Valentine's Day and Secret Marriages

For the longest time I was told, and firmly believed, that Valentine’s Day was merely a marketing stunt by Hallmark Inc. to sell cards and merchandise during the seasonal doldrums between New Year’s and Mother’s Day. And I get it. Consumerism forces companies to find new ways to expand their market by telling people they need things they never knew they needed before. But it turns out that I was perhaps a tad unfair toward Hallmark Inc. A quick internet search revealed that they merely capitalized on the custom of exchanging cards that goes back at least a couple of centuries. As much as I want to claim this is part of a larger conspiracy to distort basic facts about the recent past, I can’t find evidence to suggest that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is behind a grand coverup to perpetuate the power of Valentines Day over our lives. Maybe I just haven’t dug deep enough into the conspiracy theory message bords yet.

I’m not one to have my surly rejection of superficial sentimentality easily cast aside, though. One sure fire way to get back at the soft and fuzzies is to tell the story about the ‘real St. Valentine.’ This didn’t work out the way I was hoping. It turns out that there may have been three St. Valentines, and we really don’t know anything about them other than the fact that they were martyred for confessing Christ.[1] One legend in particular seems a bit too cute to be true. Supposedly the St. Valentine who died around 270 A.D., was imprisoned and killed after it was discovered that he had been secretly marrying couples to keep the men from being conscripted into the Roman legions.[2] While in prison he fell in love with the jailer’s daughter and gave her a tender note of affection shortly before his execution, thus inventing the first ‘valentine card.’

As dubious as the second part of the story sounds, the first part is somewhat believable. Since service in the Roman legions entailed outward idolatry through reverencing the standards and swearing sacred oaths to the emperor, it seems plausible that a bishop or priest would have been compelled by conscience to perform marriages that would keep men from being eligible for conscription. Also consider that the Christians of this era were concerned that service in the legions necessarily violated the fifth commandment through the possibility of shedding blood in battle. Even though the Scriptures and historic church make a reasonable distinction between murder and killing, many early Christians, including the church father Tertullian, argued that bearing arms in the army was inherently sinful and contrary to Christ’s commands to turn the other cheek (Matt. 5:39).

But are secret marriages even possible? The fourth and sixth commandments show that marriage is the foundation for all human society and public life. Even the authority of governors, judges, and legislators receive their authority as an extension of the honor given by God to wedded fathers and mothers as Luther explains in his Large Catechism’s explanation of the fourth commandment. So can marriage, an inherently public joining of one man and one woman, with the consent of parents and acknowledgment of recognized authorities, be contracted in secrecy?

The Lutherans say, ‘no.’

Martin Luther writes, “Because marriage is a public estate which is to be entered into and recognized publicly before the church, it is fitting that it should also be established and begun publicly with witnesses who can testify to it, for God says, “Every word should be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses” [Matt. 18:16]. But where two people become engaged secretly, no one can be sure whether it is true or not, because husband and wife (and likewise bride and bridegroom) are one flesh and one voice, on whose testimony and witness nothing is to be based, nor can such an uncertain marriage be confirmed thereby” (LW 46:268).

Yes, Luther says that the public recognition is “before the church.” But he’s also very clear that marriage customs and laws belong to the civil authorities rather than to the ministers and hearers of the gospel. He writes, “No one can deny that marriage is an external, worldly matter, like clothing and food, house and property, subject to temporal authority, as the many imperial laws enacted on the subject prove. Neither do I find any example in the New Testament where Christ or the apostles concerned themselves with such matters, except where they touched on consciences…” (LW 46:265).

Now I suppose that St. Valentine’s blessing on the couple might be construed as a public recognition of the binding of the man and woman. But did the parents even know? There’s no way to tell from the silence of historical records. Nevertheless, he was still performing some kind of rite without the consent of the Roman authorities, hence the resulting imprisonment and execution.

But what if the authorities were unjust in forbidding these marriages just because they wanted more eligible soldiers for their legions? I suppose there might be a justification for the church to borrow the authority of recognizing marriages when the government fails to do so, though it would be contrary to God’s regular ordering of the world through the distinction of law and gospel. Suppose that the government stopped giving legal recognition to marriages. To maintain the sanctity and binding nature of marriage, I can envision the church keeping its own records on the matter for its own members. But then the responsibility of instructing the civil authorities of their God given duty continues to rest on the church. They can’t be content with claiming this legal authority over worldly life for itself.

In the past the papacy was more than happy to usurp this authority. Luther and subsequent evangelicals worked hard to restore the biblical order of what belongs to the church and what belongs to the world (LW 46:266). For that reason, Luther was highly reluctant to get tangled up in marriage cases and disputes thinking that it was outside his purview.  

In our own day, marriage is despised by both our entertainment culture and the legislators. Our children are told that mutual sexual attraction is all that’s necessary for two, or more, people to become involved with one another. The government has enacted laws that call the unions between same sex couples “marriage.” They aren’t “redefining marriage” as much as they’re misunderstanding it. Marriage is God’s institution. It is defined by his Word (Gen. 2:29) and even finds a way to be recognized, with varying degrees of fidelity, by cultures around the world. Instead of saying that marriage only now belongs to the church rather than to civil authorities, we should do as Luther suggests and get busy finding ways to instruct the church, families, and the civil authorities on the true nature of marriage.

The world may listen to us, as they have in the past. Or they may not. Either way, we make a mistake thinking that the sins of our time remove the civil authorities’ responsibility to enact and maintain laws concerning marriage. To that end, we should continue to seek public recognition of our marriages by the state. We should recognize marriages, as God defines them, solemnized by civil authorities. When our children seek godly engagements, we should bring them into the church to announce them before the congregation and ask blessings from God on the day of their wedding.

I think I accomplished my purpose of sucking the sentimental sap out of the topic of St. Valentine’s Day. May God look upon our marriages with favor and bless them. May He also cause our leaders and authorities to repent of their errors and realize that without marriage as one man and one woman for the procreation and rearing of children, no society can long endure.

[1] https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15254a.htm

[2] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Valentine