I don't want a biblical marriage

Amongst some fundamentalist Christian nationalists there is an extremely toxic idea masquerading as “Biblical marriage.”

I recently heard an influential hard-right Christian nationalist brag that he has “absolute control over” his wife and children. “I tell them when to get up, when to go to bed, when to talk, when to go to the bathroom, and what to do,” he said.

Same guy said women shouldn’t vote in a Christian nation.

I hear others saying God commands parents to beat their children with rods. (An aside: the shepherd’s rod was used to guide and protect, never to hit, much less beat the sheep.)

If every verse of the Bible carries equal weight with every other verse (something we call a flat Bible), one can make a case for all sorts of abuses, ranging from genocide to child abuse. So it is with “Biblical marriage.”

Marriages in the ancient Near East, including Judea and Israel, were transactional arrangements made by parents. Love and romance had nothing to do with it. Moreover, Neareastern cultures were paternalistic; women were property, first of their fathers, then their husbands.

In the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), women were chattel. Men could have multiple sexual partners; polygamy was normal. Men could have their women killed if they even suspected them of infidelity.

At the time of the New Testament, Israel was controlled by Rome. In that culture the paterfamilias had absolute power over his household, including his wife, children, and slaves. He could legally abuse them, sell them, kill them, or kick them out anytime he wanted for any reason whatsoever.

Peter, and to a slightly lesser degree, Paul, offer their best advice for getting along in that culture knowing that women had no way to change the situation. Their household codes were never meant to apply to all marriages in all cultures for all time.

I don’t want a “biblical marriage.” I want a Christ-like marriage.

In a Christ-like marriage, both partners are equals. They are mutually submitted to one another. They both want what is best for the other and are willing to die to self and serve one another. Their mutual love is other-oriented. It is cruciform. Tenderness, grace, forgiveness, respect, and dignity fill the household. There is no manipulation, lording over, control, or coercion. Communication flows graciously. Each values the other as having unsurmountable worth, created in the image of God.