New Weapon of the Marriage Equality War: Poor Understanding on the Left and Right

Defenders of Traditional and Biblical Marriage are not the only ones who have it wrong, there is a lot of misunderstanding about Traditional and Biblical Marriage by Marriage Equality advocates as well. Traditional and Biblical Marriage are not synonymous of one another. Traditional Marriage is something upheld in Western culture and society that stems from the Medieval era, argued during the Protestant Reformation, solidified by the Puritans, celebrated in the Victorian period, and then epitomized by mid-20th century Western culture. Biblical Marriage refers to the examples of marriage that exist in the Bible, often spoken of in theological terms. The concepts should not be confused for one another since Traditional Marriage did not exist in the Bible and Biblical Marriage does not translate into modern culture fairly. By today’s moral and ethical standards, many of the examples of marriage in the Bible – Old and New Testament – are considered an injustice to women and children, and thus are very difficult to transplant into today’s cultural practice of marriage.

I often hear Marriage Equality advocates transplanting Biblical marriage into today’s cultural context which is ill fitting and doesn’t necessarily translate so easily cross-culturally. I assume the reasoning goes, “If gay marriage opponents are defending Traditional and Biblical Marriage synonymously, it’s imperative to point out the absurdity of marriage in the Bible with special attention to Old Testament examples.” Gay marriage opponents who often represent some expression of the Christian faith dig the hole deeper by behaving ignorantly about the historical accuracies of both Traditional and Biblical Marriage. Neither side does justice in helping culture and society in understanding either Traditional or Biblical Marriage, which in studying could provide articulate answers to today’s cultural wars concerning marriage.

A video by MrsBettyBowers.com, described as America’s Best Christian, satirically uses Old Testament marriage to defend marriage equality and justice. Though entertaining, I wasn’t amused by the inaccuracies of marriage. I understand that anti-gay marriage opponents often use the reverse extreme so this sort of satire seeks to balance the absurdity of the arguments in defense of Traditional or Biblical Marriage. However, if it was done a little more intelligently, we could possibly have some genuine discussion.

As a brief example from the video, in the Old Testament if a man raped a woman he was to marry her. In our modern mindset, we conclude that forced marriage, especially of a rape victim, is harshly unjust. It’s understandable why Marriage Equality advocates would use this example to make a case for how Biblical Marriage was more often that not one big act of injustice, thus Americans should not continue in the vein of inequality. However, we should not impose our modern Western thinking of justice and equality on ancient culture. Rightfully so, women having an economic value and treated as property is considered unfair in modern culture. However, in many ancient cultures this was the normal and acceptable way of life.

The reason for marriage under this circumstance was not to punish rape victims, but to provide justice and economic protection for women. Raped women could not marry another man, because their economic value was diminished. If rape victims did not wed, she could not survive economically. A rape victim with a diminished value had few opportunities to live a sustainable life, often remaining unwed and turning to prostitution just to live. It was the intention of the law for a man to wed a woman he took sexual advantage of to deliver justice to rape victims in an attempt to provide care by avoiding relegating victims to the worse place in that society.

The example is not accurately one of injustice since ancient society and culture deemed forced marriage of a rape victim as act of justice and equality for victims. A more accurate lesson from this example of Biblical marriage is that marriage can be an act of justice for individuals. Marriage, as seen in this Bible example, is concerned for the legal and economic rights of people. Marriage attempted to deliver justice and equality in hope of preventing injustice and abuse. Most of all, marriage was never intended to segregate and make victims out of others, but to save individuals from being exiled to the fringes and shadows of society.

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