Religious Studies - Ethics (marriage and relationships)

Love

Love is often used to describe a close attachment to another person. Sex means sexual intercourse between two people. Most religions have views on love and sex. The Christian Church emphasises non-sexual love.

Christian views

The Christian Church often has very strict views on love and sex. These are based on passages from the Bible. Christians are often encouraged to love one another in a non-sexual way. This type of love, sometimes called ‘agape’ is the love that Jesus showed to other people when he gave his life for them:

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No-one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1 John 4:7-12

Christian teaching is generally that sexual intercourse is wrong unless it happens within a marriage. God intended men and women to live together as married couples but not to live together outside marriage.

Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?
1 Corinthians 6:18-19

In the Church of England the marriage service says that marriage is a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication outside marriage.
Paul says that Christians should:

Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?
1 Corinthians 6:18-19

He also says that for some people it is better to be celibate than to marry:

Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
1 Corinthians 7:9 

Marriage

 Christians see marriage as vows taken before God, and divorce is not encouraged.

In the marriage service of the Church of England, the couple getting married make vows to each other. The traditional marriage vows are:

I, take you,to be my wife [or husband].to have and to holdfrom 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,according to God’s holy law;and this is my solemn vow.

Marriage is important for Christians because:

 

• it's a gift from God; it's part of God’s plan for creation that men and women should live together
• it provides a relationship through which husband and wife support each other; this relationship is built on love and faithfulness
• it provides a secure environment for the bringing up of children

The importance of marriage is emphasised by Jesus

But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.
Mark 10:6-9

 Divorce, remarriage and cohabitation

The teaching of Jesus in the New Testament is against divorce (the legal ending of a marriage before the death of a spouse).

It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Matthew 5:31-32

Adultery (sex with someone who you are not married to) is also wrong according to the teachings of the Ten Commandments:

You shall not commit adultery.
Exodus 20:14

Many churches now allow divorce but a marriage can only be ended by an annulment in the Roman Catholic Church. This means that the marriage is regarded as never having taken place for special reasons.

 

In 1981 the Church of England allowed people to marry again after a divorce. Many other churches now hold this position.The Roman Catholic Church is totally opposed to people cohabiting (living together without being married). Sexual intercourse outside of a marriage is a serious sin and couples who sin in this way cannot receive communion in church. Some Protestant churches accept cohabitation although they hope that the couple will choose eventually to be married in church.