Has Marriage Been In Trouble From the Beginning?

It’s a story that all church goers and perhaps most people know. God creates man and woman. Man and woman sin against God by eating from the tree. Man and woman sew fig leaves together and wear clothes for the first time. To be honest, it seems weird that Adam suddenly wanted his wife to put clothes on but I believe this was a sign that things had changed between them. In looking at this change I wonder if this is a sign that marriage has been in trouble from the beginning.

What’s interesting here is that the normal external threats to marriage did not exist yet. Adam and Eve did not have an argument over money or over how to raise the children. Their in-laws were  not an undue influence nor were their neighbors’ lifestyles. Cultural influences were not yet a thing. What led to a change in Adam’s marriage relationship with Eve stems simply from a change in how they were thinking about each other. That change came from the inside, not from the outside, and it’s a change called sin.

In my lifetime I’ve heard the repeated refrain of how a number of external forces are destroying marriage. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to downplay those threats as each carries its own danger for the institution. But I believe the greatest threat to marriage comes from the inside, from wrong attitudes between husbands and wives and from those same couples not being good examples for their children. Because of this, I believe the only way the institution survives is if we see more examples of men and women living up to the high calling of our Creator, knowing who they are in Christ while seeing their spouses through the eyes of God. I believe we need Jesus’ followers being the light they were called to be, both as individuals and as husband and wife.