Want a Biblical Marriage? Really?
Ten dreadful examples of how the Bible views the wife
Despite what thousands of preachers tell their millions of trusting sheep, if you desire a marriage that is based of love and mutual respect, the Bible should be the last place to look for guidance.
While we see a few verses here and there that a husband should love his wife, the Bible says almost nothing about how to make a good marriage. Do you need the Bible to tell you that you should be nice and kind? Most Christians are shocked when they realize just how terrible Biblical marriages are presented and displayed.
Worse yet, are the many immoral and inhuman laws that the Bible states came directly from God. Laws that are immoral and inhuman by any rational standard. There is not one word about how husbands should help care for the children or household duties; nothing at all about consensual consent; the need for rest after having a baby; nor anything about prenatal care, premarriage counseling or even that the woman (or in many cases, the young girl) has the absolute right to agree to the marriage. Not a word about respect, how to have healthy communication, the need to devote time and attention, openness, mutual honesty, or the necessity for compromise.
Today, the advice from secular therapists and counselors is far superior to anything we see in the Bible and without the cruelty and blatant discrimination codified and advocated for in many places in the Bible.
God’s law unambiguously demanded the following
1) Men were allowed many wives and sex slaves (concubines), but if a woman married, her husband better not have any doubt that she was a virgin. God’s law mandated that she be stoned to death if she was not a virgin, even if the “evidence” used to convict her was medically and scientifically unsound and even absurd. Deuteronomy 22:20–21 “But if this charge is true, that the girl was not found a virgin, then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed an act of folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house; thus you shall purge the evil from among you.”
2) One of the Ten Commandments literally placed wives in the same category as slaves, donkeys, and houses. To refresh your recollection, here it is Exodus 20:17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male slave, or his female slave, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
3) If your husband dies before you had a son, hopefully you like his brother a lot. Deuteronomy 25:5 “When brothers live together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a strange man. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her to himself as wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her.”
A couple of Biblical techniques to obtain a wife
4) Deuteronomy 22:28–29 “If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not betrothed, and he seizes her and has sexual relations with her, and they are discovered, then the man who had sexual relations with her shall give the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife, because he has violated her; he is not allowed to divorce her all his days.”
Another way the Bible taught men how to obtain a wife follows.
5) Deuteronomy 21:10–14 “When you go out to battle against your enemies, and the Lord your God hands them over to you and you take them away captive, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and are strongly attracted to her and would take her as a wife for yourself, then you shall bring her into your home, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails. She shall also remove the clothes of her captivity and shall remain in your house, and weep for her father and mother a full month; and after that you may have relations with her and become her husband and she shall be your wife. But it shall be, if you are not pleased with her, then you shall let her go wherever she wishes; and you certainly shall not sell her for money, you shall not treat her as merchandise, since you have humiliated her.”
If you truly believe that the Bible is a good book inspired by a good God, please read that verse again and the others in this article very slowly and carefully. It’s an amazing thing, that when this scripture was quoted in another article, I received several comments defending the Bible’s goodness by allowing 30 days of grieving to take place before the kidnapped wife could be raped. It is passages like this, that caused so many of us former Christians to realize that the Bible could not possibly be inspired by a good and loving God.
The Bible clearly disdains wives and sometimes children too
6) King David, (who the Bible quotes God as saying was a man after His own heart), got Bathsheba pregnant and had her husband killed before he found out. She became his eighth wife. God told him that if he only had asked, He would have given him more. But as a punishment, God would not only kill his newborn son (after the baby suffered for seven days) but he, David, would also have to watch his wives being raped in broad daylight. 2 Samuel 12:11 This is what the Lord says: ‘Behold, I am going to raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight.”
7) You will want to be very careful that you do not have any “mixed blood” or a religion that is different from your husband’s. Once when that happened, God ordered the men to divorce their wives and send them away with all the children. Ezra 10:2b-3 “We have been unfaithful to our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land; yet now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. So now let’s make a covenant with our God to send away all the wives and their children, following the counsel of my lord and of those who fear the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the Law.” They were not told to teach them the “ways of God,” but just to divorce them all and abandoned their children, one and all. Not even child support. Just send them all away. This from a God who says He never changes and is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
8) Proverbs 31 teaches what qualities a good wife will have. While many of the tasks she was to perform are not relevant in today’s western culture, nevertheless, it appeared to be all one sided. Not a word anywhere in the Bible about what qualities are expected from a good husband.
The wisest man on earth
9) If the Bible declares in unambiguous language that the wisest man on earth had 700 wives and 300 concubines (concubines are sex slaves), what does that say about whoever wrote or inspired that book?
1 Kings 4:29 Now God gave Solomon wisdom and very great discernment and breadth of mind, like the sand that is on the seashore. While the Bible indicates those wives turned his heart, it does not criticize the number, but only that they caused his heart to turn. One wife can do that. Even the New Testament in Matthew 12:42 seems to brag about the wisdom of Solomon but gives no rebuke about the number of his wives or even about his 300 sex slaves. Luke 12:27 refers to his greatness.
Nowhere in the Bible do we find any expressed pity or concern about the 700 wives or 300 sex slaves.
More the merrier…pun intended
10) Men were allowed many wives plus sex slaves. Wives were stoned to death if their husband even suspected that she was ever “touched” by another man…even before their marriage. Here are just a few of God’s “great and faithful” men who had more than one wife.
Abraham: Two wives plus a concubine.
Jacob: His two wives and two concubines gave birth to the leaders of the 12 tribes.
Moses: Two
David: Eight of them, plus God told him he could have more if he only asked. The Bible quotes God as saying that David was a man after His own heart.
Solomon: 700 wives plus 300 sex slaves and God calls him the wisest.
Gideon: Yes, even Gideon had many wives and sex slaves. Judges 8:30–31 Now Gideon had seventy sons who were his direct descendants, for he had many wives. And his concubine who was in Shechem also bore him a son, and he named him Abimelech.
Lot: After God killed his wife, he then impregnated both of his daughters. An evil man, yet the New Testament calls him righteous in 2 Peter 2:7. Much more about Lot can be found right here.
Why do so may preachers say that the Bibles’ plan for marriage is between one man and one woman when it clearly does not?
The same yesterday, today, and forever
Adding to those outrageous facts are the words of praise and honor that the New Testament gives to David, Solomon, Gideon, Moses, Lot, and others who are terrible examples of anything called marriage.
We should not be surprised to see those words of praise and honor in the New Testament, as the Bible is very clear that Jesus (God) never changes and is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The God of the Old Testament is the same God as the New Testament, even though the God of the New, acts worse than what we read about Him and His commandments in the Old. If you doubt that, just read this.
A few words from Apostle Paul…read very very carefully
In conclusion, if you like the New Testament better than the Old, it’s advice is that it would be better not to even get married in the first place. 1 Corinthians 7:8–11 “But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them if they remain even as I. But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife is not to leave her husband (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband is not to divorce his wife.” Even if beaten and abused, if she dares to leave, she must never marry again. And please do not miss the only motive he gives for getting married in the first place…if you are unable to control your sex drive.
But if a woman does marry, Ephesians 5:22–24 advises the following: Wives, subject yourselves to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Yes, it goes on to say that the husband should love his wife as he does his whole body, but of course that is something that is not new and certainly contradicts many laws and examples the Bible had already given, none of which are ever rebuked or apologized for.
Either words mean certain things, or they mean nothing at all
It is interesting that many Christians hate to see the verses quoted above in print. Instead of an honest review and sincere contemplation of what they have been taught, they automatically claim they all were taken out of context. Some try to use the “rules of hermeneutics” invented by fundamentalists to justify or explain away every contradiction, immoral teaching, and the many errors of science and history so that they can continue to believe that their God is good and loving, despite the clear and unambiguous language that their Bible contains. Words are important and generally should be accepted at face value. Either words mean specific things, or they mean nothing. Or maybe more correctly, they can mean anything you want them to.
Is it not clear that the Bible was written by power seeking and misogynistic men and not by a good and loving God who views women, with rare exception, as mere property of men and without showing the least bit of respect for their worth and dignity?
For further study, check out other Bible teachings and related topics on my blog at https://medium.com/@patim888. I try to post a new article every month. Not to attack the Bible with mean spiritedness, but to assist a few of the millions of people who are trying to free themselves from childhood indoctrination that they know is wrong, but which still has a powerful hold on them…mainly due to the abusive doctrine of an eternal hell fire should they ever begin to doubt.
