Genesis 2:24 Marriage: One Man and One Woman?

To be clear, legally, in most jurisdictions, marriage is an institution held largely between one man and one woman, a traditional marriage that most Christians believe is described in Genesis 2:24. In recent history, some areas have opened up the institution to include same sex marriages, but that is a slightly different debate.

It seems that all around us, there are conversations on the subject. One generation ago, you never encountered that discussion. Of course, there were some polygamous groups in Utah and Arizona, universally regarded as cults, but there were no mainstream debates on the subject of polygamy or what constituted a marriage. There certainly were none about same sex marriage. All of that has changed in recent years.

On college campuses, open debates on the subject are common. The term “Poly relationship” is a phrase known to all, and those forms include both polyandry (one woman and multiple men) as well as Polygamy (one man with multiple women). The other term that is increasingly used is Polygyny, meaning one man and multiple women outside of a marriage. In former times, this would commonly be described as a wife or wives, and concubines. Today, it typically refers to a couple with a girlfriend. More often than not, the sexuality within these relationships extends not only between the genders but also within the same gender participants.

All of those other discussions have been explored in other posts, or will be in future ones. The matter I want to deal with today is the root conversation of biblical marriage and the widely held belief within the Christian church that the form ordained by God is one man and one woman; a Genesis 2:24 Marriage.

There is currently a widespread debate regarding “marriage” and its definition. One popular theme of these conversations is marriage being defended and defined as a convention held between one man and one woman. As part of that debate, one “evidence” of the truth of that position is often given as Genesis 2:24, wherein it is said that the proof of God’s intention, one man and one woman, is stated. I want to examine that argument.

Actually, the subject of this passage of scripture isn’t marriage; it is the manner in which a man starts his lineage and his household by taking a woman to himself. Similarly, the point of a woman joining a man is that it is the symbolic return of his rib. That is why Genesis 2:24 starts with the phrase, “For this reason.” In the Hebrew tradition, females were not considered complete beings unless they were part of a man’s household, part of his biological lineage… first as a daughter, then as the property of another man. This belonging could be as a wife, a concubine, or a slave. I explain this in much more detail in my paper about Hebrew family structures. Two Societies Article

In Genesis 2:24 the Hebrew word for man is eesh; contracted from en-oshe'. It is an “absolute” noun, meaning that its use is singular, referring to a man as an individual or a male person, with an emphasis on gender distinction.

Read the full article.

The word for woman is ish-shaw’; the feminine of eesh, (a male), except Ish-shaw’ is an irregular plural noun. It is similar to the word “deer” in that it is both singular and plural, not limited in use to a singular sense. That is the same word used in 2:23, which is translated into “woman”, which is appropriate. When it is translated into “wife,” it is a cultural appropriation, as the modern concept of marriage didn’t exist in Hebrew times. This means that what Genesis 2:24 actually states is that to establish a new lineage, a singular male leaves his father’s family and is joined with the first female.

It is significant that one word, Ishshaw, is TRANSLATED differently based on the cultural inflection that the translators want to give it. That does not mean that it is different words; it is one word that is translated differently to provide cultural context. The Bible translates the Hebrew word אִשָּׁה, in various ways depending on how the translators felt it would be best applied in English. Strong’s H802, אִשָּׁה, is pronounced Ish-shaw, and is translated in the following manner: wife (425x), woman (324x), one (10x), married (5x), female (2x), miscellaneous (14x). Strong’s is an authoritative reference in scriptural definitions and commentary.

In scripture, there is no difference between the usages of this word when applied to wife, concubine, or slave woman because culturally those differentiations didn’t exist for that word. The differences are culturally implied. What I am explaining is that to a Hebrew man, there was no differentiation required; the word Ishshaw was assumed to be an imperfect plural, as there was no sense in which the word would be limiting in number. Similarly, a Hebrew man would understand that there was no reason to use that word to differentiate the status of a woman in his household. The differentiations between women under his dominion were not related to the woman, per se, but rather to her role in the household and her offspring’s position regarding inheritance. A wife was a woman who conveyed the right of inheritance to her children. A concubine did not represent such inheritance by law; her value was paid for and established in the contract between her father and the man to whom she was given. It is significant that the word for concubine, pee-leh’-ghesh, was only used 37 times in scripture, but the presence of concubinage within the households of wealthy Hebrew men was widespread. The point is that there was no need to have a word to differentiate between a wife and a concubine.

A female slave was a conscripted servant. This was a very different word in Hebrew. She was also required to have sex with her master, and he was required by law to have sex with her, but her children held no position in the line of inheritance. They were also the property of their mother’s master.

In that same verse, the word “One” is an ordinal adjective, and as such, using the English word “one” to signify or argue singularity is not appropriate. A more correct word would be “an” or “a”, as in “the first”. It is an indefinite article, meaning membership in a group. In Hebrew, it implies “each” or “first”. So this word indicates a process, not a limitation. The phrase implies, “Each and every time such joining with another woman occurs, it is permanent and she becomes part of him.”

When Christians refer to this passage of the Bible, it is to provide proof of their opinion that marriage is an institution between one man and one woman. The scripture isn’t about that; it is about the nature of men and women. What they rarely refer to is the entire point of the passage, as referenced in the first words, “For this reason”.

The point is that woman was made from man and will again be part of a man.

The meaning of this verse isn’t to illustrate limitations; it is to describe the male leaving the household of his mother and father and establishing his own household, his lineage.

The word “Flesh” literally means a part of him, his “Blood Relation”. They are no longer of different genetic lineages; she becomes part of his. There is a sense of belonging to this inflection, as the woman is no longer independent of the man; she belongs to him. This was the way that lineage and inheritance were established. Women were not free to come and go from a man’s household; they had no such cultural or legal right. He could dispose of her, but she could not choose to leave except under a few specific conditions, such as his refusal to have sex with her or her infidelity.

A more proper translation of Genesis 2:24 would be to say, “This is why (because woman was taken from man) a man shall leave his father’s family and start a family of his own by taking the first of his women, so that women can return to being joined with (the possession of) a man, (as his rib was part of him).”

Remember, this is not a lesson in biology or scientific merit. This is a Hebrew cultural subject, and as such, if we attempt to look at scripture through the lens of our social constructs, we miss the intent of the verse. This is especially true if we isolate passages that are translated into English, an imprecise language, and apply them out of context to establish the basis of an argument that did not exist at the time when the original texts were written.

It is the first act of taking a woman that separates the man from his father’s household. Remember, there was no such thing as “dating”. Women were not free to go about unescorted or to travel alone. They worked in the household or on the household’s fields, but they didn’t have employers or own businesses, as such. Typically, a girl remained in her father’s household until she was nearing the age of menstruation, around fourteen years old at that time in history. Then she was betrothed to become a wife, placed with a man as a concubine, or sold as a servant (slave). Her value was based on her looks or her family’s social status. Not only were girls important as workers within the family, but they were also critical genetic assets; it was through the women of the culture that a man’s line was enhanced.

There is nothing in this scripture verse that is a prohibition on his bringing other women into his household; in fact, that would be very unlikely and only happen in the case of poverty. It would be a shameful thing.

There is another interesting argument related to cultural misappropriation presented in the use of this word. This is the same word, Ishshaw, that is used interchangeably in the Garden of Eden story, Genesis 3:1-12. In that passage, the same word is translated as both ‘woman’ and ‘wife’ when referring to Eve. Let me ask you a question. Was there marriage in the Garden of Eden? Who officiated at the ceremony? Where was it recorded? Why is there no mention of a wedding? The argument is preposterous, and yet Christians cling to this belief that the institution of marriage was between one man and one woman, ordained by God, when nothing of the sort is true. The concept of monogamy is purely cultural; it is not even practiced in our society.

Scripture is clear regarding the structure of Hebrew family relationships, and nothing in the entirety of Scripture indicates that those polygynous institutions were anything other than righteous and honorable. http://www.biblicalpolygamy.com

It is interesting that biologically, when a woman mates with a man, she takes his genetic material into her body and combines it with hers. Studies indicate that there is a 50% increase in health risks in women who have children from multiple men.

The biological mechanism proposed for this association involves the immunological impact of exposure to diverse paternal antigens from different fathers during successive pregnancies. The theory suggests that each new pregnancy introduces new paternal genetic material, potentially leading to increased risk.

So, it appears that there is also a biological truth to the idea that a woman becomes physically changed by mating with a man, regardless of her marital status.