My point is that when you freeze your tongue to a cold flag pole in the school yard, the two are joined together in such a way that unsticking the tongue is painful and can damage it. That is my point of comparison with marriage cleaving. It is like pasting two sheets of paper together. They are now so closely united that one cannot separate them without damaging them. And, of course, the married couple become one flesh, which refers particularly to the unique physical relationship associated with marriage, but also symbolizes the total unity of life.
Marriage is the covenant of companionship.
We have looked at companionship as required by man's creation in the image of God, provided by Eve's creation from a rib from Adam, described in Eve's description as a help meet, and regulated in the marriage mandate. Now we need to look at the covenant aspect. The heart of the marriage relationship is the covenant vow, which is a solemn oath before God. The language in Scripture for making a covenant is literally cutting a covenant. The imagery behind that language is demonstrated in Genesis 15.