Christian Myths on Sex and Marriage, Part II: Much Younger than 5000 Years Old

In the past, Rick Warren has taken issue with the redefinition of marriage. He has said time and time again, “For 5,000 years, marriage has been defined by every single culture and every single religion — this is not a Christian issue. Buddhist, Muslims, Jews — historically, marriage is a man and a woman… I just don’t believe in the redefinition of marriage.” [1] The issue is that our current definition of marriage (that is the Western, Christian notion of the marriage institution in the U.S.) has not existed for 5,000 years, let alone existed across cultural or religious boundaries. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to cover every single ancient culture and religion, but we can understand marriage and family as it pertains to Christianity. We will also notice that despite Warren’s attempt to entice Christians to believe marriage is unchanging, marriage has changed by definition and practice throughout history.

5,000 years ago would take us back to Sumerian culture in Ancient Mesopotamia and Babylonia. The Old Testament book of Genesis refers to Sumeria as the land of Shinar (Gen. 10:10). There existed several forms of marriage and the family unit perhaps due to overpopulation, including celibate wives, marrying (much like our understanding of adopting) the bride’s brothers to form a family clan, bringing in slaves as part of the family unit, and even nuclear families. Families could be a fratriarchy where the eldest brother ruled the home. For the most part, marriage was a commercial arrangement though the groom also received payment or gifts for marrying. Unlike today, polygamy was possible up to two wives, wives were as young as 12 years of age, and grooms were well into their thirties since commonality and companionship was not as important. [2]

Though marriage was defined, as Warren suggests, “by a man and a woman” marriage and family in Sumeria was also defined by a man, a woman, her children, and her brothers; a man, a woman, and another woman; a man, a woman, their children, and their slaves, and so forth. There was absolutely no understanding of Western, Christian marriage between one man and one woman. Even if we took the time to investigate every culture and religion in history, our concept of marriage would come thousands of years later, after Christ’s death at the end of the Medieval era, argued during the Protestant Reformation, solidified by the Puritans, celebrated in the Victorian period, and then epitomized by 1950s television, film, and culture.

[1] Beliefnet Video, Accessed 5/19/2009
[2] Life in the ancient Near East, 3100-332 B.C.E., Daniel C. Snell, p. 51-54

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