Active
John 4:16; He *said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.”
John 4:17; The woman answered and said to Him, “I have no husband.” Jesus *said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’;
John 4:18; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this which you have said is true.”
Jesus didn't consider shacking up and having sex, the same thing as being married. Marriage involves commitment, not only between us and God, but with other witnesses that
can hold us accountable. Jesus's first miracle was at a wedding. ( John 2:1-11; ) If she was having sex with this man, why didn't either Jesus or the woman herself, consider him her husband?
Simply becoming "one flesh" doesn't make someone your spouse.
1Cor 6:13; Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, however God will do away with both of them. But the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.
1Cor 6:14; Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power.
1Cor 6:15; Do you not know that your bodies are parts of Christ? Shall I then take away the parts of Christ and make them parts of a prostitute? Far from it!
1Cor 6:16; Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall become one flesh.”
1Cor 6:17; But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
1Cor 6:18; Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.
1Cor 6:19; Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
1Cor 6:20; For you have been bought for a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
Verse 16 says you can become "one flesh" with a prostitute, but that doesn't make her your wife.
This passage says we are "one body" in Christ, not "one flesh" (one body) with a prostitute, He even asks "shall I take away the parts of Christ"... and them part of a prostitute.
Heb 13:4; Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.
1 Cor 6:9; Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals,
If someone is having sex with more than one person, is the whole group married? What if someone else in that group is having sex with more than one person? Now we have a communal marriage
where a dozen people are all married to each other. What if someone is in a homosexual relationship, does "tab A into slot A" still apply? It doesn't apply in any case I can see in the Bible.
In Genesis, God talked about a man joining together with his wife in sexual intercourse. There was no mention of marriage papers but God clearly saw sex as a marriage act between a man and a woman.
Marriage was later a part of legal governance because mankind has multiplied and people need to be held accountable for pregnancy. People need to be held accountable because they don't obey God. If everyone was obedient to God till today marriage would naturally take place without marriage law or papers, sex itself was and is still the act of marrying.