Which IMO, could be the very reason for the death penalty for rape. God never tells us the reason for the consequences for breaking His law. He just tells us what they are.
But in the NT, Paul explains that in a marriage, a woman is freed from the marriage and not an adulterer on the death of her husband.
Not that I am saying that the rapist is a husband (sadly I've had enough experience with stuff I've said being twisted that I feel I need to make that disclaimer).
And you are right. That is NOT a legitimate marriage. Whether that act creates a soul tie or not, I don't know.
A little reflection reveals that this one-intercourse=one-flesh view, paradoxically, would require most Christian spouses to annul their present marriages, since surveys show that the majority of Christians do not marry the first person they had intercourse with. In other words, even in the Christin world, most marriages are not marriages of two virgins.
That is true. It is a problem.
I heard a preacher once talk about premarital sex and on his teaching about the soul tie did bring that issue up. His advice was that the past is the past and cannot be undone and that no-one can expect a person to end their current marriage, as that would also be wrong. His advice was to repent of the previous sin and ask the Holy Spirit to break that soul tie that was created in those other encounters.
Unless you think that mere ritual words and physical actions convey the grace of the sacrament, regardless of the spiritual reality.
Marriages done by a justice of the peace are also marriages, legally binding. I recall that the Catholic church does not consider marriages done outside it as legitimate, but the problem with that is that there are marriages all around the world done by non-Catholics. Since they did not receive the sacrament of the Catholic church, are they not legitimate marriages?
Good thing you've given me the opportunity to correct this, because this is not true. The Catholic Church teaches that the "ministers" of the Sacrament of Matrimony are the two baptized persons, husband and wife, who minister the Sacrament to each other. The priest is witness on behalf of the Church, but it is the couple who give the Sacrament. Therefore, assuming they are baptized, if they married anywhere (Baptist Church, Hindu ashram or City Hall) intending what the Church understands as marriage (lifelong, exclusive, sexual union open to procreation) they are MARRIED, and Sacramentally so.
" the problem with that is that there are marriages all around the world done by non-Catholics. Since they did not receive the sacrament of the Catholic church, are they not legitimate marriages?"
Yes, indeed these are marriages. They are Sacramental if the husband and wife are baptized (in any Chrisian faith); even if they are not baptized, they are still truly wedded in what the Church reecognizes as "natural marriage." We believe marriage is established and defined both by Divine and Natural Law.