Why Marry?

I wonder why people in our society are bothering to get married. Laws have been gutted where "no fault" divorce is so easy to get that marriage seems just a slight bump on the road to a divorce if either of the partners becomes dissatisfied. Live- in arrangements have grown in popularity and have obviously made marriage less important. Homosexual partners want to be married when marriage has traditionally been for heterosexual partners.

My question is, "Why is marriage still among us?" If it is so bad in the eyes of people that they ignore it while in it and seek relationships that do not include it, then why hasn't it died? It should have been dead a long time ago, if not within the last few years. Yet you hear of people who leave their husband or wife for someone else--and want to marry that other person. Why?? I think I know the answer and I think it is deeper than tradition.

I believe it is one of those innate senses of moral "oughtness" that is built within mankind. Just as surely as murder will always be seen to be wrong by someone in every society, and truth will always be opposed to falsehood, marriage will be seen as the legitimate partnership for people within society to express sexual love and raise children. But marriage at its heart is more than that: It should be a commitment to a person for a lifetime and daring to believe that they will do the same for you. If people could really believe that the person with whom they "stand before the preacher" is the one they will see beside their deathbed, loyal in spite of sickness, misfortune, or disagreement, divorce would die.

"Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24).