Weddings, Divorces, & Soul Ties, Oh My! (Part 1)
Trigger Warning: This two-part series may challenge those of us steeped in Christian doctrine, especially those raised within or around modern American evangelical culture. It certainly challenged me to write it. I hadn’t intended to tackle this topic so early in my blogging career, but the political discussions surrounding “covenant marriage” told me that now was the time. If you were taught that God sanctions civil marriage and that divorce is always wrong, you may feel unsettled. That discomfort is not my aim, but honest examination sometimes produces it for both the reader and the writer. This was a complex topic for me to write about, so bear with me . . .
I have been a keen observer of human nature since childhood. Long before I had language for it, I was a people-watcher. Later in life, I learned that my personality is a kind of perfect storm for this kind of observation: I’m a Scorpio (the so-called human lie detector), an Enneagram Five (the investigator), Conscientious on the DISC, and introverted. I notice patterns. I entertain questions, especially uncomfortable ones. Most importantly, I watch what people do far more closely than what they say.
One of the things I loved most then. and still do, is a wedding. Before marriage ever became a theological problem for me, it was a place of wonder. As a child, I adored them. Everything felt enchanted: the flowers, the music, the soft echo of footsteps in churches that seemed to glow from the inside out. I loved the dresses. I can still see so many of them clearly in my mind’s eye, the long pastel gowns and wide-brimmed sun hats of the 1970s, giving way to the satin, lace, and unapologetic volume of the 1980s: big skirts, big hair, and big promises!
I collected the remnants like sacred relics. Somewhere I still have a small box of treasures, embossed invitations and napkins, pens tied with ribbon, mesh squares once filled with birdseed, tiny bottles of bubbles handed out at receptions. I loved the cakes most of all. They felt ceremonial, as though the intricate architecture, the purity of white frosting, and the sweetness itself were part of the vow. Weddings were beauty, abundance, and hope made visible. They felt holy long before I knew the language to describe holiness.
Like many women of faith, I was raised to see marriage as a pinnacle: a holy contract blessed by God and validated by church and state. It was presented as the height of maturity, success in relationships, and moral legitimacy. As a teenager, I was certain I would soon meet my Prince Charming and live happily ever after. I was equally certain I would never, ever experience divorce - as if my entire future were fully in my control.
But now, in midlife, with years of lived experience and a sustained study of scripture, mysticism, and religious history behind me, I find myself much less sure. I find myself quietly wondering whether we have misunderstood marriage from the beginning. How did we move from Adam and Eve, created solely for one another, to Old Testament polygamy, to New Testament teachings, to modern civil arrangements that we insist are sanctioned by God? Quite frankly, as I consider everything I have learned, I find that these things do not create a clear path from the Creator’s original design to modern-day marriage.
As all this unraveled for me, I began to sit with unsettling questions. If God truly joins together our modern marriages, shouldn’t they be more somehow? More loving. More holy. More reflective of a divine and eternal bond.
In trying to discern what the Creator had intended for “marriage,” I began to look backward. I began, as many Christians do, with Adam and Eve, often treated as the first marriage, though their story bears little resemblance to what we now call marriage. There was no ceremony, no legal contract, no sacrament, no religious authority sanctioning their union.
As I zoomed out from Adam and Eve to other ancient cultures and religious traditions, I found that marriage was often understood less as a contract and more as a mystical convergence. In Hinduism, marriage joins two souls across multiple lifetimes as part of a cosmic journey toward liberation. Jewish tradition speaks of bashert, a destined counterpart chosen by the Creator. Early Christian mysticism overwhelmingly framed “true marriage” as union with the Divine rather than with another human being.
We can dismiss this as fantasy or false teaching, but even the biblical account we use to ground marriage as a divine institution depicts God creating Adam and Eve as a pair made for one another. God did not create a population and invite them to pair off. He created a pair, together, for one another. Recognition precedes ritual. Union exists before ceremony. Adam does not choose Eve; he recognizes her.
Another ancient idea I encountered, one you may have heard of, is that of twin flames (a topic I’ll explore more deeply in a future post). The idea here is that one soul is divided into two bodies, destined to recognize and reunite with one another in the physical realm. Though often dismissed today as New Age sentimentality, this concept appears in Plato’s Symposium, where humanity is described as once whole, then split apart, forever longing for reunion. Variations of this idea echo through ancient philosophy, mysticism, and theology. And when you really consider it, it is not so far removed from the image of Eve formed from Adam’s rib, two emerging from one.
All of this forced me to reconsider the familiar scripture: “What God has joined together, let no one separate.” Have we interpreted this correctly? And how did we arrive at our current understanding of marriage? Over the years, I’ve seen a handful of truly good marriages, but I’ve also seen many that resemble ownership more than partnership, endurance more than love.
Was the Creator’s intention really to bind people, many of whom married young and under social pressure, in lifelong dysfunction? That vision does not align with what I understand of the Creator’s character or purposes. So I began to wonder whether we had focused on the wrong part of the verse. Perhaps the problem is not the separating, but our assumptions about the joining.
How does God join two people together, exactly? Most of us would say through marriage. Yet most American Protestant churches have no apparent biblical authority to create marriages. Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy appeal to apostolic succession, but even there, marriage doctrine rests largely on tradition. Historically, formal Christian marriage rites emerged centuries after Christ.
In modern America, marriages are joined by the state, typically by county officials who issue licenses to marry. Legal recognition comes from civil law. Churches act as witnesses, not originators. We often assume that this combination of legal recognition and religious blessing equals Divine endorsement, but scripture does not clearly support that assumption.
And if God truly joins these unions, why is the state of Christian marriage so troubled? Divorce rates among Christians remain high, often cited around 40–50 percent, not markedly different from the general population. If these marriages are divinely ordained, why do so many unravel?
I eventually returned to the question that started it all: What if everything we believe about marriage is wrong? Not just slightly off, but fundamentally mistaken. What if, for centuries, Christians have focused on the wrong part of Jesus’ words, clutching our pearls over divorce instead of asking what it means for God to join two people together in the first place?
Consider this: What if the real transgression is not divorce, but entering, or remaining in, unions that were never divinely joined? What if you were born already married in the eyes of the Creator? What if your soul carries the memory of the one it was created alongside? What if your task is not to find someone, but to remember them?
These are unsettling questions, I know, especially for those of us formed by Christianity. Even now, after years of reading and reflection, I have more questions than answers.
So what does this all mean for us today? Each of us will have to discern that for ourselves. It may mean rethinking our expectations of marriage. Yes, meaningful lives can be built together for many reasons besides soul-level recognition. But perhaps we should stop assuming that every marriage reflects what the Creator intended when He “joined” two souls together and is, instead, simply a legal agreement like any other legal agreement. Perhaps we should teach our children, and remind ourselves, to listen to hearts and souls instead of worrying about society’s expectations.
Maybe marriage is not something we create, but something we remember. And maybe, by asking these questions, we are being invited to return to the Creator’s original design, and to relate to one another very differently.
If this post unsettled you, I invite you to stay with me for Part 2, where we will look more closely at the history of marriage and divorce and at modern calls for covenant marriage.
Grace and light to you all.