On Marriage
From David Ould at Stand Firm: Breaking up is hard to do……
…It is commonly acknowledged amongst Christians that God's intention for male-female relationships, if they occur (not when, as anyone who reads 1 Cor. 7 should plainly see), is monogamy. But what is not so clearly understood these days is the non-equivalence which God has designed in that relationship. By "non-equivalence" I mean that God has intended that men and women should relate differently to one another in marriage…
Genesis 2:24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and unites with his wife, and they become a new family.
The Hebrew somewhat under-translated here as "unites" is actually better rendered by the old KJV (and other more modern translations such as the NASB) as "cleaves". That is to say, the sense of the original is not so much a bilateral joining together but a unilateral "clinging" on the part of the man. The Bible's view of marriage, God's view, is that a man leaves his parents and attaches himself to a woman. One woman. Till death do they part.
There is no such call placed upon the woman. Now, of course, that is not to say that wives are not called to love and be faithful to their husbands, nor that this is not a marriage of equals. But the overwhelming emphasis in the Scriptures is on husbandly love and cleaving/attachment to that one woman. If you think this is not the case then consider for a moment the number of examples you can think of where the Scriptures call husbands to love their wives. Read here
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
