"Marriage," says Goethe, "is the beginning and end of all culture."
Too often the end of all culture, the cynic may say. It may safely be
affirmed that marriage is the chief cause and product of civilisation.
Like other institutions, it has passed through various stages of growth
among all nations, the Jews included. It has been said "Motherhood is
a matter of observation, fatherhood a matter of opinion." Certain it is
that in early society kinship was reckoned through mothers only. Of this
we have some evidence in the Bible. Abraham, the father of the faithful,
married Sarah, "the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my
mother" (Gen. xx. 12). His brother Nahor took the daughter of his other
brother, Haran, to wife (Gen. ix. 27-29). Such marriages could not have
occurred except when relationship through males was not sufficiently
acknowledged for a bar to marriage to have been raised upon it. Jacob
had two sisters to wife at once. Amram, the father of Moses, married his
own aunt (Exodus ii. 1 and 1 Chron. vii. 3). Even in the time of pious
King David marriage with half-sisters was not considered improper, for
when Ammon wished to force his sister Tamar, she said unto him, "Speak
unto the king; for he will not withhold me from thee" (2 Samuel xiii.
13). Brothers by the same mother are specially distinguished (Deut.
xiii. 6, Judges viii. 19). The child, moreover, in early times, was
thought rather to belong to the mother than the father. Thus we find
that Ishmael was turned adrift with Hagar, and Hannah, one of the wives
of Elkanah the Levite, had the right of presenting or devoting her son
Samuel to Jahveh.
A survival of consanguine marriage is found in Deut. xxv., where it is
expressly ordered that when a brother's widow is left childless "her
husband's brother shall go in unto her and take her to him to wife"; and
in the event of his refusing to do so he has to have his shoe loosed and
his face spat upon. Of the antiquity of this usage we have evidence in
Genesis xxxviii. When Er, Judah's firstborn, died, the father commanded
his second son, "Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise
up seed to thy brother." The second son refusing, the thing which he did
displeased the Lord, wherefore he slew him. Judah now putting Tamar
off from taking his next son, she disguised herself and made her
father-in-law do his son's duty, he acknowledging "she hath been more
righteous than I." The custom is also referred to in the story of Ruth.
Ewald amends Ruth iv. 5: "Thou must buy also Ruth the Moabitess." The
Bible reader will remember that the disgusting story of the patriarch
Lot and his daughters is related without the slightest token of
disapproval. The daughters justified themselves by the plea that they
would "preserve seed of our father." To understand these narratives,
the reader must remember that in the early history of the family it was
desirable, in the struggle for existence, that its numbers should not be
diminished. Many instances are found in the Bible of the blessing of a
large family. "Happy is the man who has his quiver full." The blessing
on the typical servant of Jahveh is that "he shall see his seed," It
was the duty of the next of kin to see that the family stock did not
diminish. We find at the beginning of Genesis that, when Abel was
slain, God gave Seth "instead." In patriarchal life, as exhibited by the
Bedouins, the "next of kin," the _goel_, is a most important personage.
To him the tribe looks to avenge or redeem a kinsman's death or
misfortune. On him the widow and fatherless depend for support. He is,
above all, the blood-balancer, who sees that the house is kept in its
normal strength, and who seeks to recruit it as far as possible from
the same blood--a state of things implying feud with surrounding tribes.
Job, in his anguish, can find no stronger consolation this--"I know
that my _goel_ liveth." According to the morality of that time, not only
Tamar, but the family was grossly wronged by Onan. By refusing to allow
Shelah to take the duties of _goel_, on the ground of his youth, Judah
himself incurred the responsibilities of that office. It was his duty to
see that seed was raised. Tamar resorted to cunning, the weapon of the
weak, and Judah's confession is the real moral of what, to a modern,
must be considered the very disgusting story in Genesis xxxviii.
All the Old Testament heroes, from Lamech downwards, were polygamists.
Indeed, both polygamy and concubinage were practised by those Hebrew
saints who were most distinguished by their piety, faith, and communion
with Jahveh. Abraham not only took Hagar as a secondary wife, but
turned her adrift in the wilderness when it suited his own goodwill and
pleasure. Jacob, who lived under the special guidance of God, married
two sisters at the same time, and each of them presented him with
concubines. David, the man after God's own heart, had many wives and
concubines (2 Samuel iii. 2-5, v. 13), while Solomon, who was wiser than
all men, boasted of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines
(1 Kings xi. 5). Jahveh, while denouncing intermarriage with women of
foreign races, never says a word against either polygamy or concubinage.
On the contrary, both are sanctioned and regulated by the Mosaic law
(Deut. xxi. 10-15). More than this, God himself is said to have married
two sisters, Aholah and Aholibah (Ezekiel xxiii.), and although this
is figurative, the figure would never have been used had the fact been
considered sinful.
A Hebrew father might sell his daughter to be a wife, concubine, or
maid-servant to an Israelite, and her master might put her away if she
pleased him not (Exodus xxi. 7-11). Women taken captives in war might be
used as wives and dismissed at pleasure (Deut. xxi. 10-14). In the case
of the Midianites only virgins were preserved. Moses indignantly asked,
Have ye saved all the women alive? "Now therefore kill every male among
the little ones and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with
him. But all the women children, that hath not known man by lying with
him, keep alive for yourselves." And the Lord took shares in this maiden
tribute (Numb, xxxi.)
Woman in the Bible is treated as merchandise. In Jacob's time she was
bought by seven years' service, but in the time of the prophet Hosea she
was valued only at fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of
barley. In the Decalogue it is prohibited to covet a man's wife on the
same ground as his man slave, his maid slave, his ox, or his ass, or
anything that is his. Her lord and master could say with Petruchio:
She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything.
By God's law a man was permitted to dismiss a wife when she found "no
favor in his eyes," by simply writing out a bill of divorcement. There
is no mention of the woman having any similar power of getting quit of
her lord and master. If he suspected her fidelity he could compel her to
go through an ordeal in which the priest administered to her the water
of jealousy, which if guilty would cause her to rot, but which was
harmless if she was innocent. No doubt this was a potent means in
securing wifely devotion and a ready remedy for any hated spouse. In
the hands of a friendly priest the concoction would be little likely
to fail, and even should it prove innocuous there was the expedient of
writing a bill of divorcement.
It is usually said that God "winked at" (Acts xvii. 30) these
proceedings, because of the hardness of the old Jews' hearts, and that
from the beginning it was not so. In proof of this is cited the passage
in Genesis which says, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his
mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."
The proper interpretation of this passage illustrates a very early form
of marriage still found in some tribes, and known in Ceylon as beenah
marriage. Mr. McLennan, one of the highest authorities on primitive
marriage, says:
"In beenah marriage the young husband leaves the family of his birth and
passes into the family of his wife, and to that he belongs as long as
the marriage subsists. The children born to him belong, not to him, but
to the family of their mother. Living with, he works for, the family
of his wife; and he commonly gains his footing in it by service. His
marriage involves usually a change of village; nearly always (where the
tribal system is in force) a change of tribe, but always a change of
family. So that, as used to happen in New Zealand, he may be bound even
to take part in war against those of his father's house. The man
leaves father and mother as completely as with the Patriarchal Family
prevailing, a bride would do; and he leaves them to live with his wife
and her family. That this accords with the passage in Genesis will not
be disputed.*
"Marriage by purchase of the bride and her issue can hardly be thought
to have been primeval practice. When we find beenah marriage and
marriage by purchase as alternatives, therefore it is not difficult to
believe that the former is the older of the two, and it was once in sole
possession of the field."**
* The Patriarchal Theory, p. 43; 1885.
** Ibid, p. 45.
It was a beenah marriage which Jacob made into the family of Laban, and
we find from Genesis xxiv. 1-8 that it was thought not improbable that
Isaac might do the same. In beenah marriage the children belong to the
mother's clan, and we thus find that Laban says: "These daughters are my
daughters, and these children my children." It was exactly against such
a marriage as that of Jacob, viz., with two women at one time that the
text (Lev. xvii. 18) was directed which is so much squabbled about by
both opponents of and advocates for marriage with a deceased wife's
sister. The custom of the Levirate mentioned in Deut. xxv. possibly
indicates pre-existent polyandry. Lewis, in his _Hebrew Republic_,
says: "In the earliest ages the Levir had no alternative but to take the
widow; indeed, she was his wife without any form of marriage."
Casting off a shoe, it may be said, is a symbol of foregoing a right;
thus the relatives of a bride still "throw slippers." The Arabs have
preserved the ceremony intact. A proverb among them, when a young man
foregoes his prescriptive right to marry his first cousin, is, "She was
my slipper; I have cast her off" (Burckhardt, Bedouins and Wahabys, i.
113). Among the Caribs of Venezuela and in Equatorial West Africa, the
eldest son inherits all the wives of his deceased father with the sole
exception of his own mother. Schweinfurth relates that the same custom
obtains in Central Africa. On the Gold Coast the throne is occupied by
the prince, who gains possession of the paternal harem before his other
brothers. Thus Absalom took David's harem in the sight of all Israel
before the old man had gone to glory, as a proof he wished his reign
to be considered over; and when Adonijah asks his brother Solomon for
Abishag, the comforter of David's old age, the wise Solomon kills him,
as thus betraying designs on the throne. In the custom that widows
passed to the heir with other property, and hence that marriage with the
widow grew to be a sign of a claim to the deceased person's possessions,
we have a reasonable explanation of what must otherwise appear
irrational crime. The custom of inheriting widows is adverted to in the
Koran; and Bendhawi, in his commentary, gives the whole ceremony, which
consists in the relative of the deceased throwing his cloak over the
widow and saying, "I claim her." The Mormons always defended their
plurality of wives from the divine book, and polygamy has been defended
by various Christian ministers, from the Lutheran divine, Joannes Lyser,
author of _Discoursus Politicus de Polygamia_, and the Rev. Martin
Madan, author of _Thelyphthora_ to the Rev. Mercer Davies, author of
_Hangar_, and Ap Richard, M.A., who urges a biblical plea for polygamy
under the title of _Marriage and Divorce_. Such works have done little
to bring into favor the divine ordinance of polygamy, but they have done
much to show how unsuited is the morality of "the word of God" to
the requirements of modern civilisation. Surely it is time that the
Christians were ashamed of appealing to polygamous Jews for any laws to
regulate social institutions.