Publisher's Synopsis
The institution of marriage is found in all societies. In the United States, marriage means stabilized patterns of norms and roles associated with the mutual relationship between husband and wife.
According to Malinowski marriage is a contract for the production and maintenance of children. Robert Lowie describes marriage as a relatively permanent bond between permissible mates. For Horton and Hunt marriage is the approved social pattern whereby two or more persons establish a family. Types and Norms of Marriage.Today all Christian denominations regard marriage as a sacred institution, a covenant. Roman Catholics consider it to be a sacrament. Marriage was officially recognized as a sacrament at the 1184 Council of Verona.
However, marriage is not for boys under 21 years of age. The minimum age for any boy to marry is 21 years and not under 21 years. But these days, some men that got married even at the age that is above 21 years behave like a boy under 21. Their behaviors and attitudes are not different from that of a 21-year-old boy, this is one of the reasons why marriages collapsed and die before time.
Marriage dies every day in the world and most especially in countries where divorce is acceptable and is the order of the day. It has come down to a level where churches have embraced it and it has become a norm among members and workers of the church. Those who did not want to divorce; secretly stay away from their marriage, and all of them now live as single parents. It was not meant to be so from the plan and purpose of God for mankind. God hates divorce, God has great plans for people who go or intend to go into marriage and that is why He is the one who instituted marriage. Malachi 2:16 says I hate divorce, says the Lord God of Israel
The statistics of divorce these days are alarming and it is not the best for anyone not even a child of God, it is not in the plan of God for man. But because most young men of today are short-sighted, naïve, and lack understanding of what God was saying in Jer. 29:11; when God said I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. In marriage, there is prosperity, hope, great future and of course unusual favor for any man that finds a wife. Proverb 18:22 says that He who finds a wife, finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. Marriage is a good thing; a wife is a good thing and every man that gets married involves himself in a good thing that will attract favor to him and his wife. Our God demonstrated this in Genesis 2 when He created man, He made him sleep and took part of the bones in the man to make a human whom he called woman. This was done because it is good and it is by the word of and will of God for man. Man is incomplete without a woman. The wife is a complete aspect of man that made him a man indeed. Marriage was instituted by God for mature and serious men, not baby boys, or baby mamas as we have in the world today. This lack of understanding of God and the way God does His own thing makes men blow away the great plans of God as regards marriage and went for broken homes that always lead to divorce.