Marriage notes

Some jottings on teaching on sex and marriage

May I contribute a little something around the various passages that are commonly used to teach about sex and marriage, and underlying that, gender roles.

The first thing is that those teaching will unconsciously pass on their own biases both cultural and theological. It could be helpful to have a teacher manual to work through a more complex background to the more simplified presentation. My observation is that possibly some of those who invest in additional needs children will highly develop their skill set in that domain and might not have the spare to develop a critical (in a positive sense) and deeper current biblical study approach to wider issues like this, so could rely on a more traditionally stereotyped “christianese” narrative in their own background.

I love some of the far sighted study going on in these areas some of it rooted in the work of self confessed nerds (look at the intro to The Jesus Scandals by Innes who has a couple of excellent marriage chapters, or the women blogs by Marg Mowczko to name 2 of the more accessible sources I love) who are pedantic enough to go into the detail of what the bible says below our own cultural assumptions.

Second, to echo what’s already been said, and as you already know, little and often communicates better on issues that are so deeply rooted in society. For example teaching on ‘husbands love your wives as christ loved the church and gave himself for her’ will mean nothing in practice as long as the cultural practice of allowing boys to interrupt girls in class, letting a boy who has his hand up speak more often than the girls, paying more attention to boys opinions, modelling only male leadership, far more women than men having poor self image in society (presumably including amongst the teachers themselves), boys given power roles and toys and girls service ones, teaching young girls how to avoid rape but not teaching young boys to not rape. It may seem self evident but building mutually esteeming habits into classroom/family/church life and routines is the best way of ensuring healthier marriage and sexual practices.

Paul’s marriage teaching in Eph 5 is a natural extension of the emphasis of the whole letter about healthy outworking relationship with God and others. Eph 5 says everyone love like Jesus loves and submit to one another. He then illustrates that teaching point with 3 situations where it might be extra hard. Within the marriage, in the family and in the workplace (using the most extreme example of master slave relations).

Teaching the husband wife relationship without that context has been used to further the distortion of this beautiful teaching and if those teaching aren't fully free themselves from the cultural bondage they’ll unwittingly pass it on.

This is quite an intrusive concept to impose on the amazing generous loving people who give so willingly of their time, energies, devotion but to me it’s fundamental to what we model to children, even more so to youngsters who may never gain enough ‘distance’ to question it. How do women and men talk to each other in front of them? That’s what they’ll copy. In an ideal world the whole church would invest in this apprenticeship. Well, ok, it’s a dream.

So to the specifics about bible discipleship in the area of sex and marriage for the additional needs.

I’d suggest that it could be wise to tackle in at least 3 stages.

1. Gender roles
2. Sex, not just the prevention of
3. What is or should be marriage a) romance b) a pragmatic approach to the survival of women and children

The idea of separating sex and marriage would be with the aim to reduce the idea that marriage is just legalised sexuality with the ensuing disillusionment when the novelty and youthfulness wears off.

Gender roles is obv an underlying teaching in every bible story we tell as all is about human relationships.  Given our preference for teaching the more sensationalist stories to children as they’re much easier and more fun to communicate many of the women’s stories don’t get told or the women’s roles get subsumed into a wider more male whole. This isn’t the place to go into that.

I’d just like to mention Proverbs 31 the ideal woman, that’s probably not on a sunday school programme but a distortion of it may be in the background of how adults behave.

I love her. She’s nobility, what a ruler should look for. She’s allowed to dress like a disney princess in fine clothes but she’s not to lay in bed till midday stuffing her face just being waited on but is a skilled and astute manager, business woman, clearly trusted by her husband to manage the family and business while he has a public service role as a magistrate. I think she’s awesome. She’s not a skivvy for men, though she does get up just as early as the staff.

I’d like her to be balanced with the Song of Songs lady who is clearly highly desirable and is making the most of her talents since the writer can describe all her body without clothes on!

That’s a good frank place to start talking about sex too in my opinion. No lying on your back thinking of empire. No entitlement either. Something completely reciprocal, beautiful, based on mutual appreciation and enjoyment.

And of course the being able to love yourself part of ‘love as you love yourself’, psalm 139 ‘I’m wonderfully made’, and role model God in Zephaniah singing over her with love.

And that odd refrain in the S of S  about the daughters of Jerusalem not waking love till it’s ready however one should interpret that? Perhaps wait till you’re old enough, don’t use porn, don’t oversexualise young girls or boy girl friendships …? I explicitly told my daughters they could be friends with any boys and other girls in their class were jealous as certain boys had been earmarked as belonging to other girls (9 year olds!) as boyfriends *sigh*

As far as marriage goes in the bible I find it very matter of fact and doesn’t judge the arranged marriage even though the romantic marriage is an ideal.

As an example of a romance I love the story of Michal and David. She’s the best friend’s little sister. He’s the drop dead gorgeous new guy in the court. I’m certain this biographic detail comes directly from her. That he’s offered the older sister by the dad as a status gift, but he refuses. He refuses! But later he accepts when it’s her. I think she’s devoted to him for the rest of her life and as first wife (and one of the few remaining points of contact with his dead best friend) she’d have had a place at the main table for life, along with their nephew Mephibosheth. And look at the terrible grief and regret she faced that she judged David when he reverted to seemingly juvenile or tribal behaviour dancing in the procession when they were more dignified these days, having strived to build up the kingship from nothing against initial priestly disapproval and the humiliation of her father’s behaviour.

Yet at the same time Michal is matter of fact about David taking most of his other wives, the early ones at least, (maybe she’s scathing about the “hundreds” of others and concubines). I think she became friends with at least one hence all the detail about Abigail, her amazing prophecy to David to keep him on track in the outlaw days, David taking on the provision for and protection of this woman who saved him from a regrettable action.

I’m really not into polygamy personally but these two relationships do make a very good example to teach from using highly tellable stories.

I think teaching about marriage from the bible can be complicated because at bottom it’s a culturally dictated legal contract. A lot of the bible law and examples are landowner nobility in a highly agricultural economy. Inheritance matters big way. Once land passes into foreign hands it’s lost. Once family lands are divided it becomes really complicated to farm.

However I find it interesting looking at what’s dictated in other scenarios. In Ex 209-11 there are guidelines for if an owner’s son likes one of the slaves he can marry her, can’t just drop her if he then likes someone else, must carry on giving her food, clothing and marital rights and what speaks to me is she gets full rights as a daughter which suggests that these are things that would be taken for granted in a more equal social pairing ie so form the basis requirements of a marriage alliance. As far as I’m aware they also made the grounds where a divorce could be allowed. Also worth noting that Jesus substitutes divorce for the death penalty in the case of adultery. All grounds included in British divorce law under unreasonable behaviour.

Also law trumps romance in the example in Deut 21v16 it’s the first wife’s son not the favourite who inherits.

I see a lot of OT law as protective of women who historically until the last century and nearly worldwide would struggle to survive in many settings without male support. (Though there are notable exceptions when it comes to cities, yay for Rahab, and one example in Numbers when the daughters of a man were allowed to inherit when there was no male heir, but not allowed to marry outside the family so the lands wouldn’t be lost). My feelings don’t come into the matter, that’s just how it was. A pastor we knew who worked in remote villages in Nigeria had all sorts of challenges when women came to the Lord and were thrown out by family. There’s little or no work for a lone woman except as witches or prostitutes.

Even the importance of having a son was provision for his mother. If the father dies she’d still be able to live on the land and it not be parcelled out to other relatives and her potentially kicked out.

It strikes me oh so forcibly that over and over again the judgements against Israel were because they didn’t look after manless women and children. I think our social security system is such a blessing in that respect.

On a more idealistic level there's Priscilla and Aquilla the apostolic couple who were clearly both involved in the ministry.

And of course last but definitely not least is Christ and the church. I have found little helpful detail to help work out about our marriages as the pictures change in Revelation so the person on a white horse with a red robe who has King of Kings and Lord of Lords written on him as well as Word of God and Faithful and true becomes a lamb and the bride is the city dressed as a bride. The Ephesians 5 reference to the bride is about Christ helping her have beauty/health treatments so she'll be at her tip top best when he presents her to his father. I think allegorising this to talk about holiness issues and husbands would be to stretch the parallel to an unworkable illogical conclusion.

As an additional note I think it could be helpful to point out that not all the words translated as love in the bible refer to erotic love. Seems so obvious but fluffy area lingusitically for the more literal. Infact I'm not even sure if sex is translated as love at all. The main 2 as you well know are brotherly love which is usually qualified by the word brotherly even though it means everyone, it's an adjective, love like brothers and agape which of course is notoriously hard to define and isn't the subject here, says she ducking out of that one.