[snip]

> Mary and Joseph are an example of this. That's the first scriptural reference I can think of, offhand.

Oh, yes. The way it goes is, the man who wants the woman for his wife makes a covenant, with witnesses. He drinks some wine from a cup, and if she wants to, she drinks, as well. If she drinks from it, they are as good as married. They even have to get a get(certificate of divorce) in order to become unbetrothed. They still aren't allowed to consummate, yet. If she doesn't drink from it, the covenant is not made. The man may seek another, or, I suppose, try again later.

In the former case, the man tells his bride-to-be, "I go to prepare a place for you etc." Then he goes off to build a place. His father has to approve the place before he can go back, so "only the father knows" when that will happen.

Once the place is built, he returns, his arrival being announced with the sound of a shofar(ram's-horn trumpet)! They get married, I'm thinking they have a marriage supper, and then they go to the place. WOO! Exciting parallel, eh?

> Another example is from John 4, citing the case where Yeshua was in Samaria sitting by a well. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and he began to talk to her. He told her to go and call her husband. She replied, "I have no husband." He said, "You are quite right, for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you have now is not your husband." This suggests several things. One, that they were probably having sexual relations, so one has to ask: Why didn't Christ see them as married? Two possible answers are that she either could have been committing adultery, or she was prostituting herself.

Either one of these would be a topic for gossip at the well, which is what she was probably trying to avoid hearing by going at noon rather than in a cooler part of the day.

> But I'm inclined to think that the point that he was emphasizing is that marriage is defined by more than simply having had a sexual act. In other words, premarital sexual intimacy can be emotionally blinding, because it can make two people think and feel that they're closer than they really are. Sex isn't marriage. Matrimony is the sacrament performed, with God's blessing, to bond two people in a loving relationship with each other as endurable as the one between Christ and His Church. Or at least, that's how I see it.
>
> So let me quickly ask a totally different question about marriage that's been provoking me. I know that, technically speaking, consummation means making (a marital union) complete by sexual intercourse. But would one consider that a marriage bond is not truly ever 'completed' unless one has had children with one's spouse?

Bleh. My parents were married in the '60s, and I was born in the late '70s. They were asked a few times in the interim period "When are you going to have a family?" as if a husband and wife don't count. It wasn't that they weren't trying, I think it wasn't time for me to become life inside her yet. Besides, they had foster children to take care of.

> Wolfspirit

Nyperold