1. Emerging Realities A. Basic Realities
B. Purpose of Marriage in Creation
C. Marriage as Realized Among the Chosen People

2. Objectives
To have a clear and deeper understanding of Christian teachings regarding the nature and realities of marriage
To identify some specific instructions and clarifications God gives to couples to fulfill his plan
Analyze why and how Adam and Eve’s disobedience disturbed the whole plan of God

3. Basic Realities of Marriage
Human and secular reality
Innate and natural
Important and significant
Sacred reality
Superior power connected to getting marriage
It is connected to divine
A mysterion or sacrament: sign of a higher and sacred reality which entered salvation

4. Basic Realities of Marriage
Marriage is a human institution
Officium naturae (duty of nature) since it is directed to procreation
Nature demands that human beings should perpetuate or continue their specie
Marriage is divine institution
It is from God and its ends, laws, blessings (Casti Conubii)

5. Basic Realities Marriage
Marriage as state
Exist by giving and accepting the consent, by which creates the situation or the state of being married (permanent and stable)
Marriage as event
It is not stagnated, the life of the couple moves on
Thus it is a continuous event, lifelong process to fulfill God’s plan

6. Basic Realities of Marriage
Marriage is contract
“Contract” is an agreement entered into by two parties or person to do something for or exchange something with each other
Marriage is a contract because it is the agreement between man and woman to give to and to accept from the other

7. Basic Realities of Marriage
Marriage as covenant
“Covenant” means a pact, an alliance or partnership that man and woman from to commit themselves to lifetime of togetherness for their own good, and for the creation and education of children
This commitment is made out of their love for each other

8. Basic Realities Marriage
Marriage as social institution
Marriage is a deeply personal affair between two persons in love
Yet it introduces the couple a community (marriage is a social institution)
There is a communitarian and public dimension

9. Purpose of Marriage in Creation
PURPPOSE OF MARRIAGE
IN CREATION

10. Purpose of Marriage in Creation
Two accounts of creation:
Gen. 2: 2-25 (Yahwist)
Gen. 1:1-30 (priestly tradition)

11. Narrator: Then the LORD God said
God: "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him."
Narrator: So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said

12. Man: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."
Narrator: Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
Gen. 2: 18-25

13. Gen. 2:2-25
Narrates that God created for him a helpmate (Gen. 2:18-25)
Illustrated in this passage is the gift of sexuality from God
This sexuality is an answer to man’s deep longing to be with another of his own kind

14. Gen. 2:2-25 Man was created according to God’s image and likeness
They are meant for each other through the gift of sexuality
N.B.: Man and woman are different in certain ways yet essentially and equally the same in nature and dignity.
This clearly states and indicates a monogamous relationship/union

15. Gen. 1:26-28
Narrator: Then God said
God: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.
Narrator: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them,
God: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."

16. Gen. 1:26-28 “male and female” Means they are distinct yet equal
Share the same and equal responsibility-begetting offspring
Created in God’s image and likeness- intrinsically good

17. Gen. 3 All was not well in God’s creation
Reality failed to meet the ideal
Sin entered in the world

18. Gen. 3:16-19
To the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

19. Gen. 3 Consequences of Sin Man: Work with sweat from his face
Digging the ground

20. Gen. 3 Woman Difficulty in maternity or childbearing
Ruled over by the husband

21. Gen. 3 Man and Woman original communion was ruptured
Will dominate each other
Lust
Pain of child birth
Hardship of work
Emergence of sexual hierarchy
Mixing and interchanging gender role

22. Marriage as Realized among the People

23. Marriage Before the Prophets
Before the Time of the Prophets
Women were clearly made subordinated
Their roles: based on their status in relation to men
Daughters
Wives
Mothers

24. Marriage Before the Prophets
Functions of women: bearing children
the primary value is procreation.
Sexuality was taken as a means by which couples became involve in creative and historical plan of God

25. Marriage Before the Prophets
Polygamous relationships were even allowed (Gen. 29:21-30, 2 Sam. 5: 13-16) Divorce, initiated by the husband only, was a usual practice (Dt. 24:1-2) Bareness was considered disgrace (Gen. 3:2) Concubinage was tolerated as means to find a substitute for the barren wife (Gen. 30:1-13) Levirate law was implemented

26. Marriage According to the Prophets
Prophet Hosea: marriage is covenant (Hos. 2:16,18,21)
Deepening Israel’s understanding on marriage, is touched on Jer. 3:14
“ Return, O faithless children, says the LORD; for I am your master; I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.”

27. Marriage According to Prophets
Book of Ruth and Tobit: a richer and deeper meaning of marriage (Tb. 8:5-8)
They bear a moving account of this elevated sense of marriage and are witnesses to the fidelity and tenderness of spouses (CCC 1611)