What does the Hebrew Bible* say about marriage_

*We will usually refer to the "Old Testament" as the "Hebrew Bible." What is now often called the "Old Testament," in the Hebrew or its Greek translation, was THE Bible of Jesus, Peter and Paul. They saw in it both the "old covenant" of the law and the "new covenant" of grace. Too often, Christians think of the "Old Testament" as all Law and the "New Testament" as all grace. Neither is true. Even worse, some Christians think the "Old Testament" is inferior to the "New." This is understandably offensive to Jews and has led some Christians tragically astray.

"Be fruitful and multiply"

The Hebrew Bible's views of marriage reflect the fact that it was written many centuries ago. In the Ancient Near East, marriage was an institution that was expected to increase the size of the family/clan and of the nation for purposes of establishing "dominion:":

"God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.'" (NRSV)

This strong emphasis on producing children led to some practices that we would find odd or even immoral today. If a husband died before fathering a son, the deceased husband's brother was obligated to marry the widow in order to give her a child and his dead brother an heir. When Onan refused to perform this duty, he was put to death (Genesis 38:8-10). When no brother-in-law was available for whatever reason, the father-in-law would do. (Genesis 38). This desire to provide children to inherit and to care for their widowed mother trumped even the laws against sexual relations between in-laws in Leviticus 18 and 20.

If supposed female infertility prevented a couple from having children, the wife could provide a surrogate slave girl to her husband. This is what Sarah does with Hagar (Genesis 16) and Rachel with Bilhah (Genesis 30). This use of servants might even take place in the absence of infertility as the case of Leah and Zilpah demonstrates (Genesis 30).

The goal of increasing population along with a need for an abundant work force might be the reasons behind the frequent practice of polygamy in the Hebrew Bible. Technically, there are only examples of polygyny (one husband with more than one wife) and none of polyandry (one wife with many husbands). Lamech, Abraham, Jacob, Esau, Gideon, Elkanah, David and, of course, Solomon all had more than one wife. One law in Deuteronomy explicitly recognizes the fact of polygyny and does not condemn it (Deuteronomy 21:15-17). Another law admonishes the king from taking "many wives" in the same way that it warns against accumulating too much gold and silver, but it does not outlaw polygyny (Deuteronomy 17:17). Even though the Bible seems to approve of this practice, it realistically portrays the complications present in the families of Abraham, Jacob and David.

While these laws may shock our sensibilities even though they come from the Bible, they were typical of Ancient Near Eastern cultures. Levirate marriage (replacement of a deceased husband) was provided for in the Middle Assyrian laws that pre-date the Bible. The records of royal descent in Canaanite Ugarit indicate that it was practiced there as well. Sections 145 and 146 of the very ancient Code of Hammurabi regulate the taking of an additional wife or the use of a slave girl in the case of an infertile wife. Personal feelings, even other moral considerations, were all secondary to the need to produce offspring, enlarge the clan and nation and provide for future laborers and soldiers. How different from our culture where we wonder how we could care for and educate a large number of children, and we are more concerned with over-population than bearing adequate numbers of future workers.

Keep it in the family

Another important concern in the Hebrew Bible is the preservation of the clan's property, cultural values and religion. This was usually accomplished by marrying within the family, sometimes to family so close that it would be against the consanguinity laws of most states today. Abraham married his half-sister (Genesis 20:12). Nahor married his niece (Genesis 11:29). Isaac, Esau and Jacob married first cousins. The concern is often more about marrying outside the family than marrying too close a relative (Numbers 36:5-9). The list of outlawed relationships in Leviticus 18 does not include marriage between first cousins even though modern laws governing marriage would prohibit such a union.

Despite this preference for marrying within the clan or tribe, there are many examples in the Hebrew Bible of marrying someone from "outside." This even seems to be done with the implicit approval of the biblical narrator when the situation involves someone living among foreigners for an extended period like Joseph, Moses or Esther, or when the goal was to consolidate political power as when David married Abigail and Maacah.

When the exiles returned to Jerusalem, however, Ezra made it a major part of his program of reform not only to prevent intermarriage with the "people of the land" but also to dissolve those marriages that had already occurred (Ezra 10). Post-exilic prophet Malachi backed him in this (Malachi 2:11-12). This attempt to preserve purity by separation continued through the Maccabean period (See Jubilees 30), but was not a major concern by the time of the Mishnah.

Today there are still many parents who would rather see their children marry within their own culture and religion. There was a time in our nation when laws were passed to try to prevent interracial marriage, but those enactments were struck down by the courts in the 60's. The laws preventing marriage between close blood relatives remain and are more restrictive than those of the Hebrew Bible.

A covenant between equal partners

In the Ancient Near East, a marriage was more of a property relationship between the husband and the wife's family as it was a covenant between the spouses. The husband paid a "purchase price" to the father of bride (See Code of Hammurabi Section 159 and following). If she failed to bear him children or otherwise proved an unsuitable wife, the husband was entitled to his money back. The Book of the Covenant preserves this concept in the Bible (See Exodus 22:17).

There is a different view in the Hebrew Bible that sees marriage as more of a partnership between equals. The prophet Hosea had a very difficult marriage disrupted by his wife's infidelity and prostitution. Hosea sees in his own troubles a metaphor for God's relationship with an unfaithful Israel and his prophecies about the future of the northern kingdom track the course of his own marriage. Hosea forecasts the Lord will cast off Israel, but that the relationship will be restored as he himself would seek out unfaithful Gomer, redeem her and restore her as his spouse:

"Therefore, I will now allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. From there I will give her her vineyards, and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she shall respond as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. On that day, says the Lord, you will call me, 'My husband,' and no longer will you call me, 'My Lord.'" (NRSV and AHB)

While the Hebrew contains a clever double entendre that condemns Israel's worship of the Canaanite god Baal (the Hebrew word for "lord" or "master"), this last verse also expresses Hosea's radical concept of marriage as an equal partnership of husband and wife. Later the prophet Ezekiel picks up on the covenant idea of marriage (Ezekiel 16:8).

The account of creation is Genesis 2 is perhaps the most famous picture of marriage as a covenant between two equals:

"[B]ut for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, 'This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.' Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh."

God creates woman in answer to the human need for companionship. Both man and woman are of the same, equal substance. Both share weakness (easily-torn flesh) and strength (bone). They are ish and ishah, man and woman, and in marriage, their two-ness becomes one again.

Song of Songs celebrates sexual intimacy within the context of marriage without making an explicit connection between that intimacy and procreation. Even more surprising and reflective of the idea of marriage as a covenant between equal partners, this poem of sexual desire and fulfillment is told from a woman's point of view.

It is this covenant idea of marriage that resonates most strongly with us today. In many parts of the world, marriage is still a means to an end, and arranged by families for economic, social or political reasons. There are communities and individual households around the world where women are regarded as little more than property. But for most of us in Western culture, marriage is now a relationship between two equals, a commitment to be a helpmeet for one another through sickenss and health, and a covenant meant to last a lifetime.

Producing children remains a goal in many marriages, but not all. Who would deny marriage to the widow and widower who have fallen in love at an advanced age_ Who would require fertility tests as a condition for marriage_ Who would ever suggest that an infertile husband or wife can be cast off so that the fertile one can participate in procreation_ Today marriage is more about that covenant between equals than it is about procreation.

At the same time, that very covenant makes a stable marriage the best context for raising children. The love and commitment between the partners provides the best environment for children who need much love and commitment. The challenges of child-rearing are more easily met by two people who stand as lifelong helpers to each other.

People's ideas about marriage evolved a good deal over the six or seven centuries during which the Bible was written. Our ideas continue to develop today as we deal with an ever-changing world that requires us to constantly evaluate what marriage is and should be. Born in a hard world where survival was difficult and great inequalities existed between men and women, some of the writers of the Hebrew Bible were able to envision marriage as an ideal. Their claim was that God's intention was not what was but what could be: marriage as a lifetime covenant between two equals to love and care for each other.

What does the Greek Bible* say about marriage_

*We will usually refer to the "New Testament" as the Greek Bible. Too often, Christians think of the "Old Testament" as all Law and the "New Testament" as all grace. Neither is true. Even worse, some Christians think the "Old Testament" is inferior to the "New." This is understandably offensive to Jews and has led some Christians tragically astray.

Continuity with the Hebrew Bible

The views of marriage found in the Greek Bible generally reflect a continuation of the "covenant" tradition of the Hebrew Bible. Jesus' answer to the Pharisees' question about divorce refers both to the Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 images of marriage in a way so as to emphasize the equality of the partnership:

"But Jesus said to them, 'Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.'" (NRSV)

Interestingly, the commandment to "be fruitful and multiply" from Genesis 1 is not included by Jesus nor is it found anywhere else in the Greek Bible.

Even though Jesus presents marriage as a God-ordained convenant between partners, he continues to use the language of his contemporaries that reflected a patriarchal, property-based idea of marriage. Men "marry" and women are "given in marriage." (Mark 12:25) He implicitly acknowledges that divorce is a right given only to the husband. (Matthew 5:31)

The rest of the Greek Bible tradition reflects Jesus' covenantal view of marriage. Paul cites Genesis 2 when he condemns relations with prostitutes. (1 Corinthians 6:16) In the post-Pauline writings of the early church, Genesis 2 is cited as the basis for the marital relationship and a picture of Christ's relationship to the Church. (Ephesians 5:31-33)

For all the writers in the Greek Bible, lifelong monogamy is expected. Adultery and divorce are condemned. (Matthew 5:27-28; 1 Corinthians 7:10-12)

Spirit versus body

The writers of the Greek Bible were faced with a new challenge to the traditional ideas of marriage they found in the Hebrew Bible. There was a stream of thought in the Greek world that saw an ongoing conflict between the "good" or "superior" spirit and the "evil" or "inferior" body. Reflected in the Gnostic movement in the early Church, this concept led to sexual asceticism and an attempt to avoid all sexual contact and a denial that God found marriage holy and acceptable.

This dualism was in sharp contrast to the Hebrew Bible's understanding of marriage as an institution established by God and sexual intimacy as something both good in itself if carried out in the context of marriage and as beneficial to society if it produced offspring. When the Corinthians asked Paul whether "it is good for a man not to touch a woman," Paul responded that marriage and regular sexual relations between the marital partners was preferable for most. (1 Corinthians 7:1-9)

The end is near

Through the centuries during which the Bible was written, marriage was not a static concept. We have seen how it evolved from a property relationship with procreation as the primary aim toward a covenant between two equal partners. We have observed the newly born Christian Church remain faithful to this covenant concept of marriage even as it tried to counsel its people how to survive as a minority in an alien culture. Today we are challenged to adapt to the continuing evolution of marriage while upholding the value for children and society of lifelong, committed relationships between helpmeets.

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