Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

MARRIAGE

In ancient Israel and the Greco-Roman world, marriage signified many different social practices of household formation. Marriage is one expression of kinship and family patterns, in which typically a man and at least one woman cohabitate publicly and permanently as a basic social unit. Within most of the societies depicted in the OT and NT, the household or family created by such a marriage represents the extent of one man’s ownership and control of people and property. These households interact with each other in the larger society on more or less equal terms; both custom and law respect a man’s authority to operate within the household and to deal with other households on the basis of the relative social hierarchical position between the men of the households. Furthermore, the married man possesses the privilege of sexual access to the married women (and perhaps others) within the household, as limited by taboo and law. The children born of such sexual unions belong to the man and are part of the same household, under the same terms. Thus marriage forms a unit that is social, economic, political, and sexual.

Hebrew has no particular words for “husband” or “wife.” The words that are translated as such in the OT are almost always the same words more frequently translated “man” and “woman.” In some versions of the OT, Heb. baʿal, “lord,” is occasionally translated “husband.” It is thus very difficult to assess the extent to which marriage functioned as a free-standing social institution within ancient Israel. Clearly, ancient Israel organized most if not all of its households around a man, and such households included both women and children under the authority of the man.

There is no clear evidence for the age at which an Israelite man or woman married or entered households, although it is likely that Israelites were involved in married, sexually active family life in their mid-teens. Likewise, the OT records no wedding ceremonies that might depict how marriages happened. It is not even known if there were wedding ceremonies in most cases, or if such occasions occurred only among wealthier families. Women may well have joined households shortly after menarche or even before; men may have waited several years before forming households of their own, because of the economic requirements for founding and maintaining households. Although there is only rare discussion in the OT of how households were formed, men may have purchased women as wives from the children of other households, and thus the entry of women into households may have been a negotiated transaction (with or without financial ramifications) between men of two households, in the roles of father and husband.

Many of the OT texts, especially in the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic history, depict households with one man and multiple adult women. This marriage pattern is polygyny, a type of polygamy in which there are multiple women. This pattern maximizes fertility rates, while tending to favor the political power of the sole male as leader of the household. It is not known if polygynous households were the norm in Israel or if they occurred only among the wealthier households, such as those that are more frequently represented in the extant literature. When polygyny did occur, it is likely that the women were of different ages. The household may have begun with one man and one woman, adding other women as the financial resources of the household expanded. Women’s life expectancy was much shorter than that for men, and pregnancy was among the leading causes of death for Israelite women. In this situation, polygyny became a way to maintain the supply of women in the household as well as to increase its fertility. If the man of the household outlived the first wife by many years, then there may have been a great age difference between the man of the household and subsequent wives. Such a version of polygyny shares some parallels with sequential marriages.

The OT uses marriage as a metaphor to describe God’s relationship with the people. In Hos. 1–3; Ezek. 16 the images contain vivid charges of betrayal and accounts of sexual violence. Separating from God is condemned (Mal. 2:10-16). Isa. 62:4-5 depicts the beauty of God’s marriage to the people.

In the Hellenistic and Roman worlds polygyny was rare. The NT depicts only monogamous marriages. The Greco-Roman world practiced wedding ceremonies, and the NT records a story of Jesus at a wedding in Cana (John 2) as well as parables by Jesus about weddings. Average age at marriage had probably increased, perhaps into the early 20s, but there is little direct evidence for age at marriage of any NT figures. The NT portrays a relatively large number of single persons, although it cannot be determined if they were persons who had never married, had been previously married, or lived apart from spouses. Paul’s marital status remains uncertain; as a trained Jewish religious leader, it would have been exceedingly rare for him to have not been married, and yet he advises persons considering marriage that it would be better to be single like himself (1 Cor. 7:8). Likewise, Peter’s marital status remains problematic; his mother-in-law is mentioned (Mark 1:30 par.), but not a wife, making it likely that he lived apart from his wife, but it remains possible that he was a widower who had assumed some financial responsibilities for his deceased wife’s mother.

The latter portions of the NT offer several household codes, which share many features in common with popular wisdom in the contemporary Greco-Roman culture (Col. 3:18–4:1; Eph. 5:21–6:9; 1 Pet. 2:11–3:12; 1 Tim. 2:8-15; 5:1-2; 6:1-2; Tit. 2:1-10; 3:1). These codes encourage wives to submit to husbands, continuing patterns of male dominance within households that were finding a number of exceptions in the diverse social patterns of the day. These codes privilege marriage and limit marriage to one man and one woman.

Jon L. Berquist

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

MARRIAGE

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)