Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed”.
Looking at the two verses above, let’s itemize them one by one:
- therefore shall a man leave his father and mother,
- and cleave unto his wife
- and they shall be one flesh
- and they were both naked, the man, and his wife
- and they were not ashamed.
Let's take them one after the other:
1. Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother,
One of the major causes of crises in our marriage relationship is from men who though they are legally married, but they have not left their father and mother? It takes maturity for a man to leave his father and mother as there are many men who are still behaving as boys in not leaving their father and mother.
What does it mean to leave our parents? The marriage between your father and mother is a distinct entity, the marriage of your father and mother-in-laws are distinct entity, so to leave your father and mother is to be totally independence of your parents with respect to marriage between you and your wife. A man who has not left keeps going to his parents to settle any little quarrel between him and his wife. The ideal thing which is GOD’S blueprint is for a man after marriage to resolve in his heart to sink or swim with his wife without third party interference from his parents. It is not that a man should not learn some valuable lessons from his parents but should never accept their parents giving him instruction on how to run his own marriage.
2. and cleave unto his wife
The word cleave means "to cling faithfully to someone or something, to cling closely or glue together". A man who cleaves to his wife will surely feel ashamed if another woman except his woman doctor to see his nakedness. I look at men who easily fall for extra-marital affairs as men who never cleaved to their wives.
When you cleave to your wife, you will so love her that you never imagine climbing upon another woman to have extramarital affairs with her. If you say you cleave to your wife, what are you doing with another woman in bed?
3. and they shall be one flesh
In mathematics, 1+1=2 but in marriage 1+1=1 and that is the principle of being one flesh. To be one flesh means to be united in body, soul and spirit.
Couples who see themselves as one flesh never offend each other because doing so is like offending their own self. When you are one flesh indeed, you will be like-minded in that anything that offends your partner offends you when your partner is not happy; you end up not been happy. In fact, you will strive to do things that will make your partner happy and in doing so will be happy yourself.
4. and they were both naked, the man, and his wife
This is one of the blueprints that many couples are not obeying. Some couples are not naked to themselves and that is why their marriages are continued to be engulfed in crises and marriage breakdown. One may ask, do I mean physical nakedness? No, it does not mean physical nakedness, a couple need not be too secretive to one another but totally open to one another in everything.
Couples who are secretive to one another are the couples, who never have confidence and trust for each other. It is the state of not been secretive to one another that it is meant that “they were both naked, the man and his wife”. My dear, ensure that both of you are not secretive to one another for that is what it means to be both naked.
5. and they were not ashamed.
Couples who compare their spouse with other men or women are the one who are ashamed of each other. It is not to be so because in GOD’S original blueprint, the man and his wife were not ashamed. When you are ashamed of each other your marriage will not last, it will surely fail.
That is why young men and women looking for life partner should really consider and choose persons they would ever be proud of. The tendency is that if you are not proud of your spouse, later you get fed up with him/her and begin to compare him or her with other men or women out there in the society.
I wish to ask, are you truly proud of your spouse? If you are asked to make the choice of the woman or man to marry the second time, will you still choose your spouse?