In our Western culture, we’re increasingly seeing the redefinition of marriage. Completely ignoring the fact that marriage is God’s—not man’s—institution, many governments have permitted same-sex “marriage,” and there’s a growing push in Western nations for the legalization of polygamy as well. Polyamory (many loves) and adultery are increasingly becoming acceptable behaviors in a culture that lacks self-control. And then there’s “sologamy”—marrying yourself! This is not a joke.

Apparently sologamy has been around since the early nineties, but the idea is said to be picking up some steam and is now becoming more common, reportedly mostly with women. There’s even a website that sells “I Married Me Self-Wedding In-A-Box” that includes ceremony instructions, a ring (that you wear “as a symbol of your commitment to yourself and to give you daily reminders that you are fabulous”), vows to yourself, and 24 affirmation cards.

The whole focus of a self-wedding is, of course, on self. It’s all about affirming that you are enough and making a public commitment to loving yourself. One woman who “married” herself made this promise to herself during her ceremony, “I, Nadine, promise to enjoy inhabiting my own life and to relish a lifelong love affair with my beautiful self.”

This belief is the natural outgrowth of a society that is obsessed with self and self-esteem. In 2 Timothy 3:2, the Apostle Paul accurately captures our culture’s overwhelming obsession with self when he writes, “for men will be lovers of themselves.”

The Focus of Love Shouldn’t Be On Ourselves

Now, how do you define “loving yourself”? Caring for one’s health and body is a good thing, and for the Christian, the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in us (1 Corinthians 6:19). After all, Scripture says that “for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it” (Ephesians 5:29); and each of us was carefully designed by God in His own image (Genesis 1:27; Psalms 139:14). We should acknowledge that we weren’t an accident or a mistake, and that all human life, including our own, is precious.

But you’ll notice there aren’t Scripture verses about “loving yourself”—however, there are plenty about loving God and loving others! That’s because our focus shouldn’t be on ourselves. After all, the purpose of our life isn’t us. It’s God and His glory (Ecclesiastes 12:13; Luke 10:27). Everything we do should bring glory to God (1 Corinthians 10:31; Colossians 3:17), and there’s nothing about marrying yourself that brings glory to God. The focus is on yourself, not on God. Someone might object that Matthew 19:19 says “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” so it teaches that it is right to love yourself. But there is no command to love self. The command is to love our neighbors, to look out for them, to be good to them, to meet their needs, just as we all do for ourselves. This verse in no way supports the self-focus of sologamy.

Biblical Marriage Is a Picture of Christ and the Church

Despite what our culture seems to think, marriage isn’t just about showing your love for someone—it’s a picture of Christ and His church (Ephesians 5:22-33). Any perversion of marriage, whether it be same-sex or self “marriage,” fails to reflect the relationship of Christ as our groom and us, the church, as His spotless bride. These perversions ignore the fact that God has designed marriage for specific purposes and that, because God created it, only God has the right to define it. And God has defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman (Genesis 1:27, 2:24; Matthew 19:4–5).

Additionally God has designed marriage to be a blessing to both husband and wife (Proverbs 31:10–31; Ephesians 5:28–33), and for them to produce and train up children, who are blessing from the Lord (Psalm 127:3–5). Arbitrarily deciding to “marry” oneself is to reject and mock those very blessings that God intended.

Lastly, marriage was designed by God as a life-long covenant between a man and a woman. One person cannot enter into a covenant with himself or herself; so again, this is a mockery of marriage. Really, it reflects the sin nature of humans who succumbed to the devil’s temptation:

““You will be like God”.” (Genesis 3:5)

When we see ideas like sologamy in our culture, we need to judge them by the standard of God’s Word. And in a culture obsessed by self, we need to point people to the only One who truly matters—Jesus Christ. Submitting to Christ, trusting in Him for salvation, and loving and serving Him are what matter in this life and what will matter for eternity. People need to know that they actually aren’t “enough” by themselves—they are sinners headed for an eternity separated from God in hell (Romans 3:23, 6:23). They need the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ that paid for their sins so that they can be forgiven and spend eternity with Jesus in heaven (Romans 10:9–10). That’s the only hope for every person.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.