‘Marriage Without a License’ was written for anyone who is truly interested in understanding what civil marriage is and what it is not. This book is for those who think that marriage is, “just a piece of paper” as much as it is for those who believe that it is an institution ordained by God. ‘Marriage Without a License’ is for anyone curious about the origins of civil marriage in the United States and why some people want no parts of it.
My Story
Really, though, ‘Marriage Without a License’ was written for yours truly. Before we were married, my husband and I lived together for many years and marriage had never been a priority of mine before I started regularly attending a Christian church. Creating and maintaining a healthy relationship was my only focus as far as spending my life with someone was concerned. I seldom thought about marriage and, when I did, it was one of those things I’d cross off eventually once I’d built the right relationship with the right person. In those days, marriage really was just a piece of paper to me.
This attitude toward marriage doesn’t bode well with church folk, however. After joining a Christian denomination, I began to feel the constant pressure of needing to get married. There were questions, stern talks, whispers and insults all swirling around the the fact that we were living in so-called sin. By this time, we knew that we wanted to spend our lives together and we knew that we wanted to get married, but we each had a lot of questions. With both of us being the children of divorce, we needed to get a clear understanding of what marriage is and what it isn’t before we took the leap. It wasn’t something we were interested in doing just to please people and we definitely didn’t want to make a commitment like that only to end up like so many other divorced people…many of whom were the same ones pressuring us to tie the knot.
We began studying the Bible about marriage, reading books on the subject and asking lots of questions about it on a regular basis. We really wanted to know what constitutes marriage and why some feel so strongly against two people living together in a committed, monogamous, but ‘non-legal’ relationship. Some answers made sense, but many were tied to God honoring marriage– as in civil marriage, which didn’t make sense to either of us. God and marriage existed before government contracts did, so at what point did God make it a rule that we had to have a contract in order to actually be married? And at what point did He say that we were living in sin if we didn’t partake of government marriage?
Finally, one night, I came across an interesting read about the legal origins of the marriage license and civil marriage, in general. I was surprised at what I discovered and even more surprised that so few people even know what a marriage license is, why it’s required for a civil marriage or even what civil marriage is (and what it is not). As I began to uncover more and more in my research, I met a clergyman who’d been arrested for performing a marriage ceremony for a couple who did not have a license; I met others with a strong faith in God, but who avoid civil marriage like the plague; I even discovered that some denominations and key leaders in at least one country completely spurn civil marriage for what they believe to be sound religious reasons. Last, but not least, I began to uncover real contradictions between what the Bible says about marriage and what the American government says about marriage.
Written For Truth-Seekers Everywhere
Realizing all of this and more, I knew that I was onto something and that I had to share this information with other people curious about the institution. Initially, the book started as an article, but quickly grew into more information than could be contained in just a few pages. Taking my time to check and double-check my findings, ‘Marriage Without a License’ was written for people who are not satisfied with signing on the dotted line just because society says that this is what marriage is. It is for people who want to understand the reasons behind the legal institution and how it came to merge itself with certain religious ideals.
Download your copy of Marriage Without a License now.