Late Night Thinkings

I was ready to be married when I was thirteen years old.

I can hear you now. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back the matrimonial train up. 


How can anyone be ready for marriage at thirteen? How can someone who just recently hit double digits be emotionally mature enough to handle the responsibility of a spouse and family? What about education? What about independence? What about life experience?

All I can tell you is that I would gladly have traded those things to be Seth's wife.

Yes. At thirteen.

I didn't have money or special skills. I couldn't have thrown a fancy wedding. I didn't have experience with dating or a lot of relationship skills under my belt.

I basically had one thing: commitment.

I can't pinpoint exactly when it was, but I do know that within several months of meeting Seth, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was it for me. Before there was ever a romantic overture of intention, before we were ever boyfriend and girlfriend, before there was ever so much as a single touch shared between us, I knew.

This sort of freaky premonition seems to be a common thread among the women in my family.

And though he was unrefined in his thought processes and perhaps much less in tune with the idea of marriage, Seth has said that he always knew it would be me too.

But there was a problem. In our society, in modern times, you can't get married at that age. You're still a child until this magical birthday when the government says you can be a grown up now. We have extended childhood and immaturity all the way into the third decade of life, especially for boys. And also, marriage is only marriage when it's signed, sealed and officiated by the state.

I've been doing a little study into ancient marriage customs of the Israelites. And although I've read all this stuff before, it's so easy to gloss over it. Nowhere in God's rules do we find a layout of customs that make marriage legitimate. Sure, there are a lot of rules about sex and where you may not go to seek out a mate (like your family, your gender, or your livestock). But I can't find anything that says you aren't married if you don't have a legal document stating so, or unless you stood in a church and promised to love, honor and cherish.

The Jews did have customs. And though they were not mandated by God, Jesus did refer to them a lot. In that culture, a couple was considered legally married if a man, a woman (usually a quite young woman) and her father all shared some wine.

I think I lost the Baptists right there.

The wine drinking signified commitment. The couple was now working with the other in mind. The man would go back to his father's house and build a room for them to share. The woman would spend the meantime learning how to run a house and be a wife and mother. When the room was ready, he'd come back for her. The marriage would be, er, um, consummated in a tent for seven days. Then there would be a party.

But throughout that entire time, which sometimes lasted years, they were man and wife.

For interesting parallels check this out.

So, anyway, sometimes I wonder why we Christians in America today think we've got this marriage thing owned.

Marriage is supposed to be lifelong commitment. Its intentions are two fold: reproduction and reflection of the beautiful relationship Christ has with his people.

It's not about owning a piece of paper that says the government says you are married.

And I'm not saying I think we should do away with weddings. Weddings are fun. They're good parties. I got to wear a pretty dress that day. So that was nice. But my commitment to Seth wasn't solidified when I walked down the aisle and put a ring on his finger. I had already been committed for six years.

So in the simplest sense, I had already been Seth's wife since I was thirteen. It just wasn't sanctioned by the state. I wasn't religiously allowed to consummate it. And I wasn't socially allowed to say it out loud.

Does all this sound blasphemous? Probably. It's pretty deeply ingrained in us that marriage = legal ceremony.

But I often find myself musing outside of the box.