The topic of how to choose a spouse is a difficult topic to teach in today’s world. For thousands of years humans have chosen their spouse based on principles and qualities first, then feelings or desires second, and this method proved extremely successful. As we shall see, things have changed and not for the better!

Tell any Christian today that its best they do not love their fiancé prior to marriage, and they would probably walk away laughing at you, tell any unsaved person the same and they would probably start a campaign against you. However, as we shall see, the foundation of marriage, like salvation, should not be entangled in human emotion or feeling.

It is my intention to show the reader that the basis of marriage is not an emotion or feeling, and it is certainly not what the modern world has come to call “Love”. The feelings we get when we are attracted to someone, or when these feelings are reciprocated from another are indeed strong feelings, but not feelings we can trust when making the second largest decision during our time here on earth. Sure, these feelings can accompany us while we make solid truth-based decisions, and these feelings should be there in our marriage, but often feelings take over in the beginning of a relationship which cloud our judgement, causing us to choose the wrong person as our spouse.

The Primary Problem

Throughout the word of God we are commanded to love our spouse. Nowhere are we commanded to choose our spouse based on this feeling. Understanding this difference is pivotal to understanding how we have made such a mess of the formation of marriage. In God’s word we are given a list of requirements in a potential spouse,

1. Man and woman must be saved
2. The man must love God with all his heart
3. The man must submit himself to God
4. The man must lead his wife
5. The man must provide to his wife and family
6. The woman must love God with all her heart
7. The woman must submit to her husband in everything
8. The woman must provide for her children

Where is the feeling of love towards a potential spouse in this list? It is absent for good reason? If we have all of these requirements in our spouse we are guaranteed marital success, if we fall short in any of these we are guaranteed problems in our marriage. Based on this we can make the following two generalizations,

a. If we choose our partner based on love, and they fall short of fulfilling the above list, we will find that our love will weaken over time in our marriage, often turning into resentment or contempt.

b. If we choose our partner based on fulfilling the above list, love is the byproduct that will naturally strengthen over time.

What is Love?

Love is both a feeling and an act or decision that was not only made by God, it is indeed God. God man us in his image and he is love. Throughout his word we see God acting and feeling love towards his people consistently.

• 1 John 4 7-8 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
• Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

The word Love G25 agapaō or ἀγαπάω in the Greek means,

To welcome “a physical action or decision”

To entertain “a physical action or decision”

To be fond of “a feeling”

To love dearly “a feeling”

To be well pleased “a feeling or decision”

To be content with “a feeling or decision”

In Hebrew we find two definitions of love,

H2836 ḥāšaq or חָשַׁק

H157 āhaḇ or אָהַב

which mean,

Human love for another “a feeling”

Human appetite for objects “a feeling”

Human love for God “a feeling”

Act of being a friend “an action and decision”

To Love “a feeling”

Be attached to “a decision and an action”

Clearly love is a feeling and an action or decision. We cannot say we have the feeling of love towards someone yet not act in their interest. Our actions and decisions show what love there is in our hearts.

The Foundation of Marriage

• Genesis 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
• Matthew 19:5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
• Genesis 24:58 And they called Rebekah, and said unto her, Wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go.

We see that marriage is achieved through a physical act and a physical decision. We are 100% responsible for our decision on who we choose. The bible teaches clearly that we chose our spouse, and we should chose them based on their meeting the biblical requirements of a spouse.

The Degradation of the Foundation of Marriage

• Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Knowing that the feeling of love is a powerful and sometimes deceitful force is pivotal to understanding how the enemy has worked in the destruction of the foundation of marriage. His modus operandi has been to remove the biblical foundation of marriage and replace it with feelings and desires, here is how he has done it.

• Ancient Greece – 1200 BC: Marriage was not feelings based, the father chooses the husband for his daughter, desire and feelings grew in marriage not before it.

Romance or feelings were not a consideration in marriage. Divorce was practically non-existent.

• Middle Ages Catholics – 347 AC: Blessings given to the couple to be wed changed physical love to spiritual love after marriage, desire and feelings grew in marriage not before it.

Romance or feelings were not a consideration in marriage. Divorce was practically non-existent.

• 12^th Century – 1101 AC: The poets of south France “INVENTED” ‘l’amour courtois’ or courty love. Love or feelings of love emerged as a central theme to the foundation of marriage as a feeling between man and woman.

This opposed the marriage sacrament and was the beginning of the end of the true basis of marriage.

• 16^th Century – 1549 AC: The formation of the wedding vows, Thomas Cranmer wrote the Book of Common Prayer, in which he pilfered text from the catholic medieval rites. This introduction gave some basis to the fact that marriage relied on a serious of promises, that are innately human, and thus open to failure based on feelings, or more often a departure of feelings.

The basis for marriage is now well on the way to becoming feelings and emotional desire.

• Victorian Era – 1837 AC: With the changing foundation of marriage, the Victorians became really, really invested in the idea of love – that marriage should be based on love or companionship and require feelings or desire as a prerequisite to any marital decision. The infamous play Romeo and Juliet became a focus of the wealthy middle class, and not long after the need to have a feeling of “love” as the basis for marriage became normalized. It was only 81 odd years after this time that divorce rates skyrocketed.

Marriage is now completely entangled with feelings and human desire. The true departure of the correct reasons to choose a spouse has occurred.

Considering all the above, we should see a social change is the value of marriage because of the changing foundation of marriage, and no surprise that’s exactly what happened. Granted, we do not have fancy spreadsheets for times prior to 1200BC, but the texts indicate divorce was a rare event right up until circa 1918. We cannot entirely blame the Victorians; the enemy was hard at work for over 1500 years developing his plan to destroy the foundation of marriage. The graph below shows only too well that he has been successful.

Lastly, we were puzzled at the declining divorce rate in England from 1993 onwards so we did a little digging. What we found was not that the population of England was divorcing less, they have been marrying less. The English nation now has approximately 100% less marriages per year compared with 1972 at their peak.

Conclusion

Jeremiah rightly warns us that we cannot trust our heart. In this modern world we understand it is impossible to teach that we should choose a spouse without feelings, those times have come and past. We need to recognize what love is, and how love must come second to the reasons we choose our spouse. As hard as this is we must have the ability to walk away from a potential spouse that we have immense feelings for if they do not qualify as a biblical husband or wife.