It’s Time To Come Clean About Biblical Marriage

“Marriage was, and always will be, the God-ordained union between one man and one woman,” shouted the pastor as he slammed his fist down on the pulpit. His face was beetroot red, and a little vein on his balded forehead bulged out as he delivered an impassioned exhortation to his earnest flock.

As my country prepared to vote in a nationwide plebiscite to determine the legal right of same-sex couples to marry, these sermons had regretfully, but not unsurprisingly, become increasingly common in my church.

Growing up in the world of Evangelicalism, I was taught in no uncertain terms exactly what constitutes “Biblical marriage.”

Hardcore conservatives like John Macarthur declare that the traditional pattern for marriage — the biblical model — is one man and one woman, committing their lives to each other, until death separates them.

“The Bible is clear!” declares the chorus of the evangelical faithful.

But is it really?

There is no consistent view

I was taught that Biblical marriage was a union between one man and one woman—end of discussion.

But if you actually read the Bible, you will find that the Bible is consistently inconsistent on the issue of marriage. Sure, both the Old Testament and the New Testament have opinions and laws regarding marriage, but there is absolutely no one, undeviating marriage ethic, throughout. The one clear thing, though, is that the so-called Biblical view of marriage is actually very different from modern conceptions of marriage.

The next time a Christian refers to something they call “traditional marriage” or “Biblical marriage,” it might be worth asking them exactly what they mean by those terms because the Bible certainly has some ideas about marriage that are contradictory to the modern evangelical understanding. Here are a few:

Biblical marriage was about ownership

If you go to a Bible search engine and type in the word “marry,” you’ll come up with about 50 hits (in the New International Version). However, the word for “marriage” or “marry” in Biblical Hebrew is better translated, “Take a woman,” or “To be given to a man,” or “To belong to a man.” And, by the way, the word used for “husband” in Biblical Hebrew is Baal. It literally means “Master.”

Yes, women were treated more like property — or perhaps slaves — to be bought and sold. In fact, for a woman, marriage consisted of a transaction between a woman’s father and her husband-to-be, wherein money or livestock (a dowry) was given in exchange for the woman. When the transaction was complete, she was officially “betrothed” to the husband.

Did she get a choice? Not usually. Love was not a factor in the transaction.

Biblical marriage was hardly exclusive

King David is described in the Bible as a “Man after God’s own heart.” Thus, he is exalted by evangelicals as a model human being. He also had at least 8 wives and ten concubines — that’s a woman to whom he wasn’t married but who was available for casual sex at King David’s whim and will.

This was not only tolerated by God but did not prevent David from supposedly receiving the favor of God and the label of “Man after God’s own heart.” Go figure!

In a remarkable display of one-up-manship, the Bible records that David’s son, Solomon, had 700 wives and 300 concubines. How exhausting!

These are not exceptions to the rule, either. The father of the Jewish and Christian Faith, Abraham had three wives — one of them, Sarah, was none other than his half-sister by the way. Jacob had two wives: Rachel and Leah (the latter being a wife that he didn’t even want but was tricked into taking). Even Moses had two wives — one of them an unnamed Ethiopian gentile woman. Scandalous!

Biblical Marriage had different rules for men and women

Now, wait a minute! Doesn’t the Bible expressly forbid adultery? Isn’t that, in fact, one of the ten commandments. Well, yes! It sure is.

However, the sin of adultery was limited to cases where a man took another man’s wife. Since the Bible permits polygamy, a man was allowed to have multiple sex partners, as long as none of them is married to another man (Leviticus 20:10).

Also, the idea of fidelity in marriage only worked in one direction in the Bible. When a woman slept with someone other than her husband, she and her lover were considered to have committed a crime (one punishable by stoning no less). On the other hand, a married man could indeed freely sleep with another woman, as long as she wasn’t someone else’s wife.

It doesn’t sound like an entirely healthy foundation for a good marriage, does it?

Photo credit: Shutterstock

Biblical marriage was binding for women (not men)

Believe it or not, the Bible does make allowances for people who want to divorce — or rather, men who want to divorce. In such a case, the Bible demands that he give her “a letter of divorce,” indicating that she is no longer bound to him. How thoughtful!

In the Bible, though, a woman is not permitted to divorce a man for any reason. As long as the man wants her, she is his “till death do they part.”

It’s also worth pointing out that marriage, in the Bible, could be coerced. For example, the book of Deuteronomy defines rules for a man to take a woman captured in battle and make her his wife(Deuteronomy 21:10–14). Moreover, there are circumstances in which a man is required to marry a woman whom he has raped (Deuteronomy 22:28–29).

The Bible doesn’t exalt marriage as the church does

If you grew up in the church and had the misfortune of still being single in your mid-to-late twenties or beyond, you would have had first-hand experience of concerned older people asking you when you were going to “find someone and settle down.” It was almost implied that you were not a complete human until you had entered into a marriage. In fact, you weren’t allowed to be in leadership in my church unless you were married (and a man — but that’s another story).

Good evangelical Christians seem to forget that their savior, Jesus Christ, choose not to marry. Not only that, he encouraged his disciples to abandon household and domestic concerns to follow him (Matthew 19:29; Mark 10:28–30; Luke 9:57–62). Jesus even makes a bizarre reference to those “who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:10–13). Whatever that means, it’s certainly not an endorsement of the idea that marriage is be-all-and-end-all.

The great Apostle Paul, author of the majority of the New Testament, likewise encourages male believers: “Do not seek a wife” (1 Corinthians 7:27) — advice Paul took for himself.

If neither Jesus nor Paul preferred marriage for their followers, why do some Christians maintain that the Bible enshrines it as the highest goal of human existence?

Biblical marriage was not legally recognized

For many Christians, a marriage is not a “Christian marriage” unless it is officiated by a credentialed minister who makes a verbal pronouncement, preferably in the presence of a congregation.

However, for most of human history, marriage has simply been an agreement, recognized or arranged by the immediate families, for a man and woman to live together.

In the Bible, a couple would be betrothed, then literally walk into a tent to consummate their marriage, and that would be that. However, marriage services and ceremonies are a much more recent innovation.

Before the Reformation, churches didn’t even keep records of who was married to whom. So you could breeze into a new town with your partner on your arm and tell everyone you were married and, as far as everyone was concerned, it was so.

Martin Luther considered marriage to be a “worldly matter,” and, not wanting to be encumbered by record-keeping, he turned over the recording of marriages to the state. However, John Calvin believed that for a marriage to be valid, it needed to be recorded by both the state and officiated by the church. Needless to say, the Catholic Church did not require marriages to be officiated by a priest until 1563, and the Anglican Church did not get around to making this requirement until 1753.

This kind of flies in the face of the idea that the church ought to decide who marries who, how, and when.

Photo by Jeremy Wong Weddings on Unsplash

What does it all mean?

The next time a Christian boasts about their “Biblical marriage,” I humbly suggest that you say, “I sure hope you don’t have a Biblical marriage, but rather something better!”

Don’t expect this to be well-received!

But the truth of the matter is that marriage has evolved and changed, thank God, from Biblical times, and, to be honest, it has probably changed for the better. In fact, to claim a single “biblical” or “traditional” definition of marriage is to invent an idealized past that belies reality and denies thousands of years of change.

Contemporary Judaism and Christianity do not accept marriage as it is defined in the Bible. How could it? Polygamy? Incest? Misogyny? Inequality?!

Both traditions, over the centuries, have created new models for marriage in which both partners mutually agree to marry and in which oaths of fidelity bind both partners. The changes and adaptations are ongoing.

The unfolding revelation of God

Critics of this article will undoubtedly point to the fact that the Biblical references I have used have almost exclusively come from the Old Testament. They would be right about that.

However, this does not counter my views but rather supports the idea that the revelation of God is dynamic, not static. Even the Christians in the New Testament had dispensed with many of the practices in the Old Testament — like polygamy, for example. Instead, they used their good judgment and, dare I say it, the guidance of the Holy Spirit to progress humanity. That is exactly as it should be. As we continue to learn about our world, we continue to develop new understandings of his divine will — as we must.

Slavery, for example, is ordained by the Bible, but it is universally condemned today as a violation of Christian values. Moreover, it was Christians, like William Wilberforce, who led the abolition movement. Similarly, many today recognize the need to reconsider ancient attitudes towards homosexuality expressed in the Bible.

Let’s Be Honest

It’s high time people came clean about how we use the Bible to describe and define marriage. Many use the Bible to justify a certain definition of marriage, which simply confirms their own biases and prejudices.

Don’t get me wrong. Marriage is certainly a God-ordained relationship, and the Bible might have been the starting point, but we certainly must move beyond what it teaches on marriage — at least much of it. How could we not?

Otherwise, I could go and marry my half-sister against her will, for the cost of a few head of cattle, while keeping a few other women as slaves for casual sex on the side and then, when I am done with her, send her on her way with a valid certificate of divorce and declare — when it’s all said and done — “I had a Biblical marriage! ”

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This post was previously published on Medium.

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