Marriage

And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

The first marriage in the Bible is described rather than commanded: a man leaves the household he was born into, attaches himself to his wife, and the two are counted as one body. Jesus and Paul both quote verse 24 as the pattern.

Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Not written about marriage at all. It is a working argument for not being alone: two earn a better return, one lifts the other after a fall, two keep warm, two stand off an attacker, and a cord of three strands is hard to break.

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.

Near the end of a book of love poetry, the woman asks to be worn like a seal, the mark a person pressed on documents and property. Love here is as strong as death and not gentle; floods cannot put it out and money cannot buy it.

Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.

A prophet accusing men of discarding the wives of their youth. The charge turns on witness and covenant: the marriage was made in God's sight, so breaking faith in private is not a private matter. Verse 16 is notoriously hard to translate.

But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

Asked a legal question about grounds for divorce, Jesus answers out of Genesis instead of the law of divorce, and treats the two becoming one flesh as the fact of the matter. The saying about putting asunder is spoken where only men could dismiss a spouse.

Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.

Paul on the marriage bed, unusual for his world in making the obligation exactly mutual: each owes the other, neither body belongs to its owner alone, and any abstinence needs both to agree and is to be temporary.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:

The husband's half of a household code written to first-century houses that contained slaves, children and a father with legal power over all of them. What it asks of him is not authority but expenditure: love as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it.

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.

The shortest of the household codes, two lines: wives submit, husbands love and are not bitter. It is addressed to the ordered Greco-Roman household of its day, and what it says to the person holding the power in that arrangement is do not be harsh with her.

She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms. She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night. She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.

The woman of the closing poem, described almost entirely by what she does: she inspects a field and buys it, plants a vineyard out of her own earnings, judges her trade profitable, works late by candlelight, and opens her hand to the poor.