WOMEN ARE EQUAL PARTNERS IN MARRIAGE.

When society allows one human being to own another—to define another human being as personal property—something is terribly amiss! Yet women were—and often, still are—considered the property of men. Perhaps the most obvious venue for this practice was—and still is—marriage and the home. And Jesus dealt with this, too. The Jews of Jesus’ day lived by a double standard that can be summed up by the fact that a husband could divorce his wife for any reason, but a wife could not divorce her husband for any reason. She was of secondary value—mere property— so, basically, he could use her and dispense with her at will. Jesus rejected this double standard. Marriage, he showed, was not to be a relationship designed for the benefit of man. It was to be a relationship of equals in which both the man and woman had equal privileges and rights, equal responsibility and authority (Mk. 10:2-12; Mt. 19:3-9). My husband, Eddie, contributes the following thoughts: Matthew 19:3-9 records a discussion between Jesus and the Pharisees concerning divorce, prompted by the Pharisees’ question: ‚Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?‛ This question was based on Deuteronomy 24:1-4 which stated that if a man had become displeased with his wife because he had found some uncleanness in her, he could write her a certificate of divorce and send her away. With various personal interpretations possible, Jewish men of Jesus’ day had been known to divorce their wives over trivial matters. Perhaps because Jesus was showing an unheard of openness to women, the Pharisees posed this question to challenge Him. Jesus’ answer reveals an intriguing approach to Biblical interpretation that has ramifications for a theology of womanhood. ‚Haven’t you read,‛ he replied, ‚that AT THE BEGINNING the Creator ‘made them male and female’, and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let no-one separate.‛ The Pharisees quoted Deuteronomy 24:1-4 and challenged, ‚Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and send her away?‛ to which Jesus replied, ‚Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts permitted you to divorce your wives, but FROM THE BEGINNING it was not so.‛ This response reveals that He considered the Divine model for male-female relationships to be in the Genesis account of Creation, not in later passages that deal with relationships in a fallen world. Moses, He said, permitted divorce because of the hardness of your hearts. His point is that we should not settle for what God has allowed because of our sinful, hard hearts. Instead, we should be seeking God’s best for male-female relationships, which He says is revealed in the Creation account before sin entered the world. We are to go back to the original where there was equality and mutuality, with no hint of one having priority, dominance, or authority over the other. Eddie also shares the following experience. He writes,While driving one morning to a class I was to teach, I turned on the radio and listened as a well-known pastor with a national audience announce that he would be teaching on Christian marriage. I was astounded when he read the Biblical text for his message! It was Genesis 3:16, And your desire shall be to your husband an he shall rule of you.... I could not believe what I was hearing and exclaimed out loud,‚No! No! This is not a passage about Christian marriage! This is the curse that is coming into the world because of sin!‛ Indeed, these words of God to the woman are not a prescription of what ought to be, but a description of what will happen because of sin. This is the first time in Scripture that we see any sign of hierarchy in marriage and the human family and it is obviously a result of sin and the fall. This passage should never be used to teach on Christian marriage. We must follow the instruction of Jesus and go back to the beginning—before the fall—to find the model for Christian marriage. (For a thorough treatment of Genesis 3:16, see pages 237-243 of In the Spirit We’re Equal.) I am grateful for these insights that God has given Eddie! And I would ask, ‚Which model does the church pursue?‛ God wants people to do the right thing, and Jesus expressed this in statements, like, In everything, do to others what you would have then do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets (Mt. 7:12).