“Marriage is totally irrelevant to today’s society,” a lecturer in sociology claimed at a sex education seminar for youth. You would have to be blind not to see that someone wants to change the definition of marriage in our society. The family has become a vanishing species not only on the TV screen, but on Main Street too. Are marriage and the family a pliable putty that society can mold to any form it wants?

As God’s people, we need to go back to the beginning where marriage began, where God established it. When one reads Genesis 2, it becomes clear that marriage and the family definitely are not a development or custom created for the convenience of society.

God created marriage

Marriage was in the creative mind of God on that sixth day of creation when he made us. God concluded, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). As Adam named all of the animals, it became painfully clear that God had created him incomplete. Something was missing. I often wonder if God wasn’t helping Adam to appreciate that Eve was a most precious gift.

And then the first surgery took place. When Adam awoke from his God-given anesthetic, there she was!

Adam had just named all of the animals. What would Adam name this new creation, which had been taken from himself? “She shall be called ‘woman’ ” (v. 23). Adam literally said “she-man” or the “she-version of me.” Adam recognized that this one before him was the same as he was, yet very different.

She was created from Adam’s rib. It seems that God created the woman in this unique way to demonstrate the close relationship between man and his “she-man.” They were designed to complement each other and fit together. Marriage is built right into the design of man and woman.

We can actually say that there was no time in the history of the world when there was no marriage. It is part of the blueprints. You can’t remove it any more than you can remove the main beam in your house and expect it to still stand.

In the next breath God inspired the holy writer Moses to add a comment, “For this reason”—in other words, because that is the way God created man and woman—“a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (v. 24). By definition, marriage has three important parts: leaving, being united, and becoming one flesh.

The leaving