[quote]Oleena wrote:<<< I looked those up and did not get a definition of the purpose of marriage at all. If you can find it, please copy and paste the definition of the purpose of marriage according to US law into this thread.
That goes for anyone who can find it.[/quote]I’ll type this real slow. Jist fer you. Our founders did not feel the need to define marriage legally because they accepted the church’s definition and never dreamed THEY would need a legal one. (although adultrey and homosexuality were both illegal at the state level all over.) Listen carefully now. They relied on the preponderance of people to act like Christians on their own for their country to be strong and prosper. Are ya in there? Limited civil government made possible by Christian self government. You will make an absolute idiot of yourself if you deny that. You can hate it all ya want, but that’s how it was.
The following was a VERY widely accepted view and one which was vital to our founding and survival. Hence our present decline.
The Westminster Confession of Faith of 1646:
[quote]CHAPTER XXIV.
Of Marriage and Divorce.
I. Marriage is to be between one man and one woman: neither is it lawful for any man to have more than one wife, nor for any woman to have more than one husband at the same time.
II. Marriage was ordained for the mutual help of husband and wife; for the increase of mankind with a legitimate issue, and of the Church with an holy seed; and for preventing of uncleanness.
III. It is lawful for all sorts of people to marry who are able with judgment to give their consent. Yet it is the duty of Christians to marry only in the Lord. And, therefore, such as profess the true reformed religion should not marry with infidels, Papists, or other idolaters: neither should such as are godly be unequally yoked, by marrying with such as are notoriously wicked in their life, or maintain damnable heresies.
IV. Marriage ought not to be within the degrees of consanguinity or affinity forbidden in the Word; nor can such incestuous marriages ever be made lawful by any law of man, or consent of parties, so as those persons may live together, as man and wife. The man may not marry any of his wife’s kindred nearer in blood than he may of his own, nor the woman of her husband’s kindred nearer in blood than of her own.
V. Adultery or fornication, committed after a contract, being detected before marriage, giveth just occasion to the innocent party to dissolve that contract. In the case of adultery after marriage, it is lawful for the innocent party to sue out a divorce, and after the divorce to marry another, as if the offending party were dead.
VI. Although the corruption of man be such as is apt to study arguments, unduly to put asunder those whom God hath joined together in marriage; yet nothing but adultery, or such willful desertion as can no way be remedied by the Church or civil magistrate, is cause sufficient of dissolving the bond of marriage; wherein a public and orderly course of proceeding is to be observed; and the persons concerned in it, not left to their own wills and discretion in their own case. [/quote]
I would tell you to some diggin but you won’t. Just like you probably won’t even really read this post.