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On the evolution of marriage: “Man + Woman – Nuclear Family”

We continue, from part 1, considering a ubiquitously promulgated common misconception based pop-cultural talking point of a myth is that there has been an evolution of marriage so that one cannot claim that marriage between one man and one woman is traditional, normal, family value based, right, true, God given, etc.

We continue, from part 1, considering a ubiquitously promulgated common misconception based pop-cultural talking point of a myth is that there has been an evolution of marriage so that one cannot claim that marriage between one man and one woman is traditional, normal, family value based, right, true, God given, etc.

We begin a consideration of the graphic and its text.

marriage-8497572

The first assertion reads:

Man + Woman – Nuclear Family: Genesis 2:24

– wives subordinate to their husbands

– interfaith marriages forbidden

– marriages generally arranged, not based on romantic love

– bride who could not prove her virginity was stoned to death

Genesis 2:24 reads:

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Now, read the text of the graphic and then read the verse again…and again. Whence do they derive so much info from the verse? The do not. This is a tactic that is meant to take advantage of the fact that anti-Christian activists are well known to be pseudo-skeptics who will not bother checking that which they are told—at least when it is anti-Christian, anti-Bible, etc.—but will accept it “on faith.” Thus, one verse is cited, four statements (interpretations) are asserted and a point is supposed to have been made.

Now, before considering the substance of the text note that the implication of wife’s submission to their husbands, the forbidding of interfaith marriages, arranged marriages not based on romantic love, and the stoning to death of brides to be who could not prove her virginity are immoral. However, no basis for such condemnations is offered. One is simply supposed to accept “on faith” that these things are immoral.

So, to those making such assertions it must be asked—before anything else and before offering answers, counterarguments, defenses—upon what basis, foundation, premise, etc. do they condemn the Bible much less anything at all.

To Christians: let us seek to understand the issues.

Man + Woman – Nuclear Family: Genesis 2:24

Indeed, true and right: the very foundation upon which the concept of marriage is based is that a (singular, one) man moves out of his parent’s home at the time that he is to be joined in marriage to his wife (singular, one) and only then are they to become one flesh. This defines that marriage is between one man and one woman, that they are not to play house/shack up before marriage and that they are not to engage in sexual relations until after they are married which, of course, implies that children are to be born within wedlock.

– wives subordinate to their husbands

This seems to not come from Genesis or the Old Testament at all but is a talking point based on the New Testament’s statement. If you even go as far as checking where the it states this you are supposed to read the words, “Wives submit to your husbands” (Ephesians 5:22) and stop there and forget that there is a greater context of 66 entire books wrapped around this statement not to mention (okay, mentioning) the immediate context. Here is Ephesian 5:18b-28:

…be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.

Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so [let] the wives [be] to their own husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.

So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.

Thus, the husband and wife are to be filled with the Spirit and speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. In they are to be “submitting to one another.”

Then comes specific instructions to wives and husbands. Having already been told to submit to each other (being filled with the Spirit…) the wife is directed to submit to her Spirit filled husband and the husband is directed to love their wives in the way that Jesus gave Himself for the church, is to sanctify and cleanse her via the word and present her glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, being holy and without blemish.

Moreover, husbands are told, “love your wives and do not be bitter toward them” (Colossians 3:19).

Love and do not be bitter, and also give yourself to her. What does it mean to give oneself like Christ did? Men are to give their very lives for their wives, this means that you would die in her place and more importantly, men are to devote their entire lives to loving their wives, serving them and caring for them.

Lastly, note 1st Corinthians 7:2-5:

…let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.

Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband.

The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer.

For an example of the vast difference between Christian marriage, husband wife relationships, and Islamic see: Islam / Muslim: Muhammad and Jesus, part 4 of 10

– interfaith marriages forbidden

For the Israelites, Jews, Hebrews, this about not engaging in interfaith and interracial (as it is termed in common parlance yet, there actually is only one race which is the human race).

This was for various reasons including that YHVH was raising up and sustaining His very own chosen people whom He chose to build up as a nation for specific purposes. Also, the Gentile Pagan nations, peoples, faiths around them engaged in the worship of false gods which consisted of human sacrifice, including that of children, all sorts of sexual practices including interfamilial, homosexual, bestiality, etc. and many, many, many other practices too vile to mention.

In the New Testament this is more in relation to the common sense concept of being united to the likeminded. If you marry someone whose views are the exact opposite of yours it makes for continued conflict. However, when a spouse became a Christian and was already married to a non-Christian this was not grounds for divorce.

– marriages generally arranged, not based on romantic love

It is very difficult for us moderners—for whom love is a chemically induced reaction in the brain, a mere emotion—to appreciate that which is to be appreciated about arranged marriages. It was not about considering your potential partner to be oh so hot, or cute, or a hunk, or beautiful. It was not about trying out sexual partners like they were the flavor of the week until you finally settle on one to finally end up marrying (if you even bother marrying if a marriage based upon two sexual partners de jour can last).

It was about seeing marriage as a sacred institution, the basis upon which family is based, the best environment in which to raise children, the backbone of society, etc. It was about commitment and not tentative emotion.

We have lost this in our emotionally driven cultures which see people as glorified animals who engage in sexual activities due to bio-chemically induced evolutionary responses.

– bride who could not prove her virginity was stoned to death

Sadly, without a citation or quotation many will find it difficult to discern to what they are referring—which is their point, by the way.

The fact is that no woman ever had to be stoned to death for not being a virgin whilst she was supposed to be one. It is a basic point and one which will be shocking to very many moderners. She could keep her virginity until birth and thus, it would never be an issue.

A very, very important point about Old Testament laws is that these represented the social order of the day and where laws established for and agreed upon by Jews/Israelites/Hebrews living at a certain time and in a certain place and within YHVH’s theocratic, monarchically administered, society.

The text in question begins by laying out a metaphorical scenario wherein a woman who is supposed to be a virgin gets married but is accused of not being a virgin, the following texts come from Deuteronomy 22:13-21:

If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then turns against her, and charges her with shameful deeds and publicly defames her, and says, ‘I took this woman, but when I came near her, I did not find her a virgin…

She was not found to be a virgin and thus what, she is to be stoned to death? Well, no. This is part of a judicial system and so first evidence is to be provided to the tribunal:

…then the girl’s father and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of the girl’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate.

And the girl’s father shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man for a wife, but he turned against her; and behold, he has charged her with shameful deeds, saying, “I did not find your daughter a virgin.” But this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’

And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city.

So the elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him, and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the girl’s father, because he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he cannot divorce her all his days…

Thus, if the evidence is to her favor then the accuser is to be chastised, fined and cannot divorce her. This means that she is protected under the law, he is punished and cannot divorce her—just in case the rascal’s tactic was to marry women, consummating the marriage, claiming lack of virginity, divorce her, only to do it all again, and again.

However:

But if this charge is true, that the girl was not found a virgin, then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed an act of folly in Israel, by playing the harlot in her father’s house; thus you shall purge the evil from among you.

The law is gravity: if you jump off of a very tall building you will die and if you do not, you will not.

Such a level of personal responsibility is simply unthinkable to us moderners living in our bail out cultures. Yet, 1) this was the Jewish/Hebrew/Israelite’s morality and who are we to impose ours upon theirs and 2) no basis upon which to condemn them was provided in any case.

Next, we will consider “Man + Brother’s Widow.”


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