I’d argue that it happened after he had sex with her . . . And swore . . . And covenanted. Then she was his.
Her lovers had sex with her after her divorce but were never called husbands
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1: When does marriage begin? - Sex
- Thread starter FollowingHim
- Start date
Her lovers had sex with her after her divorce but were never called husbands
Do we know that 'spread my skirt and covered thy nakedness' necessarily refers to sex? If so, what is the difference between those two things conjoined by 'and'? It sounds like an idiom but while I can see how it could refer to sex, I could also see how it could refer to ancient dowry practices.
For example, in Mesopotamia a man would offer rings or bracelets to a woman as a sort of proposal of marriage. I could easily see how a distinctive outer garment might function the same way among an agricultural people and be emblematic of the man's provision.
Bee Gees, anyone?
Or does anyone see John Travolta strutting down the street?
Separate, schmeparate. I'm with you, @ZecAustin. Get out the scales. On one side put all the people you know who made covenants because they wanted to have sex or continue to have sex with someone (cue up Meatloaf's Todd-Rundgren-produced Paradise by the Dashboard Light) -- and on the other side put all the people you know who made covenants with people they didn't want to have sex or children with (and also followed through on the covenant with that pattern of not having sex). We can pretend that the genital comingling and the covenants we make with people we comingle genitals with are distinctly separate events, but I guarantee you the statistical correlation will be off the charts. Even in cultures in which marriages are arranged by parents, the brides are prepared beforehand to be mightily enticing to their upcoming mates, while the bridegrooms are prepared to be gentle and attentive. And I'm not talking about the manner in which they sign together on the dotted line.
Where there's only one thing we're dancing to a different drummer on Keith, you're grooving to The Bee Gees and I'm preening to ABBA's Dancing Queen. You are way manlier than me.
Oh no, I did do The Bee Gees didn't I? Whew, I was starting to question my lifestyle choices for a minute.
I don't see where she was divorced.
Actually, I originally thought you were mixing up Leo Sayer and Bee Gees, but you ended with, "Dancing, yeah!" and I was immediately seeing Saturday Night Fever in my mind.
As well as imagining you spinning around in your red boots! But I don't mind mixing up that image with you singing, "Having the time of your life . . ."
I think I’m gonna admit I’m not sure what you’re trying to say with this. Could you restate please
Sure:
a. The covenants are inseparable from the sex. The evidence is in the imbalance between the huge numbers of those who make covenants in order to have a legitimized ongoing sexual relationship and the relative infrequency of those who make covenants with no expectation of that ongoing sexual relationship.
b. Only perhaps in the sense of dividing them by some (when it comes down to it, brief) period of time can we trick ourselves into seeing the sex and the covenant as two 'separate' events. They go together, well, like, "Love and Marriage, go together like a horse and carriage."
c. When preparing for marriage, prospective mates have to be structured or reminded to fully prepare for all the non-sexual aspects of marriage like how to raise children, how to resolve conflicts and even how to form legal agreements, but neither they nor their family members (most especially in the case of the tradition in some cultures of arranged marriages) have to be prompted to prepare or the sexual aspect of marriage.
All three of these givens are strong evidence that the sex (or, at the very least, the anticipation of near-immediate sex) is the precursor to marriage. Without sex, men and women would form covenanted relationships only in very rare instances.
Agreed, however, this does not necessarily mean the inverse is true. That the act of sex automatically equals covenant.
@vv76--I've heard that the act of sex constitutes a "blood covenant", though that aspect has not been mentioned in the above thread. It seems this thread is merely touching on 1.) a written covenant between father/bridegrooom and/or bride/bridegroom OR 2.) an oral covenant between same listed individuals. Can you comment on the possibility of the existance of a "blood covenant" being established at the juncture of a sexual union. I've also heard that a blood covenant has a much stronger and deeper meaning than written or oral. In ancient cultures, "blood" anything was extremely strong, binding, and important.
One could as well say...
The covenants are inseparable from cohabitation. The evidence is in the imbalance between the huge numbers of those who make covenants in order to have legitimized ongoing cohabitation and the relative infrequency of those who make covenants with no expectation of that ongoing cohabitation.
Oh where to go with this?
I could point out that logic which proves too much isn't very sound. Just because sex is part and parcel to marriage does not mean having sex is synonymous with instantiating marriage.
Or I could say I just proved Gen 2:24; 'leave AND cleave'. Ya, it takes more than just sex. And most people realize this; in real life no one thinks you're married to that fling you had in high school. To say so makes a mockery of the idea of marriage; which is a whole lot more than plugging a hole that one time. Part of the problem here is the modern paradigm that is all about love and sex while at the same time denying the husband any authority over his wife. The most fundamental changes at the time of marriage are the transfer of authority from father to man and the start of sexual relations.
Or I could draw an analogy to owning a house. What is the difference between an owner and a squatter? You can say they both 'live' there. But only one legitimately lives there. And the difference is the contract. You might be legitimate owner, but not if you enter the house before (or after) the purchase contract stipulates.
This brings to mind a certain passage about a man (not her groom) having sex with a virgin girl betrothed to another in Deut 22:22-28. She is a virgin, yet betrothed to marry (i.e. there was an exchange of dowry and contract). So far as the punishments go, she is treated as a wife. Furthermore while he has not had sex with his betrothed, she is still called his wife (literally when speaking to the transgressor, "your neighbor's woman"); because there had been a contract.
Sex=marriage does not make sense here because she has not yet had sex, yet is treated as if married.
I think you may have something here, but IMO it would be a very limited scope, i.e, with a virgin, and it would require intent and consent from both parties. Otherwise its either rape or fornication IMO. Just because a virgin decides she wants to fool around and try it out doesnt make her married IMO. There’s an epidemic of this in our society unlike the society of Biblical description. Even then, there were young women who played the harlot in their fathers house, they weren’t considered married unless the John was willing to pay for her and cover her. If they were not willing, she was burned when it was discovered
Hi, @Verifyveritas76!
I'm responding to your post, but I could just as well have used a number of other ones to make the same point: there is a bit of a straw man being strung up here each time someone says, "Stop saying sex equals marriage." The thread is "When does marriage begin?" -- NOT "What is equal to marriage?"
Unless I've missed something, I'm hearing no one make the assertion that sex equals marriage or even that every time someone has sex they're married to that person under every definition of marriage that ever has existed, exists at the present, or ever will exist. Nor is your assertion,
the inverse of the one I made:
The logical inverse of my assertion would be, "Except in very rare instances, men and women would form covenanted relationships when sex is a crucial part of the equation." It's changing the subject to conflate a conversation about covenanted relationships (marriages) with prostitution, shacking up, disrespectful immature disregard of fellow high school students, or adultery. Again, the topic is, "When does marriage begin?," with an assertion that sex is when it begins. No one should confuse that with cohabitation, especially given that the argument that it isn't a marriage until one makes the covenant has historically been the weasel strategy for considering long-term getting-the-milk-without-having-to-buy-the-cow-cohabitation to be entirely moral.
Maybe some folks believe that engaging in sex should always result in marriage -- or that marriage is the one and only legitimate framework for sexual activity -- but I don't think I could find anyone who believes that every instance of sex between a man and a woman equals marriage, so it's just a straw man argument to assert that that piñata is what's being proposed, and then knock it down.
I think I see where you’re coming from, please correct me if I’m wrong.
1. You are asserting that covenant or none, when sex with intent happens, marriage officially starts?
Or
2. You are asserting that covenant or none, when sex happens, with or without intent, marriage officially starts?
Or
3. Prostitution, shacking up, disrespectful immature disregard of fellow high school students, or adultery, it appears that you do not categorize these as marriage, correct?
1. You are asserting that covenant or none, when sex with intent happens, marriage officially starts?
Or
2. You are asserting that covenant or none, when sex happens, with or without intent, marriage officially starts?
Or
3. Prostitution, shacking up, disrespectful immature disregard of fellow high school students, or adultery, it appears that you do not categorize these as marriage, correct?
Quick interjection then run:
Seems to me most folks in most cultures think that most of the time, the oral vows or written contract make the marriage, and then "it's okay to have sex now because now we're married". The sex "seals the deal", perhaps, but the "now we can have sex because now we're married" is pretty robust across cultures (and ties in, I think, with what Keith is saying: they're cutting a deal so they can have sex).
Exit stage left....
Seems to me most folks in most cultures think that most of the time, the oral vows or written contract make the marriage, and then "it's okay to have sex now because now we're married". The sex "seals the deal", perhaps, but the "now we can have sex because now we're married" is pretty robust across cultures (and ties in, I think, with what Keith is saying: they're cutting a deal so they can have sex).
Exit stage left....
OK. Great questions, @Verifyveritas76. My short answer could be to respond, "Yes to what @andrew said about what I said," because that, across cultures and times, has been the dominant motivator for getting married: sex and its byproducts (children, bonding, relief). Bring me the man it didn't dawn on until after he got married that the woman he married was someone he could have sex with, and I'll get him a lucrative advance payment for being willing to be stuffed and mounted by a taxidermist so he can be put on display after death in a museum for rare mammals.
My answers to your questions, though, @Verifyveritas, are much more nuanced. Before answering, however, I believe it is time for full disclosure to remove any mystery about where I'm coming from. I've already posted and shared in multiple ways that I spent about 25 years (from approximately ages 23 to 48) as a non-believing agnostic, sandwiched in between being a devout believer in Christ's Resurrection.
To give those who want to write off my musings on the basis of their coming from a man who has demonstrated more than his share of hypocrisy in the matter, though, I should also share that I've been legally married 4 times, each and every marriage and divorce having occurred during my wasteland years. The first was a long, troubled 8 years that began with vows in which we stated that we did not intend to spend the rest of our lives together and ended with a 5-year custody battle. I was guilty of leaving my 2nd wife for insufficient cause after 1 year and have since invited her to join Kristin and me (she considered for over a year, then declined). My 3rd wife left me after 6 months; I told her when she left I would take her back, no matter when she might seek me out again, and I meant that. I fully intended, at the time of making my 2nd, 3rd and 4th commitments to make them last forever (I'm an open book about all this, but I won't bore you with any further details here). Kristin and I got married in 1987 and are permanently soldered together. The point of all this is to acknowledge that I recognize that some of what I assert could reasonably be considered to be contradicted by my own behavior over the years.
I really can hardly remember a time when I didn't want more than one wife at a time. Additionally, based on mountains of serious Bible reading and study that started as a young kid, I concluded more than half a century ago, after taking everything into account that is said about marriage in Scripture -- most especially that which is attributed as having come directly from God's lips -- that, while the rest of the world has structures for marriage that center around getting permission from authorities in order to legitimize sex and reproduction, in the Divine Word something different is asserted. So, yes, we want to be given Get Out of Jail Free cards for prostitution, concubines, mistresses, employees of Planned Parenthood and high school boys who just can't figure out any other way to make that boner behave, but God seems to make it clear: His rule is that if the two of you lie down together, one covers the other with his 'skirt' and/or the other lets her nakedness be uncovered, and the result is penis-vagina intercourse, that is the beginning of the marriage. Old Testament, New Testament. Sex was designed by the Creator Who Makes No Mistakes, and anyone who fails to recognize that sex is the most powerful dynamite on the planet is a textbook fool.
So, @Verifyveritas, my answer to #1 is a resounding, "Yes." I do not adhere to the belief that asserting a profound difference between a marriage and a covenant is an exercise worth the energy required, as the distinction just becomes differentiating between those who give themselves permission to fail and marriage and those who officially try a lot harder to keep their promises. I'm not saying I think there's something wrong with striving for something with a higher level of commitment, but what I am saying is that the whole covenant idea is just another man-made layer of bureaucracy piled on top of the man-made layer of church-and-state marriage licenses, when we already have enough legitimacy for believing that we should be committed to our spouses, given that God has already spoken on the issue. He provided the framework, He was clear where He stands on what we should do, and what He asserted our responsibilities are is fully within the capabilities with which He endowed us.
Do we fall short of consistently following our Father's directions? Of course we do. We give women money after f***ing them and convince ourselves that that eliminates our ongoing responsibilities toward each other. We tell ourselves that early lovers were just 'practice' and that we were young and stupid. We even justify putting to death the resulting new lives we create with talk about how we have more monumental things to do like getting a degree in music education and having a 1 in 350 chance of ever getting a job with it. But that's just delusion supported by one man-made philosophy or another, when, if we search our consciences after reading God's Word, we don't have to guess about what was really expected of us.
The fact that we provide excuses and/or that we fail to do the right thing every time even when we try doesn't change our (One-True-God-Worshiping) awareness that, when we rock and then roll away, we are disobeying The Rule about Sex and Marriage.
So, yes, I'm asserting that, covenant or none, when sexual intercourse happens, marriage officially starts.
The answer to the "without intent" phrase in #2, though, is, "No." Rape is right at the top of the list of heinous examples of adultery, and, practically speaking, no rapist should be left above ground to whom his victim could be forced to marry.
However, to #3 I answer, "Yes," with certain allowances for working out the often twisted logistics in cases of adultery. There is profound disrespect of both God and the person with whom we engaged in sexual intercourse without a commitment to be permanently bonded. With adultery, the situation would almost have to be negotiated along with other affected individuals in order to determine how to formalize marriage relationships going forward in order to maximize people taking long-term responsibility for their actions. With the others, though, the only reason why people don't take on the marriage commitment after sexual intercourse is that, within a culture, the majority silently agree to wink, nod and look the other way about it. Entirely eliminating those disrespectful sexual behaviors might be a fool's errand, but, on the other hand, behavioral scientists have already provided evidence that re-stigmatizing any of those choices would be an effective deterrent for most people.
And I believe it's always important to avoid conflating conversations about what God wants with conversations about whether or not human beings are going to misbehave. However, just because most of us consistently exceed the posted speed limits doesn't mean that those who set them didn't want us to follow them.
@ZecAustin I got to thinking about this comment of @rockfox and decided to look into this a bit deeper. The phrase about covering her nakedness in this passage (Ez 16) is the exact same phrase (both English and Hebrew) that’s used in Genesis 9 when Noah’s sons cover their fathers nakedness.
So I do not think it’s safe to say that this phrase automatically indicates sex is what’s happening here. Especially since in the context of the passage there are other idioms for having sex like spreading her feet etc. The contrast to this act is in verses 37 & 38 where her husband, the Lord is assembling her lovers and uncovering her nakedness but it is describing not the act of sex but the action of divorce as He removes His covering and judges her as a woman that has become a covenant breaker and breaking wedlock. With this in mind, the earlier mention of covering her nakedness most likely refers to the act of placing her under his protection by symbolically covering her with a cloth or garment rather than having sex with her.
I’m taking a quick lunch break now so I’ll try to do some more studying on this later. The baptism after the covenant is interesting. I’m wondering if what’s being described here follows a Jewish wedding ceremony. If it is, the location of the baptism re pre or post sex would be definitive.
Deuteronomy 22 is the closest I ever got to questioning the whole "sex equals marriage" proposition. The first time someone showed me that verse I almost recanted and repented.
However, it doesn't quite apply to
this debate. The claim is that sex always forms a one flesh relationship. Deuteronomy 22 doesn't really address this. It simply extends the penalties of adultery to betrothal. I know I can be accused of hair splitting here but really the passage itself seems to hold the betrothal in a different light, not describing it the same way as a full blown one flesh relationship.
Be that as it may, there is still nowhere in Scripture described how to make a covenant to form a marriage. There isn't one described in conjunction with a marriage. It simply isn't there. Certainly Joseph thought there was something special about sex since he refused to have sex with Mary until after Jesus was born.
I have had this debate a number of times now and it never changes. What we call marriage the Bible calls one flesh and you cause that to come in to being every time you lay with a harlot, how much so a woman who is not a harlot?
I would say there is an epidemic of adultery and divorce in this country. I don't see anywhere there is an epidemic of people assigning to much importance to the meaning of sex.