Marriage Can Be Happy

Marriage is the oldest institution known to man. It dates back to Creation and the Garden of Eden.

God Himself performed the first marriage ceremony. He also gave away the first bride. You will find the beautiful story in the first two chapters of your Bible.

On the sixth day of Creation week, having fashioned the world into a very lovely home for the bride- and bridegroom-to-be, God, said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth” (Genesis 1:26, R.S.V.).

And so He did. The Sacred Record says: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27, R.S.V.).

How this miracle was wrought is described in the following chapter, where we are told that after making Adam, God said to Himself, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18, R.S.V.).

“So the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh and the rib which the Lord had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

“Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’ Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Genesis 2:21-24 R.S.V.).

The exquisite loveliness of this scene is all too frequently overlooked. People smile at the “rib” story as if it were only a legend or a foolish fable. How much they miss! Granted, it does seem, at first thought, a strange thing for God to do.

Having made the earth by saying, “Let the dry land appear”; having made the forests by saying, “Let the earth put forth vegetation”; having filled the oceans with fish by saying, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures,” why did He not say, “Let there be a woman?” Why, after making Adam the most marvelous creature in the wonderful new world, did He take a rib from his perfect body to make a life companion for him?

There must have been a good reason why God acted thus, and there was. God wanted man to know right from the beginning that his wife was truly a part of him, so that he would always treat her as he would himself.

Your Bible says—in the King James Version—that God made Eve to be “an help meet” for Adam—from which our lovely word “helpmate” has come. She was to stand by his side always, helping him, working with him, planning with him, and sharing life’s joys with him. She was to be the model, the forerunner, of all such helpmeet.

Next: Marriage Can Be Happy - Part 2