Quote:
Originally Posted by blankall
Been thinking about this more and more lately, and if you actually read the bible, particularly the old testament, on its surface, the ideal notion of sexuality and marriage is extremely different than our modern day concept of monogamous marriage. Many of the important male biblical figures were polygamists. The texts often use statements like "a wife".
The old testament, in fact, although not necessarily encouraging polygamy, does condone it and provides a set of rules to follow for those who practice it.
|
This is a really important point that I wish everyone, and especially modern Christians understood. In this observation is the recognition that sexuality, coupling and relationships more generally were vastly different in the ancient world. By far the most important unit in ancient Israelite society was the extended family. As long as he lived a man with children was the authority figure over his wives, children, grandchildren, and slaves. He made decisions, and those were binding. Relationships with other families tended to be based on marriage—more than anything, this was an economically beneficial contract by which individual families cooperated in an effort to maintain sustainability.
A couple of things of interest as it pertains to "marriage" in ancient Israel: there is no word in ancient Hebrew for the act of "marrying," and no word for "marriage." Likewise, while there are words specifically for "bride" (כַּלָּה;
kalah, which is also translated as "daughter-in-law") and "bridegroom" (חָתָן;
ḥatan, which also is translated as "daughter's husband," or "son-in-law"—this further re-enforces the notion that all relationships are defined relative to the patriarch), there is no distinct word for "wife." The word most commonly translated into English as "wife" is אִשָּׁה;
ishah, and it's basic meaning is "woman." What this means is that women in ancient Israel appear to have this identity only by virtue of of marriage. If a man divorced his wife, she returned to her father, and was then again a "daughter." If a woman's husband died, she became a "widow."
Throughout the Hebrew Bible, men "take" individual "women" to be theirs: i.e. Gen 26:34, "Esau was forty-years old, and he took a woman, Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basmat, daughter of Elon the Hittite." It is uncertain even whether there was anything in the way of a standard, formal ritual to ratify the relationship, or whether this was transactional: money or goods were exchanged, a document was perhaps signed, and the woman moved from her father's house to her husbands, much like property. I think the key point here being that marriage was not a relationship founded on love or companionship—although those things certainly followed in many instances. It was rather a "covenant": a binding agreement between families, and with the primary purpose of producing children. Men and women did not form friendships. Women did not have relationships with men apart from being a daughter, a sister, a wife, or a slave.
Quote:
|
The new testament does mention monogamous marriage, it's more in the context of a comment on how people were living their lives (polygamy was illegal in Rome), than strict rules on monogamy. There's really only a few sporadic passages in the bible (for example 1 Corinthians 7:1-7) that can be interpreted to promote the traditional family, and many examples of non-traditional families. Monogamy is very much a Roman idea that was forced on Jews, who were the early Christians.
|
Almost, but not quite. By the time the Romans came to control the Mediterranean monogamy was already preferred thanks to hundreds of years of Hellenistic rule and cultural influence. But I am interested in what it is you are getting at with regards to "many examples of non-traditional families."
One of the positive things that the early Christians did was to elevate the status of women. Of course, this was short-lived, as by the second century there was already a strong movement toward reinforcing the authority of men (i.e., the ancient forgeries 1–2 Timothy and Ephesians are good examples of this polemic at work).