Not long after Marriage Equality was passed, the Baptist association of which my church was a member passed a resolution depicting biblical marriage as between one man and one woman, for life. I was the only pastor to voice opposition to this resolution. At the time, I was not free to express my affirmation of LGBTQIA folks in the church. My dissent was primarily due to the fact that Baptist churches are autonomous and that a resolution of that sort violated individual congregations’ right to decide their stance on marriage themselves.
I also told associational pastors that, unlike the association’s resolution, the Bible presents a variety of marriage models. If you really insist on legislating marriages to look like those in the Bible, you might as well go all the way. Here’s what that would look like:
Arranged Marriages
In Jesus’ day, marriages were arranged by the parents of the bride and groom, with the help of a matchmaker. The first arranged marriage was when Abraham sent his servant as a matchmaker to acquire a bride for Isaac. If we insist on only biblically-styled marriages, we must go back to arranged marriages and declare it sinful for couples to find love on their own.
Bride Prices
When a man wanted to marry a woman, he gave gifts to the bride and to her family. The price of the bride was agreed upon by the groom and the bride’s father. When a young man didn’t have cash on hand, he could agree to work for his father-in-law at reduced wages until he could pay off his bride-debt (see Jacob’s employ to Laban in Genesis 29). If only biblical models for marriage are acceptable, we need to go back to buying brides and selling daughters to the highest bidder.
Virgin Brides
Biblically, a woman is a high-priced commodity. Therefore, her father has a vested interest in making sure he’s not selling “used goods” at a new-bride price. Deuteronomy 22:13-21 NIV has a lot to say about virgin brides. If you’ve never read it, I’ll share it here:
If a man takes a wife and, after sleeping with her, dislikes her and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,” then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring to the town elders at the gate proof that she was a virgin. Her father will say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her. Now he has slandered her and said, ‘I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.’ But here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.” Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town, and the elders shall take the man and punish him. They shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives
If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.
If we’re going to insist on biblical models for marriage, then we must be resolute about virgin brides. Of course, there’ one way to practically ensure this, and the Bible supports this plan…
Child Brides
In biblical times, girls got married as soon as they were physically able to bear children, around twelve or thirteen years old. Often, grooms were significantly older, as it was expected that a man should start his career and become successful before he could support a wife. It’s suggested that Jesus’ mother Mary was about fourteen when she gave birth to her son, and that Joseph was perhaps thirty. If biblical marriages are our model, then we must arrange our daughters’ marriages well before the age of majority. This age differential will, of course, ensure that young brides remain subservient and their grooms maintain all the power–but hey, it’s biblical!
Prisoner Brides
In Numbers 31:17-18, God tells Jewish soldiers to wipe out all the men, women, and male children (even babies) among their enemies. They should only let the young girls “women-children” survive, so they could be forced into marriage to their captors. Imagine that your parents and brothers are killed by marauders, and as a woman-child you’re forced to marry their murderer. That’s biblical marriage!
Death Penalty for Adultery
Deuteronomy 22:22 says that if a man and woman are caught in adultery, they both be put to death. At least, that’s one shred of equality in biblical marriage.
The Old ‘Marry Your Rapist’ Trick
In Deuteronomy 22:28-29, if a man really wants to marry a girl and she refuses, all he has to do is rape her and then pay her father fifty shekels–then he can marry her. In this particular case, divorce is not permitted–so she has to remain married to her rapist for the rest of her life. If we want to legislate biblical marriage, we definitely need to include this law!
All in the Family
Sarah was Abraham’s wife…and sister. Need I say more?
All in the Family, Part 2
Jacob married two sisters, Rachel and Leah. (I guess I did need to say more.)
All in the Family, Part 3
(Yep, still more…) According to the law of levirate marriage, if a man died and had no sons to carry on his name and take care of his widow, then that man’s brother was obligated to marry her. Jesus’ detractors asked him about a hypothetical group of seven brothers who died one after the other, each one sharing the same wife. “Who’s wife will she be in the afterlife?” they asked (Mark 12:22-24). Jesus didn’t give them a straight answer–but he never said that their scenario was far-fetched. If we want Christian marriage to be biblical, we need to make sure it’s a family affair!
The More, The Merrier!
Abraham was married to Sarah but had Hagar and Keturah as second-class wives. Jacob married two sisters, practically simultaneously. King David had seven wives. Solomon boasted seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (yes, those numbers are correct!) Even the New Testament does not forbid polygamy but simply says that church leaders must be monogamous. Not all (or even most) biblical marriages were polyamorous–but every example of multi-spouse marriagrs were polygamous (multiple wives). The Bible does not record a single instance of polygyny (multiple husbands), thereby displaying the uneven power dynamic of patriarchy.
Right to Refuse?
Given everything above, it should go without saying that women had no right to refuse. They were the sexual property of their fathers until they were purchased by their husbands. Virginity was a commodity to be bought and sold. Marriages were not usually for love but were matches made for political gain or economic security. Women did as they were told, and accepted their lot in life. Does this sound like the kind of biblical marriage we want?
Biblical Marriage?
By now, you can see that “biblical marriage” is a phrase used by religious fundamentalists, to mean whatever they want it to mean. It’s easy for conservative Christians to claim that biblical marriage ought only to be between one man and one woman, for life. If they are going to use the Bible as a template for marriage so they can forbid homosexuality, they ought to go all the way and affirm arranged, polygamous marriages of child virgins who have been properly purchased by their much older (and circumcised) husbands. If, however, they are unprepared to bless pedophilic, forced, arranged, and polygamous marriages, then they must cease insisting on the Bible as a model for marriage.
Consistency is the key, people. Rather than making rules for everybody else’s marriages, let’s consistently love those people who God has graciously placed in our lives. Let’s remember Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 10:23, “’I have the right to do anything,’ you say—but not everything is beneficial. ‘I have the right to do anything’—but not everything is constructive.” Just because you can–doesn’t mean you should. Not all forms of love build up both people in a relationship. And that goes for people inside–and outside–of marriage.
Instead of judging whether another person’s relationship is “biblical,” let’s ask whether or not it’s loving. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a is a good picture of what that kind of love ought to look like.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
This is what God’s love looks like. Unlike Paul’s outline above, pedophilic, forced, arranged, and polygamous marriages do not resemble the love of God as found in 1 Corinthians 13. Neither do weddings between man and a woman where a spouse is abusive, manipulative, or unfaithful. True human love ought to resemble the patient and kind, selfless love of Christ–because we’re made to love as God loves. And this is what biblical Marriage REALLY looks like.
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