“Go to my father’s house,
to my kindred, and get a wife for my son.” Genesis 24:38
2 … 3 … 1 … 4 … 18 … 700
... 0.
A winning Powerball ticket?
No.
And yet, this sequence of
numbers could be the set-up for a quiz: Match up the biblical
character (Jacob, Moses, Solomon, Jesus, David, Abraham) to the number of his
wives at any one time.
Answers?
Moses 2 … Abraham 3 … Isaac
1 … Jacob 4 … David 18 … Solomon 700 (doesn’t include his 300 on-call “companions-without-benefit-of-wedlock”)
… Jesus 0.
Remove from the mix the
outliers (Jesus and Solomon). That gives you 5.6 wives per married guy. And if
you eliminate David ─ with his
18 wives ─ that
will leave you with 2.5.
5.6 or even 2.5 wives at
one time, per customer, on average. It does say something. And it
says nothing.
It says something about
marriage norms ─ from a
male perspective ─ for
about 11 centuries of life in Hebrew culture in its most formative period,
apart from the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BCE.
On the other hand, average-wives-per-lucky-man
says absolutely nothing about “traditional marriage,” or at least the
way the Bible is being used today to oppose same-sex marriage in the court of
public opinion and in our law courts.
That’s because every time purveyors of “family values” speak about “traditional marriage,” they believe ─ or they’re trying
to convince us to believe ─ they’re relying not just on a conveniently ill-informed understanding
of human history, but on what they claim to be a “biblical”
understanding of marriage as existing (or even possible) solely between one man
and one woman.
Take Jim DeMint … please!
The former US Senator from South Carolina and current president of the Heritage
Foundation claims: “Since the dawn of time, traditional marriage ─ the union between one man
and one woman ─ has been
the building block of civilization.”
To a critical mass of his
sympathizers, the “dawn of time” begins with the Bible’s first couple, Adam and
Eve.
Problem: “Traditional
marriage” (defined by DeMint and company as the union of one man and one woman)
would come as news to Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, and Solomon ─ even Isaac, with just one
wife. Polygamy-inclined superheroes of the Bible, every last one of them.
So, without going into the
case for same-sex marriage (been there, done that) and dispensing with a
Cliff Notes version of the history of marriage (www.livescience.com/37777-history-of-marriage.html),
let’s narrow the focus to one soundbite: The more you rely on the Bible
to argue for so-called “traditional marriage,” the closer you are to
losing the argument.
That’s because history
proves there’s no such thing as “traditional marriage.” It’s a nice idea (the
historicity of “traditional marriage"), but wishing doesn’t make it so.
“Traditional” implies permanence: the same institution … for all time …
understood everywhere … by all.
But history ─ especially history as it’s
processed in the Bible ─ proves
that marriage is anything but the same institution understood
for all time, everywhere, by all. Like our own species, it’s constantly
evolving, from being primarily about property (“Who gives this woman to this
man?”) ─
and more property (kids!) — to mutually-shared romantic love
and companionship (married-with-kids optional).
Proof? Isaac and Rebekah.
Picture this: Abraham is
convinced that God will make of his family ─ generation upon generation of his family ─ a uniquely-favored nation,
God’s Chosen People. But he begins to sweat when, at 40, his son Isaac
has yet to settle down with a wife ─ or wives ─ and a
teeming brood of offspring.
So, Abraham commissions the
most trusted member of his household to act as matchmaker and ships him to
far-off relatives back in the homeland. The matchmaker’s portfolio? Find a
suitable wife for heir-apparent Isaac from among Abraham's relatives (“suitable” here meaning marked with God’s
seal of approval).
And that’s what happens.
The lucky girl? Rebekah. After getting an eyeful of the bling in the deal ─ that’s not to
suggest she factored Abraham’s untold
wealth into her decision, but let’s be real ─ Rebekah consents to the marriage and makes the labor-intensive trip
back to Abraham’s territory. She takes one look at Isaac, he takes one look at her.
And not sure if it’s “Ah, sweet mystery of life, at last I’ve found
you,” but they do the deed on-the-spot in his recently-deceased
mother’s tent. I’m sure this is just a custom and not at all Freudian.
Whatever. Their conjugation seals the marriage. Their arranged marriage.
Repeat: Their arranged marriage.
Well, there goes “traditional marriage” right there! Just shot to hell. Thanks
to the Bible. And the story of Isaac and Rebekah.
Note: the key word here is
“story.”
Meaning: Marriage
traditionalists pour mega-watts of energy ─ and mega-bucks ─ into
devising and defending same-sex marriage bans, arguing states’ rights and,
consequently, the force of state-by-state statutes ─ some that have been on the
books for a long time, others with the ink still wet ─ statutes
that either imply or explicitly state that marriage exists exclusively
between one man and one woman.
Now, these partisans talk a
lot about history. But history isn’t on their side, as it seems not a week goes
by that some federal judge or Circuit Court of Appeals doesn’t strike down one
of these statutes. This is good news. And why are they being tossed?
It’s un-American ─ and it
would appear unconstitutional ─ to write discrimination into law, no matter what you think the
Bible says.
As a result, marriage
traditionalists like Antonin Scalia and Michele Bachmann have got a problem.
And it isn’t just Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Barney Frank!
They’ve got a problem
because their by-now-gear-stripped and yet full-throated “Adam and Eve, not
Adam and Steve” rhetoric stands or falls on the Bible. And that’s a thin thread
on which to hang their bloated argument, given the fact that Adam and Eve ─ another marriage
story ─
the original marriage story ─ the marriage origin story ─ is unadulterated myth.
Tip: You can’t argue civil
law from myths. And it’s folly to argue states’ rights, federal statutes, or
social policy from biblical illiteracy.
That leads to a
complication: When it comes to marriage, there isn’t much at all ─ if anything ─ statutory (as in laws on
the books) in Scripture. Factoid: the Torah publishes a lot of laws ─ 637 to be exact ─ but nowhere in the Bible,
not even in Torah, does it read: “Marriage shall be defined as one man and one
woman.” In Scripture, as far as understanding the parameters of marriage goes,
all you have is stories, not statutes.
Well, then, what about
Genesis and the creation of the woman, fashioned by God from Adam’s rib?
You know, I’m glad you
asked! Because to use the Creation account in Genesis ─ embedded as it is in
layer-upon-layer of myth ─ to argue
for the equation “1 man + 1 woman = marriage,” you have
to believe that the woman — Eve — not only existed, but that she was literally created
─ cloned! ─ from Adam’s rib.
Read: God doesn’t
just tolerate cloning. God invented it … that
is, if you attempt to use Genesis as a science textbook. Not. A good. Idea.
And if you rely on the
Adam’s rib myth as the foundation of two-becoming-one-flesh marriage, you’re
missing the point altogether, the human story behind the legend. And that is:
Genesis introduces the story of the creation of a second human in order to weave
a mythic solution to the common human need for companionship, regardless of
gender.
Proof? In the mythology of
Genesis, God pronounces each order of Creation (light, darkness, heavens, seas,
earth, plants, animals, birds, and so on) “good.” But then God says after the
one-off creation of Adam, “A person alone? Not good!”
That means connection,
companionship, friendship, even marriage? All good in God’s eyes.
Why, then, would people who
use the Bible to argue against same-sex marriage condemn their neighbors to a
loneliness ─ an aloneness ─ God expressly judges “not good”?
Furthermore, taking into
account the multiple-wives averages mentioned above, Adam + Eve (1 man + 1
woman) turns out to be the exception, not the rule in the Bible. And if you
argue, “Well, at least it’s still mixed-gender-based,” one word: C’mon!
Not much, then, in the way
of tradition. And you have yet to reckon with the story of Rebekah and Isaac.
Question: Aside from the
math (1 man + 1 woman), how “traditional” is their marriage? As in, how
much does it look like our marriages? I mean, if there’s a universal and
enduring tradition to marriage, theirs should look like ours … ours
like theirs, no?
Well, we’ve already covered
the overtly non-traditional arranged-marriage complication. My hunch is we
don’t want to recover that one as a best-demonstrated practice for the
foreseeable future. Some parents might disagree. Nevertheless.
And then there’s the issue
of age. Appearing to be not the marrying kind at the age of 40, Isaac is
beginning to ripen around the edges. And the neighbors are weighing in, “He
never married, you know (wink, wink).” Well, let’s give Isaac the benefit of
the doubt and just say that his father never found the right girl for him.
Problem: usually in that culture, wife-hunting beyond the age of 16 or so? The
young man is on his own.
So, Isaac at 40. Hold on to
that thought — that picture — as you imagine on the one hand, the fresh and virginal, roughly 12- or 13 year-old Rebekah and on the
other, the approaching-the-autumn-years-of-his life Isaac. Well, let’s make it
interesting: Imagine their first kiss … with a yawning 20-plus age difference between them (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) …
in an arranged marriage. How does that sit? Or how does
that fit as a norm for so-called Bible-based “traditional
marriage” … in the 21st century? Just wondering.
And did I forget to mention
that Rebekah is Isaac’s first cousin-once-removed? Cousins that close
used to marry. But in our day, do we really want to recommend swimming in the
shallow end of the gene pool as a component of “traditional marriage”?
Coincidental to the family
ties angle is Abraham’s insistence on Isaac’s marrying only “our kind, dear.”
Sure, he doesn’t want to corrupt the family brand. It’s linked to God’s promise
to create, through Abraham’s DNA, God’s Chosen People. But his genetic bias
does smack of notions of ethnic or racial purity. Not too different, really,
from white supremacists inter-breeding in the diversity- and
cerebrally-challenged backwoods of Montana and Idaho.
Restricting marriage to the
tribe, clan, race, ethnic group or religion. Is that what “traditional
marriage” means? Because that describes Isaac and Rebekah’s marriage.
Then there’s the love
angle. Genesis tells us that Isaac “loved” Rebekah, notably after he
married her. No mention of whether or not their love was mutual. No “and
Rebekah loved Isaac.” Everything is from the man’s perspective. For just about
half the population ─ the
female half ─ how’s that
working for you?
But Isaac’s “love.”
Specifically, love in an arranged marriage. Nice if it happens, but not
guaranteed. Then again, “love” in the Bible is a squishy concept compared to
our notions of romantic love as the critical non-negotiable of
a good and healthy marriage.
That’s because in the
Bible, love-as-applied-to marriage can be either intentional or “When the moon
hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore!”
Intentional love: “I am determined to love you because I’ve taken you as my spouse.” Worst-case
morning-after-the-wedding scenario: “Don’t worry, we’ll learn to
love each other.”
“That’s amore!”
kind of love: a loving phenomenon that approaches how we look
at love-and-marriage. As Old Testament scholar David P. Hamilton puts it, love
as a function of “emotions, glands, and hormones.” In other words, “Because I
love-love-love you, I want you to be my spouse.”
In the Bible, this sequence of love-marriage is more the exception than the rule.
So, biblical love in a
so-called “traditional marriage”: It’s a chicken or egg thing. Which comes
first? Love or marriage?
My hunch is that we prefer
to take the ambiguity out of it: choosing the love-precedes-marriage option and
with love growing dynamically throughout the marriage. I think that’s what we
would like “traditional marriage” to mean, leaving Rebekah and
Isaac’s marriage lacking, by our standards at any rate.
Better yet, let’s stop
talking about “traditional marriage” altogether. How about “marriage”? Marriage
between two mutually-loving and loved persons. “Forsaking all others.” Period.
Because the bottomline is:
Pre-arranged … one man plus multiple wives … skewed toward male
privilege … and away from mutuality and equal affection …
romantic love not necessarily in the bargain. That’s about all you can say for
“traditional marriage” as advertised.
So, “dearly Beloved,” when
you hear folks hawking the fiction “traditional marriage = 1 man plus 1 woman
since the dawn of time,” challenge them, whether they’re charlatans or just
clueless.
Challenge them with what
you know about history.
Challenge them with what
you know about the Bible.
Challenge them with what
you know about a simply lovely couple: Rebekah and Isaac.
Amen.
