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Tuesday, 27 March 2007 12:46 |
 | | Marc Mullinax |
ìI think we ought to do everything we can to tolerate and accommodate whatever kind of relationships people want to enter into.î
ñ Dick Cheney
ï
MARS HILL ó Jesus was conceived by an unmarried single teenager. We donít know when she got married, but we assume she did everything possible to minimize the stigma of her out-of-wedlock pregnancy.
In addition to Jesusí family, the Bible contains, one scholar says, nearly 50 different, legitimate configurations of marriage and family arrangement.
Adam
and Eve had a common-law understanding before there was common law.
Abraham lived with his wife, but his first child came through a maid
who became his second wife. Both Moses and Jacob married and lived with
the wifeís family, a matriarchal arrangement.
Patriarchal
marriages predominate in the Bible. Husbands were often referred to as
ìBaíalî or lord. Though he had the right to treat his wife/wives as
property, he was obliged not to if he wanted peace at home! In
patriarchal marriage, name, descent, rights and property, control and
sometimes ownership flowed through the father.
Another
ìbiblical valueî is polygamy, of which Solomon is the chief example.
Most felt his 500 wives extreme, but most men could expect multiple
wives if they could care for them. Women could not marry multiple men
(polyandry), for the culture and its desire for sons to carry on the
patriarchal name made polygyny the preferred polygamy form.
Faithful
monogamy is biblical, too, letís be clear. Levitical laws and New
Testament custom assumed one woman and one man as a model. But even
monogamy was perhaps strange to our customs today. Some were strictly
endogamous ≠ó married within the clan ó while others were expected to
be exogamous, or married to people outside the normal grouping.
Two
fascinating kinds of marriage included (a) Levirate marriage, when a
Hebrew widow was obliged to marry her husbandís brother in order to
carry on the deceasedís name, and (b) marriage by rape, when an
unengaged female virgin who had been raped must marry her attacker, no
matter what her feelings were towards the rapist. While scholars
disagree on how widespread these practices were, theyíre biblical.
Other
biblical models for marriage include wife-capture, when women were
snared in war or in ìwife-raids.î Other bizarre patterns occurred when
the bride was either purchased from her father or won through a series
of deeds by the intended husband (see Leah and Rachel).
Not
very many marriages in the Bible seem to begin with love. (See Song of
Songs as a rather lonely example.) Love is inferred, but marriages were
first civic, financial, strategic and even theological arrangements, to
which love is foreign at worst, an afterthought at best. One might come
to love the one they married, but rarely got to marry the beloved.
Which model shall govern our marriages? Do those who call for ìtraditionalî marriage ever think biblically?
Other
models of marriage have come out; love is not the exclusive asset of
heterosexuals. Yet love seems to be the defining, universal property of
good relationships. Since it is impossible to keep good love down,
more, not fewer variations of love and family arrangement will thrive.
Sadly,
faith communities most often restrict newer love-formats. Some have
been very diligent in teaching self-hate and non-acceptance for how God
made us. If you are in a non-traditional relationship and feel
ostracism or fear from faith communities, contact me. I can play
matchmaker with a welcoming, open faith community in your tradition.
One shouldnít have to leave faith communities to find love, or to
discover God.
The
Bible has multiple ways of arranging love and marriage. Letís get back
to a biblical diversity, celebrating the assortment of ways love
happens and grounds people. Letís make the world safe for unwed moms
and other ìtraditionalî families.
ï
Dr.
Marc S. Mullinax, chairman of the philosophy and religion departments
at Mars Hill College, can be reached at mmullinax-at-mhc.edu.
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