It’s all about “Biblical family values”–really?
| May 16th, 2005This post was removed by request of the author.
10 Responses to “It’s all about “Biblical family values”–really?”
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May 16th, 2005 at 11:30 am
I’m not sure why people think that the Bible gives approval to Abraham’s action in siring a child by his slae Hagar. All indications appear to be that the resulting child, Ishmael, caused a lot of hardship; and if Ishmael is the father of the Arabs, then from a Jewish perspective what Abraham did was a disaster.
By the same token, other excerpts that people take to try to prove how evil teh Bible is also suffer from the fact that people seem to think that when the Bible mentions something, it condones it. Yes, David had lots and lots of wives, but that was the reason why he had so many children who hated him, or who were absolute jackasses.
I don’t think there is a single example of polygamy in the Bible where some sort of trouble didn’t result, and except in the case of Samuel’s parents, it was almost always pretty big trouble.
This comment was written by Glaivester.Report this comment to the moderators
May 16th, 2005 at 12:04 pm
Glaivester -
I think you’re forgetting the story of Gideon.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
May 16th, 2005 at 5:23 pm
Mary Pride, a very conservative Christian, argued years back that the American government ought to recognize a number of different kinds of marriages, ranging from “so long as we both shall live” to “so long as we both shall love” to “for five years at which point we can renew it if we both want to”. I know Louisiana did (or does) offer a “standard no-fault” marriage license and also a “covenant” license, which has much more stringent standards (very limited justifications for divorce).
Many cultures had and recognized different kinds of marriage - ancient Rome had something like seven different kinds, although some of them were peculiar to different sections of society (only the upper class had access to one type; two types were slave marriages). I often wonder, if most conservative Christians are so hung up on the sanctity of marriage, why they aren’t trying to get covenant marriages recognized in more states, both to establish the idea of having different kinds of marriage and to give conservative Christians legal support for the kind of marriage they think is best.
I like the idea of different marriage contracts because I’ve seen too many couples where one enters the marriage thinking “till death do us part” and the other one is thinking “so long as I want it” - they are making completely different commitments through the same ceremony, which gives the marriage very strange balance of power. The one who is committed to the marriage sometimes ends up bending over backwards (one lady I know submitted to wife swapping, which she found completely degrading), in order to keep the marriage going, because the other partner keeps them in line by threatening to walk.
I don’t think these people would have devoted as much emotional energy to the marriage, or committed to it at all, if they’d known going in that their partner was only there “until or unless,” so they couldn’t have been so easily manipulated. I would also argue that couples who are signing up for one of the temporary or more potentially temporary licenses would be more likely to set up PreNups, so when the marriage broke down or was dissolved things would go more smoothly.
For that matter, the Bible itself offers different varieties of marriage - in the OT, multiple wives is common; before the Mosaic law marrying sisters is allowed, but Mosaic law forbids that; the NT allows multiple wives but clearly encourages Christians to stick to one wife and one husband, etc. When numerous cultures have recognized various definitions of marriage, and when the Bible has numerous definitions of marriage, it puzzles me why Pride’s idea, and the idea of Covenant marriage licenses, hasn’t caught on with the conservative Christian contingent.
I know there are some Christians who’re refusing to allow their daughters to get marriage licenses, because they feel getting a marriage license is somehow endorsing gay marriage. So their daughters have a wedding, but no marriage. I think this is an incredibly foolish approach, myself, but there’s some logic to it - like Jack Mormons, they’re basically saying they’re going to practice marriage according to their religious beliefs and ignore what the government has to say.
I do think part of the problem is that we have a “one size fits all” approach to marriage - made worse by the fact that different people define that one size differently. Marriage means everything from “legalized sex” to “lifetime commitment” to “creating a family” to “recognizing strong emotional bonds but not necessarily expecting them to last.” Of course people who believe marriage exists as a method of ensuring children a stable environment for life are going to argue that gay marriage isn’t marriage at all - for them, it isn’t. But their definition of marriage isn’t the legal one, either. They’re using the same words and speaking a different language.
This seemed more on topic when I started it, somehow…
This comment was written by shiloh.Report this comment to the moderators
May 16th, 2005 at 5:53 pm
Hey waitaminit! If I can’t find a husband to marry me so I can have a child, do I have to follow the lead of Lot’s daughter’s and get my dad drunk so he can knock me up?
This comment was written by Ol Cranky.Report this comment to the moderators
May 17th, 2005 at 7:06 am
Family Values II
Further to my last post, nowhere is a historical understanding of changing family norms more important than combatting homophobia, as Pseudo-Adrienne skilfully argues….
This comment was written by Larvatus Prodeo.Report this comment to the moderators
May 17th, 2005 at 9:23 am
Hmm… I’ll have to check up on the story of Gideon. I have to admit that I am not familiar with it.
As for the Lot’s daughters thing, I think that Lot and his family were pretty clearly corrupted by all of the time they spent in Sodom. I don’t think htat the behavior of Lot’s daughters is meant to be a standard to which we should aspire.
This comment was written by Glaivester.Report this comment to the moderators
May 17th, 2005 at 12:18 pm
I had a similar argument with a guy on my own webboard. I went into it knowing I’d never get him to admit to any of my points (he’s obstinately loyal to his own political opinions, in the face of all reason) He’s anti-gay marriage. He thinks his opinion is biblical based. He admitted during our argument that he’s not very well versed in the Bible. Bad luck for him: I came from a church that was fanatical about basing its doctrine on the Old Testament, even if it contradicted mainstream Christianity. I’m no longer with that church, but it made me really good at poking holes in [historically unjustifiable, hypocritical] mainstream Christian practices.
I dragged out tons of examples of polygamy as the ideal family arrangement in the Old Testament as evidence that concepts of “family” have evolved over time, even from the OT to the NT. I didn’t even need to bring up the actual historical basis for marriage, just used the Bible itself, which truly is its own worst enemy.
He was unable to answer my arguments satisfactorily. Polygamy simply isn’t the domain of “bad” men in the OT - it’s the norm. So is sexual slavery. Instead he took the tack that understanding of the Bible has evolved over the centuries thru the (Catholic) philosophical musings of “great men”. Not kidding. He couldn’t justify the one man-one woman setup using the Bible at all. He had to appeal to subsequent “interpretations” that were, he claimed based in “Natural Moral Law”. I perked my ears up at that. Natural according to whom? Turns out he’s an Aristotle-lover with some peculiar philosophical leanings, at which point I realized how far removed from normal thinking he was and called it quits.
Basically his arguments all boiled down to: no, we can’t prove support for the one man-one woman model with the Bible. But these other guys from a sexist, uneducated era said it’s true, and they were right, because they said they were! Too bad the Bible contradicts them so much, eh?
This comment was written by michelle b..Report this comment to the moderators
May 17th, 2005 at 2:30 pm
I always interpreted the role of Lot’s daughters as victims, and thought the story was told from Lot’s viewpoint as the “winner”/survivor. After all, it is common that men raping their daughter will claim that they did it because they were drunk, or their daughters were tempting them, or ….. Now Lot already had offered his virgin daughters to the mob to be raped. Exactly why would the daughters be the first at fault here? Daughters of such a father would be highly motivated to keep their virginity, needed for marriage, because marriage would be the only way to escape Dear Old Dad.
This comment was written by NancyP.Report this comment to the moderators
May 18th, 2005 at 12:05 pm
michelle b. said:
I think you can make a case for the one man-one woman model being a Christian ideal, but not the only Biblical definition of marriage. Jesus argues that some of the OT law regarding marriage was for “the hardness of hearts”, not because it was the ideal. (Matthew 19) He also points back to Adam and Eve (one man, one woman) as the way marriage was designed to work. Paul twice teaches (1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1) that male Christian leaders should be “the husband of one wife” (literally “a one woman man”, IIRC), again presenting the one man-one woman pattern as the ideal.
But to say that the Bible doesn’t recognize other forms of marriage, or that the one women with one man marriage is the only thing allowed, or that a Christian man is not allowed multiple wives - no way. Can’t be done. There’s no Biblical justification I know of for the common practice of demanding Christian converts divorce all their wives but one - but the guys who argue that true Christian marriage requires a man with many wives are just as whacked, ‘though in the minority. The ideal is not the only model allowed, but it’s still the one presented as ideal.
I also think it can be argued that the reason for that ideal is largely symbolic and so doesn’t apply to secular culture anyhow, but once started I’d probably drift into my outrage over how the modern Christian church ignores the clear division the NT makes between secular and Christian systems and styles of authority, so I’ll just hush now instead…
This comment was written by shiloh.Report this comment to the moderators
May 18th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
“Daughters of such a father would be highly motivated to keep their virginity, needed for marriage, because marriage would be the only way to escape Dear Old Dad.”
Well, according to the Bible, lust was not the motivating factor here. The daughters assumed, I think, either that they were the last people on Earth, or that they had no possibility of ever getting married. They had sex with Lot purely for procreative reasons.
In any case, Lot wasn’t an innocent, either. He chose to live in Sodom despite the fact that God had warned him against it, and had to be practically dragged out of his house. I don’t think his willingness to surrender his daughters to the mob to be raped was meant to be the high point of Lot’s biography.
But even if you assume that Lot raped his daughters and blamed them for it, it is still clear to me that the Bible did not approve of the incest.
This comment was written by Glaivester.Report this comment to the moderators