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Marriage as Lifelong Covenant

The Common Witness

The historic church has consistently witnessed that marriage is, by divine institution, a lifelong and exclusive covenant between one man and one woman — a union established by God in creation, confirmed by Christ in His earthly ministry, and invested with sacramental significance by the apostle Paul as an image of Christ’s union with His Church. This is not the private teaching of any single tradition. It is the universal witness of Christendom.

Every historic branch of the Christian faith — Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed — confesses that marriage was ordained by God to be permanent, faithful, and fruitful. The question of whether and under what circumstances divorce and remarriage may be permitted is genuinely controverted, and belongs to Layer 3 or 4. But the principle — that God’s intention for marriage is lifelong fidelity, that “what God has joined together, let not man separate” — is affirmed with a unanimity that is rare even among doctrines of the catholic consensus.

Scriptural Warrant

Marriage as divine institution in creation:

“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, ESV)

Christ’s confirmation of the creation ordinance:

“He answered, ‘Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate’” (Matthew 19:4-6, ESV)
“And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery” (Matthew 19:9, ESV)

The Pauline teaching — marriage as mystery of Christ and Church:

“‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:31-32, ESV)

The indissolubility principle:

“To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband… and the husband should not divorce his wife” (1 Corinthians 7:10-11, ESV)
“A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives” (1 Corinthians 7:39, ESV)

Patristic and Historical Attestation

Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

Augustine’s De Bono Coniugali (c. 401) identifies three goods of marriage: fides (fidelity), proles (offspring), and sacramentum (the indissoluble bond that images Christ and the Church). The third good — the sacramentum — is what makes Christian marriage permanent even when the other two goods are absent. A marriage validly contracted cannot be dissolved, because the bond itself participates in the mystery of Christ’s irrevocable union with His Bride. — De Bono Coniugali 24.32

John Chrysostom (c. 349-407)

“When you hear that ‘the two shall become one flesh,’ do not think of anything bodily. The soul of the husband and wife are joined together by love, and their union is more binding than any physical bond… Have you not seen that in our own bodies, when a gangrene occurs, we cut off a limb rather than let the whole body perish? But in marriage there is no cutting off.” — Homily 20 on Ephesians [∗ paraphrase; Chrysostom’s marriage homilies are extensive]

Chrysostom’s homilies on marriage are the most extensive patristic treatment of the subject. He consistently presents marriage as a school of virtue, a domestic church, and a permanent bond ordained by God.

Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215)

“Marriage is a sacred image that must be kept pure from those things which defile it… He who marries, let him marry in the Lord, that is, not in lust, nor for money, nor for outward beauty, but in a spirit of temperance and holiness.” — Stromateis 2.23 [∗]

Tertullian (c. 155-220)

“How beautiful, then, the marriage of two Christians, two who are one in hope, one in desire, one in the way of life they follow, one in the religion they practice… They pray together, they worship together, they fast together, instructing one another, encouraging one another, strengthening one another.” — Ad Uxorem 2.8

Tradition-Formulary Evidence

Roman Catholic

CCC §1601: “The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.” CCC §1614: “In His preaching Jesus unequivocally taught the original meaning of the union of man and woman as the Creator willed it from the beginning: permission given by Moses to divorce one’s wife was a concession to the hardness of hearts. The matrimonial union of man and woman is indissoluble: God Himself has determined it.” Canon 1141 of the Code of Canon Law: “A ratified and consummated marriage cannot be dissolved by any human power or for any reason other than death.” Affirms absolutely.

Eastern Orthodox

The Orthodox Church teaches that marriage is a sacrament (mysterion) and that its ideal is lifelong permanence. The marriage rite includes the crowning of the spouses as martyrs of faithful love. However, Orthodoxy permits divorce and remarriage under the principle of oikonomia — pastoral economy — recognizing that some marriages die and that the Church may, in mercy, permit a second (or even third) marriage, though with a penitential rite. The ideal remains indissoluble union. Affirms the principle; permits exceptions under pastoral economy.

Lutheran

The Augsburg Confession does not treat marriage as a sacrament in the strict sense, but Luther himself wrote extensively on marriage as a divine institution. The Large Catechism on the Sixth Commandment: “God has instituted marriage as the first of all institutions, and He created man and woman differently, not for lewdness, but to be true to each other, be fruitful, beget children, and nurture and bring them up to the glory of God.” Lutheranism affirms lifelong marriage as the norm while permitting divorce in cases of adultery and desertion (following the Matthean exception and 1 Corinthians 7:15). Affirms the principle; permits limited exceptions.

Reformed

WCF 24.1: “Marriage is to be between one man and one woman: neither is it lawful for any man to have more than one wife, nor for any woman to have more than one husband, at the same time.” WCF 24.5-6 permits divorce for adultery and “such willful desertion as can no way be remedied.” Calvin, Institutes IV.19.34: Marriage is “a good and holy ordinance of God” but not a sacrament in the strict sense. The Reformed tradition firmly upholds lifelong marriage while permitting divorce on specific biblical grounds. Affirms the principle; permits limited exceptions.

Anglican

The 1662 Book of Common Prayer, Solemnization of Matrimony: “Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder.” The marriage vows include: “to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.” Canon B 30 of the Church of England: “The Church of England affirms, according to our Lord’s teaching, that marriage is in its nature a union permanent and lifelong.” Modern Anglicanism has introduced provisions for remarriage after divorce, but the doctrinal standard remains lifelong covenant. Affirms the principle; pastoral practice has evolved.

The Dissenting Minority

On the principle of lifelong marriage, there is virtually no dissent within historic Christianity. No church, no tradition, no theologian of note has argued that marriage is intended by God to be temporary or dissoluble at will.

The dissent — and it is genuine — concerns exceptions to the principle: whether divorce and remarriage are ever permissible, and if so, under what conditions. This is properly a Layer 3 or Layer 4 question, and the traditions divide along these lines:

Roman Catholicism holds that a valid, sacramental, consummated marriage is absolutely indissoluble. What appear to be “divorces” are, in Catholic canon law, annulments — declarations that a valid marriage never existed.
Eastern Orthodoxy permits divorce and remarriage under oikonomia, principally for adultery, but also for other causes that destroy the marital bond.
Protestantism (Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican) generally permits divorce for adultery and desertion, following the Matthean exception (Matthew 19:9) and the Pauline privilege (1 Corinthians 7:15).

The only groups that might be said to dissent from the principle itself are certain modern secular and liberal theological movements that question whether lifelong commitment is a meaningful or desirable norm. But these represent departures from the received tradition of every historic branch.

For Further Study

Augustine, De Bono Coniugali — the foundational Western theology of marriage as sacrament and lifelong bond
John Chrysostom, Homilies 19-20 on Ephesians — the most extensive patristic meditation on marriage as domestic church
John Witte Jr., From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition (2nd ed., 2012) — historical survey of the theological and legal development
Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World, ch. 5 — Orthodox sacramental theology of marriage