You aren’t alone being troubled by this ‘characterization’ of afterlife. I’ve heard other friends puzzle over this one, wondering what it could mean. And Christy already gave a good answer above about how we are misguided to try to use this particular passage in that direction. I.e. - wondering about the status of marital relationship in the fully realized eschaton - the Kingdom finally and fully come.
I think we do have other scriptural insight available (which I will not attempt to marshal here for the purpose of this post - I think any adept Bible reader will recognize the scriptural themes present, and their multiple points of contact - mainly from the New Testament) that does help us envision fulfilled relationship and the nature of our true selves as found in Christ. One can’t help seeing these passions expressed in writings like those of Lewis and MacDonald; whose hopes and visions of some of this I find quite contagious and surely a shadow or foretaste of something quite heavenly that is worth all pursuit, or that we could think of as the treasure for which we sacrifice all other treasures. I think the question some have about marriage could have at least a beginning of an answer in these sorts of visions. [warning: some adult marital themes may be used in the following.]
So let’s look at the theme of that final heavenly banquet feast - already quite an image invoking a whole lot of our present physical needs for sustenance; will we really be needing physical sustenance from harvests and to partake of flesh from killed animals when we are fully clothed in such new bodies as we are given? I think not - and yet our pleasure and ‘rightness’ in having and sharing such sustenance with each other now is what we have as a kind of downpayment, a kind of mental ‘handle’ given to help us begin to know a character of hope: do you see how much you long for all this? All this will pass away, but that same sort of longing and satisfaction will find its fulfillment in something - someone - the true bread that is so much higher. And what is true of food, will be true of every good provision we are meant to enjoy in this life, and what higher provision are we given than our relationships with others, culminating in Christ? So for those curious or apprehensive about marriage - first of all; if you’re worried that a good thing will have suddenly disappeared, then be assured that scriptures seem (I think do) show us quite the opposite: not only will there be marriage, but it will finally be realized in its highest and best form: the marriage feast of the Lamb. Our earthly marriages (to the extent that we enjoy good in those) are foretastes of something to come. And the bad parts of those - the abusive parts, hateful parts, broken relationships etc - all of those things will be the banished residue of true love gone bad - or failure to materialize in the first place. But all such failure doesn’t negate the truth of something we sensed at some point that we deemed worth chasing after, even if we chased after faulty copies of it. I think even our earthly sex lives show this, and show it well. Those of us fortunate enough to have tasted of good and strong love know that one doesn’t (in matured love) simply love their beloved because of the shape and substance of their physical body. In true love one doesn’t love a person because of their body, but one loves that body because it belongs to that person - your beloved. For 99% of us the body won’t be something particularly always ideal as some sort of attractor in its own right - and for the 1% that may have such temporary cultural worship of that sort - they won’t be having it for long. They will only have it for a very short window of their lives, and the poverty of such “love” is revealed to be its very antithesis, a lack of love that is yet in desperate want of the real thing. Marriages that remain based in mere carnality turn out not to be lasting marriages unless they can quickly find their better footing in deeper relationship and real love, not love of objects or objectified bodies.
And here is where some of the worry also intrudes: we have these worries about an afterlife which, in some imaginations is reduced to a dreary “forever” in which we imagine our earthly lives (and marriages) complete with our faults, foibles, impatience, boredoms and such all get magnified out for us in what might seem to be then a horrifying eternity (the whole ‘I wish I’d at least brought a magazine’ meme showing the bored robed figure standing on a cloud.) But this is to confuse our present wants and needs (including our present marriages - and their earthly, often but not always pro-creative purpose) with eternal pre-occupation. I do happen to think that we are given a foretaste of our eternal preoccupation, but that will be in the best of our relationships - all of them - and restored and reconciled forms of ones broken; and who knows - but an infinite variety of new ones to be had! And the jealous possessiveness we now are constrained by in our present mortal frames with their zero-sum, O-so-finite reservoirs of energy and attention will no longer be a limitation. In Christ, all will “possess” all - though there will be no such thing as possession; why would that even be needed? Perhaps for some this initially might sound more like hell - a hardened or embittered recluse from humanity may want nothing more than peace, quite, seclusion, and the like. And fine! Who among us doesn’t also rejoice in solitude for whatever seasons of need. But I’m also pretty certain that the most jaded recluse has had something early in their human experience that caused them such recoil, and that when that something gets a taste of healing and reconciliation, their spirit will rise again to rejoice in restored relationship as was always intended, and to revel in what it was so long denied. I think all of this vision is found in Christ as we are drawn closer together by being drawn toward him. It isn’t about the merely carnal aspect of our marriage appetites here and now, though even that is an echo of something good when it has its footing on real and lasting love rather than the mere carnality of it. And while I know some of the great authors like to see this world as a mere disposable sacrifice for the real one to come after, I’m not sure that is even the best or scriptural way to see it - though I acknowledge they have quite a reservoire of passages that speak in such ways - I can see where they draw that view from. But there is something unhealthy about “writing off” this present creation in favor of a new one. Yes - it is true that for many among the bitter or suffering, this present life, such as it is for them already got ‘written off’ by the circumstances forced on them - blessings robbed from them by evil. And I’m not about to begrudge them their hope in something better - something eternal. Lazarus languishing on the rich man’s doorstep won’t finally be denied his only hope. What I’m saying is that if we who have at least some token of blessing to be thankful for, if we take Paul’s language too far and think we can just “write off” our present temples (bodies) and our present creation around us, then we’ve already failed any such test as may concern something better later. He who is not faithful with some small and temporary bit of blessing or ‘riches’ here and now - how could they then be trustworthy with greater riches later? This isn’t a testing ground to see if we can dispose of it to greedily move on to something better. It’s a training ground to help us appreciate the possiblities of what all those better riches could be! And I think our relationships with each other - marriage relationship, familial relationships, intimate friendships, even rivals and enemies! - all of those should be helping us see the possibilities of what could be, and should spur us to working toward cultivating all of it here and now - leaving our ‘gifts’ at the altar as we turn instead to pursue, repair, and cultivate relationship that will finally be fully realized in a heavenly vision in God’s presence. That is, I believe and hope, what Christ has on offer for us, and that is a vision worth holding to.