Betrothal & Emotional Purity:
In previous essays I considered the teaching of betrothal and ‘emotional purity.’ I mentioned that one of the main justifications for this teaching is the argument that, (A) it was practiced in Biblical culture; and (B) scripture directly affirms betrothal and emotional purity be God’s-way-to-do-it. In this essay I would like to look first at claim (A) and then at claim (B).
Is Emotional Purity an
Historical Concept?
Consider the following words, written
by Jonathan Lindvall.
...in many parts of the world today, and
certainly in the not-so-distant past world-wide, the concept ['emotional
purity'] has been assumed. In the modern west, we...have entirely forgotten the
idea of saving one's heart for the one we will marry.[1]
If Lindvall is prepared to make such an
audacious assertion, you would expect him to at least provide a minimum of
historical verification. Although there is a growing quantity of published
tapes and literature on this subject, I have yet to see an advocate of
betrothal cite even one historical example showing the idea of 'emotional
purity' to be anything other than a modern invention.
The following quotation is a typical
example. After positing the false problem of broken-heart syndrome and
emotional impurity, Israel Wayne writes
What is the answer...? My wife and I found it
in the Bible. You see, the ancient Jewish people held to the belief that your
emotions should follow you, rather than you following your emotions. The Old
Testament is filled with stories of young people who chose to marry their
spouses before romantic love had begun. They made a decision to love the person
they married. Our culture tells us to 'marry the person we love...'"[2]
Lindvall argues similarly, “the norm of
scripture is that a couple becomes bonded emotionally after becoming committed
to one another.”[3] Is this
true? Is the Old Testament really literally 'filled' with such stories? Later
on in this essay we shall be having a look to see whether this claim is
correct, but it is first necessary to lay an historical framework for our study
by considering the culture and customs relevant to those times.
Brief Survey of Old
Testament Culture
The Old Testament culture was a
patriarchal society, which meant that the rights of women were very minimal
compared with today. However, the Lord established laws that showed an acute
concern for the protection of woman. Thus, Israelite women had considerably
more protection than women in the surrounding cultures of the day.
In Ancient Near Eastern culture
marriage could often be treated more like a business contract than a
relationship, and a wife like an object of property. A man could have many
wives just as he would have many heads of cattle, although women were not able
to have multiple husbands. If a man grew tired of his wife he could write her a
certificate of divorce for an offense as trivial as cooking a meal in the wrong
way. A woman was not granted the same privilege, however, and could only
divorce her husband under special circumstances. As it is written in the Jewish
Talmud, "A woman may be divorced with or without her consent, but a man
can only be divorced with his consent."[4]
Regarding marriage, the bride had to be
‘bought’, if you will, by the bridegroom's father, either by money or service
offered in exchange for the bride’s father being willing to part with her,
while the bride herself received no dowry. When the bride was 'given in
marriage' there was a transfer of ownership from her father to her husband.
It is only against this cultural
backdrop that we can understand the custom for parents to authorize or, in some
cases, to arrange a marriage. If a man wished to marry a girl, he had to first
procure the permission of her father. This necessity for parents to authorize a
match only applied on the woman's side. Like everything else, this was a
function of the patriarchal society, as well as economic and social conditions.
Economic conditions were such that dependence on parents and the larger
pedigree played a crucial part in the establishment of a new family. People
tended to think much less about the union of individuals and much more about
the union of families or family groups. It is not difficult to see how this led
naturally to some of the customs regarding parental authorization of marriage.
Above all, it is a gross anachronism to suppose the need for such authorization
derived from a set of ideals about emotional purity. When we consider the fact that fathers had
the right to sell their daughters into slavery as a concubine if they wished
(Ex. 21:7-8), it becomes absurd to suppose that the role a father also
exercised over his daughter's marriage resulted from any set of ideas this
culture might have held about marriage. It resulted, rather, from the simple
fact that a daughter was considered her father's property, to do with as he
liked whether that meant marriage or slavery. One of the reasons why this was
is because women were
completely dependent on their fathers or family until that dependence was
transferred to a husband. You couldn't just move away from home when you were
eighteen and support yourself. The sense in which women lacked economic
autonomy led to lack of independence in other areas as well. Hence, we see in the
Bible and Apocrypha that while young men did not always gain approval from
their parents to marry, young women always did (i.e., Jacob had to get Leban's
permission to marry Rachel, but not his father Isaac's, Tobias had to get
Raguel’s permission to marry Sarah but not his father Tobit’s permission)
except for cases when the woman was self-supporting, as in the case of
Abigail's marriage to David.
The Application for Today
Some Christian teachers are now picking
certain aspects out of this culture (such as arranged marriages) and arguing
that these customs have a divine precedent simply because they were practiced
in Old Testament times. Such an argument is not only theologically unsound
(since it confuses scriptural description with scriptural prescription), but it
is meaningless as long as we cannot also return to the social and economic
conditions that lay behind those customs. Such conditions involved not simply
an entirely foreign way of life, but many practices that would be objectionable
to try to reintroduce into our society (such as the custom of raising up seed
to your brother’s widow). The fact that the Lord gave commands to show His
people how to operate within their existing social context, does not
mean that this society always got it right. To use an obvious example, the fact
that Deut. 21:15-17 gives laws to govern situations where a man has two wives
in no way gives God's stamp of approval on the men of today taking multiple
wives.[5]
It is against this cultural backdrop
that we must understand a verse like Exodus 22:16-17. Here the Lord commands
that if a man has premarital relations with a virgin, the father may refuse to
give his daughter to him in marriage, though the young man must still pay the
bride price. This scripture is often pointed to in order to prove that parental
veto power "is not simply a cultural practice that is neutral in God's
eyes. God didn't just permit it, but required it."[6]
It may or may not be true that God intends fathers to veto marriages they
believe will harm their daughter, but we cannot deduce such a position from
this passage alone. The passage assumes a society in which a father had the
power to veto his daughter’s marriage, just as Deut. 21:15-17 assumes a society
in which men have the power to take more than one wife. But just as the laws
governing polygamy or slavery do not tell us, one way or another, whether that
is God’s ideal, neither does Exodus 22 tell us whether paternal veto power is
God’s ideal.
Michael Pearl explains how Exodus 22:16-17 shows that fornication was viewed
in terms of its economic implications since it guaranteed that the father was
not defrauded of the bride price that accompanies betrothal. It also
discouraged a young man from lying with a girl for temporary pleasure since he
would have to pay the bride price anyway and might be forced to marry her. When we look at the Exodus passage
in that light we find that the whole point of it is not to do with marriage at
all, but the fact that there is a responsibility that a man acquires when he
sleeps with a woman, and therefore he must pay the bride price even if they do
not marry. There are many applications we might draw from that in our culture
today. On the other
hand, to read into this passage a Divine sanction for a certain procedure for
getting married, is to make it into nonsense and to completely miss the whole
point of what the passage is trying to tell us.
Having made these general observations
about the Old Testament culture, I want to now move to and look closely at the
custom of betrothal.
Marriage & Betrothal in Jewish Culture
In defining what betrothal meant in the
ancient world, it is necessary to spend greater energy defining what it was not.
Betrothal, as it was practiced in the Jewish and Israelite culture, was very
different indeed to 'betrothal' in the new movement, even as the old fashion
custom of courtship was very different from its application in the new
movement.
At the time of Christ the Jews had very
defined marriage customs, just as any culture has distinct ceremonies connected
with their nuptial rites. These customs had evolved gradually as the culture
matured and would not have been present in the ancient times of the patriarchs.
We tend to think of betrothal as
similar to engagement, or maybe a halfway house between engagement and
marriage. In the Jewish culture of the first century, however, betrothal
(“ERUSIN”) was marriage. There were two stages to the marriage. During
the betrothal stage, though they were legally married, they did not cohabit
together. The wife remained in her parent's house preparing herself for the
move to her husband's house. This lasted a month. If the wife was under twelve
years of age, however, this period lasted a whole year, to give her time to
prepare a trousseau. In some parts of ancient Judea, the man and wife were
allowed intimate physical contact once during the betrothal period, to wet
their appetite and to help the husband appreciate and desire his wife more.
After the final wedding ceremony took place, the wife returned to her husband's
home for the consummation of the marriage.
Just as the Jewish betrothal was equivalent to marriage, so their “shiduchim”
would correspond to what we would call engagement, in so far as it was either a
non-formalized agreement to get married or a formalized contract to enter at a
later stage into a marriage (betrothal) contract.[7]
What Betrothal Was Not
Now I must say what betrothal was not.
It had nothing to do with the idea of a father receiving direct revelation for
who his child would marry, it had nothing to do with restriction on
cross-gender friendships and, most importantly, it certainly had nothing to do
with denying all romantic feelings until the betrothal period. On the contrary,
Hasting’s Bible Dictionary tells us “that in ancient Israel the
association of the sexes was comparatively unrestrained, and naturally led to
personal attachments which sought satisfaction in marriage...”[8]
And again, as the respected Hebrew scholar Alfred Edersheim wrote (about a
hundred years ago),
Where the social intercourse between the
sexes was nearly as unrestricted as among ourselves, so far as consistent with
Eastern manners, it would, of course, be natural for a young man to make
personal choice of his bride. Of this Scripture affords abundant evidence.[9]
In his taped lecture, "Scriptural
Betrothal", Lindvall goes through every single verse in the Bible where
the word betrothal occurs. As Lindvall simply tells us what the word betrothal
meant (namely, the essence of his ideas), he is then able to take all these
scriptures as support for his position. That is to say, he reasons to his
conclusion based on premises that assume his conclusion! That initial
assumption, however (i.e., the definition of betrothal in Bible times), is not
subject to investigation or argument. Lindvall simply tells us that,
The scripture talks about a pattern that it
calls betrothal.... In the Bible there were two steps, with a fairly long
period of time in between. During that lengthy period in between the couple was
encouraged to cultivate their romantic feelings towards one another but not be
physical with one another. And it was during that period that they fell in
love, but it was after the commitment had been made. So they were free
and secure, they were not at risk emotionally of giving their heart to someone
and then being defrauded. That is God's design. Let's look at the Biblical
model of betrothal. God wants our young people to experience a no risk
commitment.... God design is that we would encourage them to fall in
love only after the commitment is made."[10]
Based on this definition of betrothal,
Lindvall is able to argue that the ‘betrothal’ of Mary and Joseph was an
irrevocable period (apart from adultery) for “them to mentally and emotionally
prepare for marriage…”[11]
The ‘betrothal’ of Mary and Joseph is in fact one of Lindvall’s main arguments.
But is this what the word ‘betrothal’ actually meant in the first century?
According to Lindvall, the answer is yes, for as he writes, “Even if one
doesn't hold that betrothal is to be practiced today, it is at least clear what
the Bible means when it uses the term.”[12]
So what does the Bible mean by the term? According to Lindvall, “A biblical
betrothal was an irrevocable covenant made at the beginning of the romance,
authorizing the parties to bond emotionally.”[13]
And again, “the parties keep (guard) their hearts from romantic involvement
until after the commitment is made and then use the betrothal period to
cultivate emotional attachment to one another…”[14]
I have never seen any documentary
evidence to suggest that the above ideas were part of the Jewish custom of
betrothal referred to in the Bible[15],
especially as concerns no risk emotions. In fact, there is actually a wealth of
evidence to the contrary. One piece of evidence is the fact that - whatever
Lindvall may claim - a betrothal, like ordinary marriage, was not irrevocable
and did not require an act of physical unfaithfulness for it to be terminated.
Thus, to suppose that the concept of 'a no risk commitment' or 'emotional
purity' lay behind the betrothal custom, is inconsistent with the fact that if
a couple "fell out of love", or the man found another woman more
beautiful, he could simply divorce his wife, whether it was during or after the
betrothal period.[16]
To this we must add the fact that a man
might acquire as many wives as he liked, a custom still practiced by the Jews
in the first century. (The Talmud, while suggesting limits on the amount of
wives, nevertheless supports polygamy.) When
we add to this the fact that a degree of free association between the sexes was
enjoyed and often led to romantic love occurring prior to any commitment, it
becomes ludicrous to suppose that anything verging on emotional protection was
a principle behind Jewish marriage traditions. It emerges that, whatever
betrothal might have meant in that culture, it was very different from the
principles behind modern ‘betrothal’, especially as concerns the protection of
emotions.
Lindvall's teaching that children
should be allowed veto-power but no positive volitional fiat in the decision
whom to marry, is very unjewish as well. In the Jewish Talmud we read that
A man is forbidden to give his daughter in
marriage while she is a minor, until she is grown up and says, 'I wish to marry
so-and-so'..."[17]
As far as law was concerned, however,
though a father could marry off his daughter while she was still a minor (less
than twelve years and one day), she could annul the marriage upon reaching
twelve years and a day without needing a divorce, if she did not love the man.
The Scripture’s Teaching