The philosophy of marriage in Islam and Christianity

It is impossible to attain an overall knowledge of marriage and the philosophy behind it, unless one adopts a general multiperspectival approach based on comparison and contrast. To shed light on marriage, this paper studies the causes, goals, and status of marriage in Islam and Christianity from a comparative approach and analyzes the results. The most important result of this comparison is that both religions consider marriage and formation of family as the sole legitimate solution for securing sexual needs, forming a decent generation, and guaranteeing love and friendship. However, Islam denies bachelorhood and cloister and, unlike Christianity, does not consider them as the means for approaching Allah. In fact, it is marriage which provides the ground for perfection and for approaching Allah.