April 8, 2013--Biblical Marriage

For those who turn to the Bible for guidance about what constitutes "traditional" marriage, there are many examples that they would find to be shocking.

Here are a few examples--

Biblical marriage is a man arranging to buy a girl from her father for an agreed upon purchase price (Genesis 29:18).
 Biblical marriage is a wife “giving”, regardless of her maid servant's wishes, her servant to her husband as a “wife” for sex and procreation (Genesis 16:2-3, Genesis 30:3, Genesis 30:9, etc.)
 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” (Judges 21:10-14).
 Biblical marriage is a raiding party lying in wait to capture more women as “wives,” actually with whom to have sex (Judges 21:20-24).


Biblical marriage is a victim being forced to marry her rapist with no hope of divorce though her father is suitably compensated in cash (Deuteronomy 22:28-29).
 Biblical marriage is selling your daughter as a slave to be given to her owner or owner's son for sexual exploitation as a “wife” (Exodus 21:7-11). Biblical marriage is one man taking multiple, even hundreds, of wives and concubines (see David, Solomon, Jacob, Abraham, and others).
 Biblical marriage is a woman who is considered to be property whose own happiness is inconsequential, but whose property status is absolute (see: David and Michael).

When it comes right down to it, Biblical marriage is two or more men deciding between themselves what woman an individual can or will take as a wife--be it a father selling his daughter into sexual slavery; a husband-to-be arranging with a father, an agreement suitable to both parties on how to dispose of or acquire the female in question; a party of raiders murdering a woman's entire family in order to claim her; a rapist capturing an unattached female and thereby getting himself a new wife.

Biblical marriage isn't about love and romance, though that occasionally happens, though not because of, but rather in spite of the “institution” as it was practiced during Biblical times. And in the other cases, as the story, for instance, of the acquisition of wives for the children of Benjamin (Judges 21), one can only assume it entailed a lifetime of misery since it involved wiping out a woman's entire family to force your sexual advances upon.

So the next time someone objects to the idea of a same-sex couple wanting to get married and have a child or two, remind them that King David had at least seven wives, 19 sons, and one daughter; and that patriarch Abraham had three wives and a total of seven sons. 

In addition, in both cases, they also had numerous "concubines." But in spite of this, we hold them to be sacred and ignore their "private lives." Though, hypocritically, there is often condemnation of neighbors whose daughter has two daddies.