The creation story in Genesis is the root of the Church's understanding of the sacredness of marriage. "The Lord God said: 'It is not good that a man should be alone'. ...Therefore, a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh" (Genesis 2:18,24). God himself created marriage "in the beginning". His will "that man should not be alone" and command to "be fertile and multiply" (Genesis 1:28) is directly linked to the union of husband and wife.

It is also from this command that marriage in the Old Testament functions primarily for the begetting of children to preserve the husband's clan. The Old Testament Jews considered children to be so important to marriage that not having children was something of a curse. "Peninnah, her rival, would torment and humiliate her, because the Lord have kept her from hav

Martimort, AG, (ed), The Church at Prayer. Liturgical Press: Minnesota, 1992.

Augustine discussed in his book, The Good of Marriage, the three values of marriage are fidelity, offspring, and sacrament. These three elements found in Scriptures are the basis of much of the Church's reflection on marriage. Fidelity is a living expression of God's faithfulness and love to his people. This love symbolises the mutual love of the spouses. The offspring plays a vital role in married life. Augustine refers to God's command to increase and multiply to affirm the scriptural teaching that children are a blessing from God and an essential element of married life. However, Augustine tended to overemphasize that in marriage, only sexual intercourse with the intention of having children was morally justifiable. Augustine's understanding of the term 'sacrament' is it's a sacred sign that expresses and shares in the mystery of the union with God in Christ. He uses the classical Latin word sacramentum, a sacred commitment and combined with the theme sacred sign to firmly state that marriage is indissoluble because it is a sacred, living sign of our indissoluble union with God in Christ.

Marriage was seen and understood to be holy by the Jews because they see the goodness and the presence of God in ordinary events of daily life holy. It was also seen as a sign of the covenant of love between God and Israel, where God is the lover and Israel is his bride (Hos 3:1-5).

Wilhelm, Anthony, Christ Among Us. Harper: San Francisco, 1996.

Much of the teaching on marriage during the first century is based from the Old Testament. For example, Jesus quotes the Old Testament in affirming the divine origins of marriage: "So then, what God has united, man must not divide" (Mt 19:6). Jesus also taught that there are no grounds for divorce. Using God's Word spoken in creation as his authority, he teaches that his followers who marry are bound as "one flesh" in a union that no man is to separate. In the eyes of God marriage is absolute and final, ended only by death. "...Man must not separate, then, what God has joined together" (Mk 10:8). The basis of marriage according to St. Paul's teaching, husbands loving their wives as their own flesh, doing what Christ does with the Church, was the sign of a higher union, Christ's union with his Church (Eph 5:32). The first recorded wedding feast by the Apostles was at Cana. The presence of Jesus at this wedding made it special and sacred.

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