Biblical Marriage: Not "One Man and One Woman"

Recently, many Fundamentalists have taken to claiming that according to the Bible, marriage has always been "the union of one man and one woman." On one level this is a polemic against the idea of same-sex marriage, but on its face it is patently false.

They base this on the argument that Adam had one wife, and because of what Jesus said on the subject:

[Matthew 19:4] "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,'
[5] and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'?
[6] So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."
[7] "Why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?"
[8] Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.
[9] I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."

Jesus did indeed rule out polygamy -- but his assertion here makes sense only if we consider it to represent a change in the Jewish belief system: a change in moral attitude that reflects a shift from an agrarian/pastoral lifestyle which encouraged polygamy, to a more urban lifestyle that encourages monogamy. Monogamous marriage was a Greek and Roman innovation which the Jews adopted.

To claim that God never permitted polygamy is to claim that God did not favor David, Solomon, Rehoboam, and others among the patriarchs who had more than one wife. But in the Bible God must clearly have favored them (we must conclude this because he forgave them so many transgressions) we have no indication at all that God was ever displeased with them for having more than one wife.

Note that Jesus said, Moses permitted divorce, rather than, God permitted divorce. He's refering to passages such as the following:

[Deuteronomy 24:1] If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house,
[2] and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man,
[3] and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies,
[4] then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the LORD. Do not bring sin upon the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

In this passage divorce and remarriage are assumed, and therefore are condoned by the Lord -- or whoever wrote this passage (more about that in a moment). We also have these passages, which assume polygamy and therefore condone it.

[Exodus 21:10] If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights.

[Deuteronomy 21:15] If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other, and both bear him sons but the firstborn is the son of the wife he does not love,
[16] when he wills his property to his sons, he must not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the wife he loves in preference to his actual firstborn, the son of the wife he does not love.
[17] He must acknowledge the son of his unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all he has. That son is the first sign of his father's strength. The right of the firstborn belongs to him.

These passages clearly condone polygamous marriage. If God did not wish for people to marry polygamously, God could simply have said so from the start.

So for Jesus to say, "But it was not this way from the beginning," what he means is that passages such as those above do not convey the wishes of God, as Jesus understood them.

Note too that Jesus said, "Moses permitted," rather than, "God permitted." What Jesus means is that Moses wrote the Law, not God. We could not have a clearer refutation of the Fundamentalist position that the Bible is the literal and inerrant "Word of God." Even according to Jesus, the Bible does not convey perfect, eternal truth!

So, why aren't the Fundamentalists simply saying something like, "Since Jesus, marriage is one man and one woman"? This would be a reasonable and Biblically sound position to take. Instead their goal is to (1) claim that the meaning of marriage has never changed, and (2) include Adam and Eve in their Biblical "support." But in their zeal to exclude same-sex marriage, they have shot themselves in the foot!

Top / Biblical Inerrancy / Jesus and Paul were Not Literalists / An Alternative to Fundamentalism / Biblical Morality vs. Modern Ethics / Jesus' Litmus Test