is put away doth com­mit adultery.

* “except” also can mean «even for».

God under­stands that under cer­tain con­di­tions, cou­ples break up. Two obe­di­ent Chris­tians should never divorce. It sim­ply is not God’s will. In 1Corinthians 7, God out­lines this, that when a Chris­t­ian and an unsaved per­son are mar­ried, and the unsaved per­son leaves the mar­riage, the saved per­son is not in sin, but even so, God wants us to stay mar­ried and not divorce.

The For­mal­ity of a Wedding

Eccl 5:4 When thou vow­est a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for [he hath] no plea­sure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed. 5 Bet­ter [is it] that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.

The point of hav­ing a for­mal wed­ding is to pub­licly and for­mally rec­og­nize the rela­tion­ship between the two peo­ple, and this includes before both sides of the fam­ily, friends, co-workers, This is a for­mal «vow» or seri­ous promise and rela­tion­ship between the two peo­ple. By means of a for­mal wed­ding, the peo­ple involved are mak­ing their rela­tion­ship and com­mitt­ment seri­ous before all and between the two. What a com­mon law mar­riage with­out any pub­lic or reli­gious recog­ni­tion is, is to make fun of God, the divine insti­tu­tion of mar­riage, and seri­ous­ness that God has placed on «liv­ing together as man and wife.»

The prob­lem of com­mon law marriage

The prin­ci­ple prob­lem of com­mon law mar­riages is their lack of for­mal­ity which leaves God and any seri­ous com­mitt­ment to the rela­tion out­side of the rela­tion­ship alto­gether. This may be the agree­ment in the begin­ning, but with time, it will be the cause of great dam­age, hurt, and even­tu­ally will be the end of the relationship.

A mar­riage rela­tion­ship func­tions because of sev­eral impor­tant fac­tors: (1) Both have com­mon inter­ests. (2) Both are agreed in prin­ci­pals, morals, and the ele­ments of life that join them, espe­cially their reli­gious beliefs. (3) Both have a com­mitt­ment and desire to be together, and this is declared love, not just emo­tion, but they both strongly will to love each other no mat­ter what hap­pens. The prob­lem then is that this rela­tio­ship never stays still, but always grows bet­ter or worse. In the changes of life that come to all, these fac­tors that are the foun­da­tion of their mar­riage, and the com­mitt­ment is what really unites them when the joys of sex grow cold and fade away.

How do we fix Com­mon Law Marriage?

First of all, we need to under­stand that when two peo­ple begin to live together and have sex, they form a spir­i­tual oblig­a­tion and respon­s­abil­ity before God. With kids, things get more com­pli­cated. Two peo­ple hav­ing sex are already one flesh in God’s sight. In gen­eral, the solu­tion is to «for­mal­ize» the rela­tion­ship with a civil wed­ding and a reli­gious wed­ding. With this they should rec­og­nize their oblig­a­tions and respon­s­abil­i­ties, and faith­fully ful­fill them, ded­i­cat­ing them­selves to their mar­riage relationship.