The institution of marriage has been a hot topic button for the last couple decades. I’ve heard people say things like, “Our marriages are all falling apart because we’ve forgotten to follow the good book.” I’ve heard others say, “If we’d only go back to what the Bible teaches our marriages would stay safe and whole.” Or worse yet, I’ve heard people in response to gay marriage say things like, “It was Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve.”

In response to this I felt it appropriate to share what “Biblical Marriage” actually would look like today if you used the Bible, within context, as your blueprint for marriage.

Let’s first consider Adam and Eve. The story has been used to attempt to explain literal creation, dieting, original sin theories, and marriage patterns but the only problem with this is that NONE of these were the actual purpose of the writers. For the actual writers they were not writing science — they knew nothing of carbon dating, the sun’s rotation, pollination and germination. They knew nothing of the planets and solar system and its affects on the weather and survival. To say that this was a literal scientific explanation of how the world began is to comply disregard science today as well as the initial purpose of the poem and narrative.

The story was told and complied when Israel is in Babylonian captivity and they are attempting to keep their culture and values— their identity is literally at risk of being comely wiped out of history. So they begin compiling the stories in order to to share with the future generations how to order the world after painful experiences. And so the story and poem, which coincidentally are told differently making it very difficult from the get go to take literally, begin with their god steeping into chaos and creating order. And what happens next is that a being named dirt and a being named light/dirt are called to begin naming the world, an accent practice called ordering things. The idea wasn’t about marriage— it was about ordering life with wisdom guiding our knowledge which was really the story of Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Daniel, Esther and the rest. The story metaphor was just that— a metaphor. To take this literally is to error from the original intent of the authors and insert one’s own prerogative to the story. 

So what does the Bible say about marriage?

Let’s start with Genesis 29:18 where Biblical marriage is a man arranging to buy a girl from her father for an agreed upon purchase price. Today we’d say that is barbaric especially when the girl is so young and really unable to make that ;large of a decision on her own and yet, if one desires to use the Bible as the literal picture of marriage then this idea is going to be an action you would repeat.

In Judges 21:10-14 it reads that Biblical marriage is a raiding party murdering the fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters of a people but saving the young virgins because they want “wives” (i.e. women to capture and legally rape). So if you’re to use the Bible as your compass toward the institution of marriage there is most likely going to be some violence involved as well as putting you at risk of the culturally immoral action today of rape.

Furthering the victim narrative of Biblical marriage in Deuteronomy 22:28-29 it commands that marriage is a victim being forced to marry her rapist with no hope of divorce (but don’t worry — her father is suitably compensated in cash for the trouble, and this is only valid if the woman is not already another man’s property… so relax! No property rights are violated by this arrangement).

Deuteronomy 25:5  explains that Biblical marriage is a woman marrying her dead husband’s brother (whether either party wishes it or not) so that she can have a kid in the dead husband’s name. Again, notice the lack of right women have in the Biblical version of marriage.

1 Corinthians 7:1-9 tells us that if a man struggles with lust for a women then rather than finding a way to recover from the addiction it is better for him to marry the woman in order to satisfy his desires.

So to summarize, if you’re going to follow the Biblical examples and teachings of marriage prepare to be a polygamist who sees woman as goods and marriage as a great transaction in order to gain land and goods using force if necessary.   

To be fair though to these ancient people, they were a group of people moving away from disorder and into life but one must remember; these are ancient and many ways barbaric people whose rituals today would seem appalling. Why appalling? I would argue because we as a society have gown in our ethics and morality. We no longer see rape as something that brings life. We believe ALL people no matter their sex, color, and social standing all have the right to freedom and resources, the rights to vote and do life together.

Stephanie Coontz writes in her book Marriage, A History of How Love Conquered Marriage writes that the institution of marriage as we know it TODAY has evolved much like we have as a culture. Here are some important quotes I gave regarding this.

“Monogamy became the guiding principle for Western marriages sometime between the sixth and the ninth centuries.”

“In 1215, the Catholic Church decreed that partners had to publicly post banns, or notices of an impending marriage in a local parish, to cut down on the frequency of invalid marriages (the Church eliminated that requirement in the 1980s). Still, until the 1500s, the Church accepted a couple’s word that they had exchanged marriage vows, with no witnesses or corroborating evidence needed”.

“By about 250 years ago, the notion of love matches gained traction, Coontz said, meaning marriage was based on love and possibly sexual desire. But mutual attraction in marriage wasn’t important until about a century ago. In fact, in Victorian England, many held that women didn’t have strong sexual urges at all.”

“Still, marriage wasn’t about equality until about 50 years ago. At that time, women and men had unique rights and responsibilities within marriage. For instance, in the United States, marital rape was legal in many states until the 1970s, and women often could not open credit cards in their own names.”

So with all of this written I’d like to be very clear. If you’re going to use the Bible as your blueprint in literal ways then you’re going to be going directly against the very ethic and morals that have been established today and often keep our country and culture safe. Maybe it’s time we stopped liberalizing certain stories and attempting to use this book as a manual and began appreciating the journey we as a human race have walked leading us to a much better ethic today that can be shared with ALL people.