Marriage

Introduction:
Marriage in the present time is an interesting concept to me.  It is generally something done between two people and an intermediary who acts with the authority given to him by that which can instill marriage.  In older societies that intermediary was generally someone of local authority, be it a pastor, a ships captain, or just the animals and spirits around if two people were married privately.  In this article I would like to address a wide number of things, but primarily I want to look at where the authority for marriage comes from in modern society and where I think it should, has and can come from again.

Stance Summary
The authority for marriage stems from our God given human natures.  For those of you who do not believe in a God given human nature, well then it stems from your plain ol human nature.  It is essentially the same thing, and the differences are for another post.  Being that the authority is derived from our human nature, a marriage is not required to have an intermediary with the authority to bestow "marriage" on a couple.  If the authority is from our nature, then no other things are required assuming both parties of the marriage each use their authority to marry the other.

The rest of this Stance is also that if the authority isn't derived from anyone or anything else except our natures, then why does the State get involved in the business of actually granting marriages?  Actually, to hell with "why" that's a long story that I don't care to write about, the question should be "should the State get involved?"  My response, No.  Especially not because the State becomes the authority over the marriage rather than friends, family, society and God. 


Personal Actions based on my Stance:
Now, to be frank: I am married to Heather Lynne Jolly, her maiden name being Johnson.  I had a public wedding with a few hundred friends and family.  We exchanged vows and had a friend and pastor marry us.  We even signed a document, however the document we signed is not one that is commonly done in Western society marriages, specifically American ones.  The text of what we signed is available for viewing here: http://jollystance.blogspot.com/2010/08/text-of-marriage-document.html.  The document has been put into the public record in King County (the county where the wedding was performed) as a way of making the marriage public and transparent, and making search-able for vital statistics. 

Expansion
When I married Heather I did not do so under the pretext of having a Washington State recognized marriage.  Washington State's official policy is that they do not recognize common law marriage.  Which I'm okay with.  To do so could put us in the troublesome spot of having our marriage under the authority of the State where as right now our marriage is governed by friends, family and God.  Our vows were made in front of God.  Friends and family signed into our agreement.  Family signed in to be our mediators and arbitrators should a need ever arise.

Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints?
Apostle Paul, 1st Corinthians 6:1

 If we take such important and spiritual agreements before the authority of the secular court as our very Marriages, why would we not take every other brother and sister in Christ before the courts?

Sources:

Closing: