The Relational Purpose of Marriage

The Bible knows what it means for a man and a woman to fall in love. The Song of Songs is an out and out love song. Samples: 

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine . . . His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me! . . . Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, turn, my beloved, be like a gazelle or a young stag on cleft mountains.

 This Song is all about the "one flesh" union of love. It describes in detail the wondrous bond between husband and wife. And this is not mere friendship. It is erotic love in the context of commitment and marriage. And this is good, very good. Neither is alone any longer. This is why they were made, the very purpose of their existence. Barbra Streisand sings of this in a wedding song—

I've dreamed of you
Always feeling you were there
And all my life
I have searched for you everywhere
I caught your smile in the morning sun
I heard your whisper on the breeze of night
I prayed one day that your arms would hold me tight 

And just when I
Thought love had passed me by
We met
That first look in your eyes I can't forget
You melted me with your tender touch
I felt all fear and sorrow slip away
Now here we stand
Hand in hand
This blessed day

I promise you
As I give to you my heart
That nothing in this world
Shall keep us apart
Come happily ever after be
The man I'll love until the very end
I've dreamed of you my great love
And my best friend

For God must know
How I love you so
He's blessed us here today
As man and wife
Come dream with me
As I've dreamed of you
All my life

Though but a secular song, it is a reflection of Adam's loneliness in Genesis 2. All the creatures he named had mates, but there was none for him—until the deep sleep came upon him and the LORD took half of the man and made woman. Then He made Adam whole. And  overwhelmed with joy, Adam cried out, "At last! This is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh!" 

This is what sexual intercourse is meant to be. This is the most intimate sharing of self, an act the Bible calls knowing—"but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he (Joseph) called his name Jesus," Matt. 1:25. In this union partners come to know themselves even as they know the other. They know themselves in relation to each other. 

It is vital that we remember we speak here of mutual love, not mere lust. To settle for lust alone is to fall far short of the person to person relationship for which God has created us as man and as woman. To allow the sexual act to be merely the satisfaction of lustful appetite is to reduce us humans to the level of animals—though even they know of lifelong commitments. 

I'll continue this discussion next time to look in more detail at attempts to satisfy sexual urges outside of a lifelong commitment to the other.