Tion

The history of marriage, in the extent which here concerns us, is the history of a Semitic institution which by natural development had reached a comparatively excellent form, and which, under the successive influences of Juda- ism and Christianity, was gradually improved and perfected.

The fresher problem relates to the evolution of Hebrew marriage anterior to its con- tact with OT revelation; and the difficulty is to do justice, neither more nor less, to the theories which have been propounded as to the early his- tory of marriage, and which at certain points claim biblical support. 1. OT VESTIGES OF PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE.— The scriptural account of the origin and history of marriage cannot satisfy the thorough evolutionist.

According to the biblical representation, its per- fect type was exhibited in the union of the first pair, upon this followed a declension to im- are forms and sexual licence, and_ finally hristianity summoned mankind to realize the ideal by reverting to the divinely instituted original.

But on evolutionary principles the ideal is to be found, not at the be nning but at the end —if anywhere ; and the problem is to show from what base beginnings, under what impulses, and by what stages, marriage as we understand it came to be, and to Le entrenched behind the laws. The theory which has served as the basis of the discussion (M‘Lennan, Prim. Mar.)

distinguishes four stages in the development—(1) a state in which the unions of the sexes were ‘loose, transi- tory, and in some degree promiscuous’; (2) the system of polyandry, of which the lowest form is a kind of communal marriage, the highest the union of a woman with a band of brothers; (3) the re- versal of polyandry in the system of polygyny ; and (4) as the result of prolonged experience, and also of changed conditions, an exclusive monogamy.

For a time this scheme was generally accepted as an assured result of anthropological science, but during the last decade it has {πῇ eae to searching criticism, esp. by Starecke and Westermarck, aid has been discredited in various important points. In particular, there is growing incredulity as to the alleged original promiscuity.

Though the poverty of primitive languages in words expressive of relationships lends it some support, the counter- argument is stronger: human nature was suffi- ciently armed with jealousy, if not otherwise, to fight for and secure a better order from the first. As regards polyandry, it is not open to doubt that this form of union has played a part in human history of an importance which was till lately not even suspected.

Still met with in widely remote parts of the globe, the custom of polyandrous marriage was yet more extensively prevalent in antiquity. The recollection of it is preserved in traditions and usages of the progressive nations of the old world, as well as in their notices of the manners of barbarians.

It was doubtless at least one of the roots of the remarkable system of the Matriarchate, of which there are so many traces in ancient law, and which is still maintained by ‘some score of pone representative of all the great regions of the barbaric world.’ But, im- portant as this discovery is, there is a growing conviction that M‘Lennan exaggerated.

Even if it be admitted (and it is not aitmitted by all com- petent authorities) that the matriarchal system was exclusively the outgrowth of polyandrous marriage, the proof would still be far from com- plete that polyandry had been a universal and necessary phase in the evolution of the institution of marriage.

By the Matriarchate, maternal system or ‘mother-right’ is not to be understood a system in which women actually rule (gynekocracy), but only one in which they are rded as con- Stituting the family bond. They determine the recognized relationships, so that maternal relatives are treated as kin, while the paternal are ignored; and names and property are consequently transmitted through the offspring of the female members of the group.

Such a system, M‘Lennan contends, points to a time when paternity was usually, or in a great pro- portion of cases, uncertain. ‘The connexion between these two things—uncertain paternity and kinship through females only— seems 80 necessary—that of cause and effect—that we may con- fidently infer the one where we find the other’ (Prim. Mar.4 126).

This theory as to the origin of the maternal system is doubtless much more plausible than that of Bachofen, the pioneer in the field (Das Mutterrecht, 1861), who supposed that women, disgusted with the licentious primitive customs, rose in rebellion, procured the benefit of a marriage-law, and by their victory won an influence by which they reorganized the whole social life in their own favour. Starcke, however, denies that female descent necessarily points to uncertain paternity.

‘The reckoning of kinshi eat the father only is a fact, yet no one has ever asser' that this is due to uncertainty with respect to the mother’ (Prim. Fam. p. 18). While Hebrew society in OT times represents an advanced stage in the evolutionary scheme, viz. that in which polygyny and paternal govern- ment are the dominant forms, the OT litera- ture has nevertheless been largely drawn upon in the discussion, on the ground that it embodies survivals from the diverse customs of prehistoric times.

The evidence for a prehistoric stage of poly- androus marriage among the ancestors of the Hebrew stock is of no great weight. Most stress has been laid on the peculiar custom of the levirate marriage, which M‘Lennan seeks to interpret as a right of succession derived from the special form of polyandry in which a family of brothers have a wife in common (Prim. Mar.? 163), but this explanation is viewed with growing disfavour.

Some use has also been made of the observation that the Hebrew words for brother, sister, and father occur with considerable latitude of meaning (οἵ. especially 2x with root-meaning ‘nurturer,’ thence ‘progenitor’ and even ‘hus- band,’ Jer 34; W. R. Smith, Kin. and Mar. p. 118) —the suggestion being that this points back to a time when paternal relationships were not distin- guished because not ascertainable.

It may, how- ever, be safely said that these arguments would carry no conviction were it not for the assertion that an early stage of polyandry is proved to have been traversed by the kindred stock of the Arabs (ὁ... And even the assertion that Tibetan polyandry prevailed among the early Arabs is only made in the modest form that it meets all the conditions of a legitimate hypothesis, and that the conditions under which this type of sexual relationship arises were actually present in Arabia (p.

124). Phe evidence for the operation of the so-called matriarchate or ‘mother-right’ is of much greater weight, though some of the arguments are far- fetched and weak. (a)The custem of tracing descent through the female line may have survived in the distinction which long continued to be drawn between paternal and maternal relatives, with the consequence that marriage was allowed with a sister- german, a father’s sister, a brother’s daughter, etc. (see Bars of Marriage).

From the same point of view A bimelech seeks assistance against his brothers from ‘the family of the house of his mother’s father,’ and urges the plea, ‘Remember that I am your bone and your flesh’ (Jg 9'°).

Agreeably to the same system, under which the uterine brothers have special duties of guardianship, we find that Laban is prominent in the negotiations about Rebekah’s marriage (Gn 24”), and that Simeon and Levi avenge the wrongs of Dinah (343), In the patriarchal history the family-tree of the two allied families in Syria and Palestine is worked out with reference Milcah and Sarah (Fenton, 264 MARRIAGE Early Heb. Life, p. 7).

* The force of much of this is indeed weakened by the obvious consideration that under a system of polygyny it is absolutely necessary for purposes of distinction to give promi- nence to the mother, and in case of domestic troubles to seek help of her kindred; but enough remains, especially in the matter of permitted degrees, to justify the belief that the Hebrew history contains fossil remains of the matriarchate.

(6) The allegation that among these vestiges we are to reckon the so-called beena marriage, made simultaneously by M‘Lennan and W. R. Smith, and since repeated with the utmost confidence, really rests on a most precarious foundation. ‘In beena marriage,’ to quote the former (Patr. Theory, Ρ 42), ‘the young husband leaves the family of 1is birth and passes into the family of his wife, and to that he belongs as long as the marriage subsists.

The children born to him belong not to him, but to the family of their mother. . His marriage involves usually a change of village; nearly always (where the tribal system is in force) a change of tribe.’ Of this custom an example is furnished, it is said, in Jacob’s marriage (Gn 29 ff.) He becomes a member of his wives’ group, he buys his place by service, and Laban claims the wives and children as his own (31%).

What has been overlooked is that Jacob is represented as a fugi- tive from vengeance, who was not in a position to bring his wife into his own family, and that there is a design to exhibit Laban as a grasping and churlish person; and in the light of these facts Jacob’s marriage appears to be merely an excep- tional arrangement with a hard man, to which he was driven by stress of circumstances. A further proof is discovered by W. R.

Smith in the phrase ‘go into’—a relic, as he thinks, of the time when the husband literally left his home to join his wife, while the same practice had its visible monument in the long-continued custom of pitching a special tent for the consummation of marriage (Kin. and Mar. pp. 176, 291). More impressive is the M‘Lennan-Smith suggestion, widely accepted by later writers, that it is beena marriage which is indicated in Gn 2% in the words(of Adam [Del.]; of the narrator [Keil, Dillm.])

: ‘ therefore shall (doth) a man leave his father and his mother, and shall (doth) cleave unto his wife ; and they shall be (are) one flesh.” What is here contemplated, it is said, is that the man leaves the household, the family, of his birth and is adopted into his wife’s kin. Now in interpreting the verse the first question which we have to ask is, What was the sense which the narrator intended to convey?

And what seems quite certain is that it cannot have been the inten- tion of a writer standing on the confines of the propucticel period to give his sanction, if not that of Adam, to a form of marriage which was obso- lescent if not obsolete. If it be admitted that in the historical period ‘the man is the head of the family, and of the wife, who is transferred from her family to that of the man’ (Nowack, Arch. i. p.

153), 1t cannot be supposed that the purpose of J was to revive the aitasieaiiead and discredited type of family life. Much more likely is it that the command to leave father and mother and cleave to one’s wife was directed against some loose form of marriage which does not involve the founding of a home, e.g. the so-called mota type, in which the husband’s association with his wife is limited to occasional and clandestine visits (ef. Samson’s marriage).

There remains, indeed, the possibility that the saying ‘therefore shall a * In the name of Eve, which he connects with hayy (a group based on female kinship), W. R. Smith finds a recognition of the fact that female descent had been the original system (Kin. and Mar, p. 177); while, according to Stade, the older tradition was that the twelve tribes were descended from twelve wives of Jacob (ΟΡ. MARRIAGE man,’ etc.

, while employed by the narrator as suitable to express his own idea, was an ancient form of words, and that as first coined it sanctioned and commended deena marriage. But it is rather unlikely that the characteristic formula of one system should have been cherished by the rival system which displaced it.

In general it must be granted that in prehistoric times deena marriage may well have existed; but it must also be said that no direct conclusive evidence of such marriage can be drawn from OT sources. 2. FORM AND DUTIES OF MARRIAGE ΙΝ OT T1MES.—(1) The Form of Marriage.—The iy ical, though, of course, not the exclusive form of Hebrew marriage in historical times was polygyny.

It emerges as an early and firmly established insti- tution; and the interest centres in the attitude taken up towards it by the OT religion, which as Law re- gulated it, and as Prophecy began to undermine it. The practice of polygyny is vouched for through- out the whole of the period in question.

It appears as patriarchal usage: Abraham has a principal wife and two secondary wives (Gn 16° 251), Jacob has two wives of each class (29%-%° 3049), It was practised by at least some of the Judges (Jg 8* 9°), and in the cases of David and Solomon it comes in to account for their personal backslidings, and for the troubles and calamities of their reigns (2 αὶ 5, 1 Καὶ 11’), From these examples it is clear that it was customary for exalted persons to take several wives —whether from a desire for a numerous progeny, or with a view to strengthen themselves by influential connexions, or even to satisfy what were deemed the requirements of their position.

Butit might still be open to question whether the practice was at all general. Great importance accordingly attaches to the mention of Elkanah (1S 1'), who was doubtless representative of alarge class. Weare also justified in supposing that the peasant and the shepherd aaunlte supplied ΠΟ ΘΙΡΗΞ with two wives, or with a wife and a coneubine. And this is confirmed by the implication of bigamy in Dt, which gives us a glimpse of the strained relations within the bigamous family (215% ; ef.

Nowack, Arch. i. p. 158 f.) The wide prevalence of polygyny and bigamy becomes a certainty when we reflect upon the position of the female slaves in the Hebrew family. These were the property of the man, in the full sense of the word; and unless his establishment was on the scale permitting of the inter-marriage of slaves, they naturally πεῖν the coneubines either of himself or of his sons.

The recognized limitation of this right which is indicated, is that he could not appropriate a slave belonging to his wife except on the initiative of the latter or at least with her consent (Gn 1678), These slave- concubines were supplied from various sources— especially in sale by impoverished Israelitish parents, or as booty of war. The foreign origin of one name (δε, ef.

πάλλαξ) has been supposed to point to an extensive traflic, through the medium of the Pheenicians, in this class of slaves (Nowack, i. p. 159; cf. on the name and position of the concubine, art. FAMILY). The measures taken for the legal regulation of polygyny pursued two main objects. In the first place, there is some evidence of a purpose to con- fine the practice within narrower limits. The Deut.

code, voicing the sense of the calamities it brought upon royalty and the nation, forbids kings to ‘multiply wives’ (Dt 17"). With this censure of royal licence is closely connected, as has been acutely pointed out (art. ‘Marriage’ in Smith’s DB), the contumelious treatment of the eunvch-state, which is a presupposition of the system.

But the purpose to which the law ad- dresses itself with most earnestness and particu- larity is the protection of the interests of the MARRIAGE several wives, and the amelioration of the con- dition of the slave-wives. The oldest code deals with the case of the Israelitish woman who has been purchased for a slave-wife, asserts her title to the three conjugal rights, and provides that if these are withheld she must be set free (Ex 217").

Inci- dentally it refers to the wife of the Hebrew slave, and humanely enacts that the two must not be com- pulsorily separated: when the time of emancipa- tion arrives, the wife in one instance follows the husband, in the other he may elect to remain with her in slavery (2155), The cause of the foreign slave captured in war is maintained by Dt.

She is to be allowed a month of mourning, and her master, after living with her as his wife, is for- bidden to sell her (21°), A fourth case would be that in which there were two wives of equal standing ; and in this instance Dt interposes in the interest of the wife who may have lost her husband’s affection, and insists that her son, if the first-born, shall receive his due portion * (νν.

}5 1, The same spirit inspired, and to some extent the same end was accomplished by, certain provisions restricting the right of divorce (see below). To those enact- ments little was added by the later legislation, except that the ritualistic requirements may have militated against polygyny by enforcing a rule of continence within the pale of marriage (Ly 151%). A spirit of protest against the whole system, and the promise of more drastic reforms, is dis- coverable within the prophetic school.

In opposi- tion to existing practice, J sounds the significant note that in the beginning it was not so. Accord- ing to the antique mode of thought, to say that the first man had one wife only, was as much as to say that ΤΛΟΠΟΡΈΧΟΥ, was the ideal system ; and it is no accident that according to the same narra- tive, which is deeply conscious of the disturbance and corruption introduced by the Fall, polygyny first makes its appearance in the lawless ine of the Cainites (Gn 4%).

It is, further, not without significance that Noah, the second father of the human race, also represents monogamy (Gn 77). And it is noticeable that there is an apologetic strain in the references to patriarchal olygyny : the bigamy of Abraham is explained Ὁ Baek 8. de- sire for children (Gn 16%), of Jacob by the deceit of Laban (29%).

Of still greater importance than this class of incidents is the circumstance that monogamous marriage was extensively used in the prophetic teaching as the symbol of the union of God with Israel (Hos 2, Is 50 etc., see below), while polygyny had its counterpart in idolatry.

The imagery shows that monogamous marriage was felt to be the highest form, and on the other hand the detestation of idolatry naturally strengthened the dislike of the form of marriage by which it was so eloquently typified (Hamburger, art. ‘ Vielweiberei’). (2) The Wifely Status and Conjugal Duties.

— In OT times various circumstances tended to depress the status of the wife—the logic of the patriarchal system, the custom of the ‘dowry,’ which suggested property, and the institution of polygyny, which divided her legitimate influence among several claimants.

In theory she was the “owned one’ (adiy3), while the husband was the ‘owner’ (5x2, ]7x, see FAMILY), and in the Deca- logue she is numbered with his possessions (Ex 20"), And in certain strata of the population the practice doubtless largely corresponded to the theory— the wife being httle more than chattel and over- driven drudge. But among the wealthier classes the wife had no small liberty of action (1S 9518, 2 K 453).

And where a woman possessed exceptional capacity, * Favouritism was also discouraged by historical examples, which suggested that childlessness was ordinarily the judgment upcn the preferred wife (Gn 801,1 5. 1%).

MARRIAGE or knew how to increase her husband’s affection, she asserted her title to a very different status The wives of the patriarchs are not only consulted in matters of importance, but often impress us as accomplishing their purpose by their superior force of character (Gn 21° 2718. 46), In the period of the Judges the interest centres more than once in a strong woman (4.

17); and in the history of the monarchy there are times when the queen or the dusty oper is the real power behind the throne. rom the description of the virtuous woman in Pr 31 we learn how much influence could be acquired by a wise and energetic wife of the middle rank, and how much she might do to advance her husband's fortunes and to enhance his reputation.

Reference has already been made to the sympa- thetic attitude of the Law towards the wife, and we have to note in addition the bearing of the J narrative of Creation on the wifely status.

It acknowledges that the subject and even servile position actually occupied by the wife is the appropriate one, but suggests that it is the punishment of her initiative in the original transgression (Gn 31°), and thus con- trasts it with the position of a ‘helpmeet’ which was designed by God in creation (2"*). The duties ot the husband were generally recog- nized to include all that is involved in the support of the home.

Incidentally Ex 21'° enumerates as the minimum of obligation the provision of food and raiment, and cohabitation. As regards sexual morality the OT theory as well as frequent practice fell far short of the standard of equality of treat- ment. The chastity of the wife was jealously arded by the heaviest penalties, but custom and aw recognized no parallel obligation of conjugal fidelity as resting on the husband—provided always he respected the rights of other men.

At the same time conjugal fidelity was naturally involved in the loving relations of the husband towards his wife, depicted in more than one touching instance (2S 3). And there is evidence that the Hebrew intelligence, as tutored by experience, came to realize the folly, and through it the iniquity, of all sexual licence (Pr 2).

Still more clear is it that the prophetic conscience was possessed by a deep sense of the abomination of whoredom; and finally a principle which claimed absolute marital fidelity was laid down by Malachi when he taught that neglect and inconstancy have God for their witness and avenger (2-15), The duties of the wife are not so specifically stated. The fundamental ones were chastity and submission (Gn 3.5), with devo- tion to the husband’s family and interests.

And by general consent the standard maintained by the Hebrew wives was high. Many daughters have done virtuously (Pr 31*), and the invectives of Amos and Isaiah only illustrate the principle— ‘corruptio optimi pessima.’ 8. THE LEAVENING BY CHRISTIANITY.—With Christianity begins a new epoch in the history of marriage. The changes which it introduced were due, partly to express enactment of Christ and His apostles, partly to the obvious implications of fundamental Christian principles.

(1) The Christian system involved the adoption of monogamy, and the prohibition of polygyny and bigamy. It is true that there is no direct con- demnation of the latter. And the omission cannot be explained by saying it would have been super- fluous, for, although in NT times monogamy was the rule, polygamy was certainly practised to some extent (Jos. Ant. XVII. i. 3). As in the case of slavery, Christianity, without directly In opposition to the usual view (Selden, Ux, Heb. i.

9), it is ΤΕΥ k hratiams that monogamy had become the settled Jewish custom in Roman times apart from imperial or Christian influence, and that the theory was only tardily brought inte harmony with the established practice by Rabbi Ge 6. 1000 a.p. (Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, ch. vii.) rehom MARRIAGE man from marrying within his own family group, or at least within that from which his mother sprang(Exogamy).

Usually at an earlier but some- times at a later period of the social history there is found the opposite custom, which forbids mar- riage outside the group (Endogamy). When the family comes to be superseded in important fune- tions by the State, both obligations are naturally relaxed ; a man may marry either within or without his ancestral stock, and only near relationships continue to be recognized as bars to union (Post, Stud. p. 79 ff.) (a) ἜΣ ΕΣ Bars to Marriage.

—When the Hebrews emerge into the light of history, exogamy (if it ever prevailed among them) has disappeared, and endogamous marriage is strongly favoured. That a lively prejudice of this kind existed in earl times is shown in the patriarchal histories, in whic great anxiety is shown to procure wives from the original stock—marriages with cousins being most favoured, while loud protests are heard against marriage with aliens.

In the period subsequent to the settlement in Canaan, racial intermixture was inevitable, and the old sentiment was in danger of being crushed out. Not only did the kings contract foreign alliances (David 28 33, Solomon 1 K 3!

111}, Ahab 1K 16%), but there is reason to believe that national distinctions were lightly regarded by the common people (Ru 14, 2 Ch 248), Israelitish women also married aliens (1 Καὶ 74), but usually, as it would seem, under the condition that their husbands settled in Israel (2S 115, 1 Ch 27), In this matter, however, religious interests were at stake, a halt was called, and the reaction gradually carried the people back to the rimitive position.

In Dt marriage was expressly orbidden with the original inhabitants of Canaan (78, cf. Ex 3418) as the race most likely to debase MARRIAGE 267 the religion and morals of the people; but an ex- ception seems to be intended in the case of Edomites and Egyptians (237). During the Exile and for some time subsequent to it the law had again fallen into abeyance, only to be revived in greater strin- gency under Ezra (9? 10%) and Nehemiah (13%).

The exclusive spirit was fostered by historical examples of the low type of character that sprang from such mixed marriages (Ly 241), (ὁ) Forbidden Degrees of Kinship. —The older custom, which confined marriage within the limits of the family group, had its natural counterpart in lax views as to the bars arising from consanguinity and affinity. Unions qaleraved among other nations were indeed regarded as incestuous, viz.

with a daughter, or with a uterine sister, but, at least as regards relatives on the peters! side, the utmost latitude was allowed. hus, Abraham is repre- sented as marrying a half-sister, the daughter of his father (Gn 20"), and the words of Tamar imply that this was recognized as lawful down to the time of the Monarchy (2S 13%).

As late as the age of Ezekiel, marriage with a stepmother must still have been common (9219), Moses himself seems to have been the offspring of a marriage between a nephew and his paternal aunt (Nu 26%, ef. v.%7). Of these cases the more obnoxious were prohibited in Dt, viz. marriage with a stepmother (27%), a half-sister (ν. 3), and a ΣΟΥ μΕ ΤῚΣ Ἰὸν (ν.3). The list of forbidden degrees is extended in Ly (1877, ef.

204), and largely on the basis of the general principle that paternal relationships rank equally with maternal for purposes of marriage. The following table gives a conspectus of the code— the names of the prohibited relatives being printed in italics, while those about whose identification or otherwise some doubt exists are marked with a 1 (ef. Selden, Ux. Heb. p. 5). TABLE OF FORBIDDEN DEGREES. Paternal Grandfather Maternal Ganneer . | | | Uncle= Wife (ἢ Paternal Aunt (v.

12) | Maternal Aunt (v.18) A former wife ! A former husband A tormer smc Stepinother (v.8)= Father = Mother(v.7) = Stepfather Stepsister? (v.01) ¢ Paternal half-sister (v.%) Maternal half-sister (v.9) Father-in-law Τ Mother-in-law (v.17) | | Brother=Sister-in-law (v.18) Man = Wife=A former husband. Living wife's sister ? (v.18) | | Stepson Stepdaughter ? (v.17) | Son= ΤΡ eee (v.15) Daughter=Son-in-law Granddaughter (ν.10) Granddaughter (v.19) Stepson's daughter (v.17) Stepdaughter’s daughter (v.

1") Various problems arise out of the table of prohibited degrees. (1) The prohibitions of marriage with sisters are somewhat obscure. The obvious sense of v.® is that it forbids marri. with a half-sister, whether on the father’s or the mother’s side, and v.11, which prohibits ‘ the father’s wife’s daughter, begotten of thy father,’ simply repeats the prohibition of a half-sister on the father’s side.

While the prevalence of the custom (sanctioned as it was by Abraham's example) and the gravity of the evil might justify the repetition, the interposition of different matter in v.10 makes it probable that a fresh case is contem- plated. The most plausible interpretation of v.U is that, in addition to the half-sister of v.

¥, it prohibits the daughter of a man’s stepmother by a previous husband, This result has been gotin two ways—either by By fare the phrase ‘ begotten of thy father’ as an interpolation, or by (illegitimately) treating the participle ΠῚ) as active, with the meaning ‘ who hath borne children to thy father’ (Bohl, Contra Matr. Comprivignorum ; οἵ. Michaelis, ii. 107). Another view is that v.11 is to be taken as withholding the half-sister, and that v.

9 (where read not ‘or’ but ‘and’ the daughter of thy mother) would point to the full sister. Keil (Comm. in loc.) finds in the text as it stands a dis- tinction—that in ν.}} the prohibition refers to a son by a first , whereas v.® treats of the son by # second marriage. This, however, involves no difference of relationship, though ibly some difference of status on the part of the half-brother. t is unfortunate that the most satisfactory explanation which connects v.

11 with the stepmother’s daughter by another hus- band requires alteration of the text. @ A second difficulty arises from a group of three ambiguous prohibitions which might be rded as referring either to olygamous Or monogamous marriages. Marriage is prohibited ἴω) with a stepdaughter (v.17), (Ὁ) with the daughter of a step- son or stepdaughter (ἐὁ.), and (c) with a wife’s sister (v.

15); but is the decease presupposed in (a) of the wife who is the girl's mother, in (Ὁ) of the wife who is the girl's grandmother, in (6) of the wife whose sister is mentioned? In case (δ) it is possible that the original wife is dead, and the same may fairly be held in case (a); but in case (c) it is certain that the wife is alive, and that what is forbidden is a special type of bigamy. The discussion of this brings us to the more famous problem.

(8) Marriage with a deceased wife's sister is certainly not directly forbidden. The actual words are, ‘thou shalt not take a woman to her sister, to be a rival to her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her lifetime’ (τ. 15. The AVm suggests translating ‘one wife to (Le. in addition to) another’ instead of ‘ to her sister’—in which case we should have a direct, 5.....} MARRIAGE prohibition of bigamy ; but modern scholarship has not been able to sustain this.

The Mosaic law was not anciently under- stood to preclude marriage with the sister of a deceased wife. It was declared lawful by the Talmudists, and it was even encouraged by removing or ee ea in this special case the conditions governing the remarriage of a widower. The oe tion to it began among the Jewish sect of the Karaites, whose origin is traced to the 8th cent.

of our era, and whose leading pone was the Protestant one of fing behind the accumu- ated traditions and decisions of the Rabbis to the written word, with the accompanying proviso that Scripture was to be inter- — by Scripture. In the case before us the plain sense of ripture is that no objection is raised to marriage with a wife's sister if the former is deceased, and the argument against it is consequently constructive.

The argument may be summarized as follows : τ Marriage is interdicted with those that are near of kin (Ly 18°); (2) ‘near of kin’ are shown in the legislation to include, along with mother, daughter, etc.

, sisters and half- sisters ; (3) the wife's ‘ near of kin’ are to be regarded as standing in the same relationship to the husband, and that because (a) it was declared in the primordial decree that the twain shall be one flesh (Gn 2%), and (Ὁ) the principle is conceded and exempli- fied in other instances—e.g. in the prohibition of marriage with a deceased wife’s granddaughter (v.17) (Selden, Ux. Heb. i. 3ff.

, where are set forth the various arguments of the different Karaite teachers, who, however, agreed in the conclusion, ‘Uxoris soror, tam ea demortua quam superstite, in vetitis habenda’). But the πὸ ye is unsound. If the question be to determine whether the Mosaic law sanctions marriage with a deceased wife's sister, we must adhere as closely as possible to the statute, and, as we have seen, the object of the relevant clause is something quite different—the regulation of bigamy.

If we fall back on the principle underlying the prohibitions we do not settle the matter, for it is not clear that the principle is theoretically adopted of treating the wife’s near of kin as if they were the Teabanie ; rather it would seem that this guidance is followed only in so far as it was necessary on grounds of ex- pediency—e.g.

in the case of the stepdaughter or granddaughter who would be living (unlike the sister) in the man’s family, and who would thus, as a possible wife, be in an obnoxious position.

Various other extensions of the forbidden degrees specified in Ly have been made—notably in barring marriage of an uncle with a niece, and of the nephew with the widow of his maternal uncle ; and, as in these instances, the problem of the deceased’s wife's sister falls to be settled in accordance with the circum- stances of a given age and the teaching of experience. (4) The rationale of the forbidden degrees has been variously interpreted.

The following isa summary of the older explana- tions (cf. J. D. Michaelis, Mos. Recht (Eng. tr.) ii. p. 53 ff.) The cases in which marriage is disallowed in the Mosaic law have been supposed to be proscribed as those (a) which are repugnant to the natnral sentiments of mankind (horror naturalis), or (Ὁ) which .

-ad to the physical degeneration of a stock, or (c) which tend to the agprandizsment of particular families by the concentration of wealth and power, or (61) which are subversive of natural rights—e.g. degrading an aunt from her due rank, and elevating a stepdaughter above her proper position.

Without denying a certain influence from these con- siderations, Michaelis himself argues with great force that the real reason of the prohibition of marriages among near of kin is, that, ‘ considering the free intercourse that such persons have with one another, some of whom, besides, live from their infancy in the same house, it would be impossible to prevent the presence of whoredom in families, or to guard against the effects of very early cormuppion among young persons if they could entertain the least hope of throwing a veil over st impurity by subsequent marriage’ (ii.

p. 68). In recent times the whole subject has been re-examined from the evolutionary point of view, with the result of showing that every system of forbidden degrees has been a growth to which something has been contributed by successive forms of social organization, and which has been dominated at different periods by different ideas.

Of the Levitical system we may say that it has as its nucleus a list of prohibitions inherited from the maternal type of family organization, and that it has extended these in general (though not doctrinaire) accordance with the demands of the patriarchal system, and with a keen instinct for the interests of domestic and social purity. The penalties for violation of the forbidden degrees were proportioned to the gravity of the case.

In Dt those forming the three types of in- cestuous union there specified (27° +) have a curse laid upon them. In Ly 20 capital punish- ment is decreed against the partners in three cases of incestuous intercourse or marriage, viz. with a stepmother (v."), a daughter-in-law (v.™), and with a woman whose daughter has already been taken by the man as his wife (v.14). The same may be assumed in the possible cases of still deeper guilt.

The mode of death was probably stoning, and in the case of the last group of ofienders it is provided that their corpses shall be burned. The penalty for marriage with a half-sister was excom- munication (v.!7). In another group of cases, viz. intercourse or marriage with an aunt (v.’*), an MARRIAGE uncle’s wife (v.”), and a sister-in-law (v.™), the culprits are left to the vengeance of Heaven, with the added menace in the last two cases that ‘they shall be childless.’ (c) Official Restrictions.

—In OT certain restric- tions are imposed upon the sacerdotal class. A priest was forbidden to marry a harlot, or a fallen woman, or a divorced person (Lv 21’); the high priest was not even allowed to marry a widow (v.44), It was not, however, held by the Talmudists that the latter enactment required a high priest, on his elevation, to divorce a widow whom he might have previously married or betrothed (Selden, Ux. Heb. p. 46).

To this closer fencing of married life in the case of the OT priesthood there is a certain analogy in the NT provision that the bishop shall be the husband of one wife (1 Ti 33), and likewise the deacons (ν.}3). The interpretations of this much disputed enactment are as follows: (1) It provides that the bishops and deacons shall be monogamists.

But, even if it be assumed that polygyny was still practised among the Jews, it is unlike y that it was re iueeited among the Jewish Christians; and 1 Ti 5° is decisive, as, similarly interpreted, it would mean that no woman living in polyandry was to be enrolled among the widows. (2) It dis- qualifies for office a man who has been more than once married, and prohibits him after his appoint- ment from contracting a second marriage.

This view derives strong support from the fact that it was embodied in the current opinion of the patristic Church, and was reinforced by the decision of Councils (Plummer, Cath. Epp. in ‘Expos. Bible’), and it would doubtless have been more generally adopted but for the prejudice created by existing practice.

At the same time it is right to observe that the admission of this interpretation does not involve the permanent condemnation of second marriage on the part of the clergy, as the reason for the apostolic prohibition might be Bocwliey to the apostolic age.

(3) The regulation isqualifies for office those who had availed them- selves of the rights of divorce which Christ sought to curtail, or (according to some authorities) who had in another way (concubinage, licentiousness) sinned against the marriage law. The suggestion that it was designed to support our Lord’s con- demnation of capricious divorce has lately grown in favour, and must be regarded as at least a possible interpretation. (d) Natal Disability.

—On the score of a taint of birth, a class of person known as 1122 was debarred from marriage with Israelites. ‘A bastard shall not enter into the assembly of the Lord, even unto the tenth generation’ (Dt 285). By ‘bastard’ is to be understood, not a person born out of wedlock,— illegitimacy did not entail any serious penalties under Jewish law,—but one born of an unlawful eee (Driver, in loc.)

Such at least is the plausible interpretation given in the Mishna in a passage which determines the status of children (Kiddushin iii. 12). In a lawful marriage, it is held, the child follows the father ; in an unlawful marriage, e.g. of a high priest with a widow, or of an Israelitish woman with one of the Nethinim, the child follows the party by whom the marriage is vitiated. The offspring of such illegal marriage, it is added, is mop.

(e) Additional marriage-bars that fall to be noted are (1) the physical disqualification of certain mutilated or injured persons (Dt 231); (2) the hereditary disqualification of the heiress who was not allowed to marry into another tribe (Nu 36°°) ; (3) the retributive disqualification, which disallowed remarriage under certain circumstances with a wife who had previously been divorced (see below, Divorce). MARRIAGE 2.

The Levirate Marriage of the OT (levir, brother-in-law, 03; husband’s brother; o2: to per- form the marriage obligation of a husband’s brother ; Talm. m3 the type οὗ marriage ; Gr. ἐπιγαμβρεύω, Mt 22%), formerly treated as a curious anomaly, has been shown by modern research to be widely peel at certain stages of civilization.* ‘The ndamental character of this type of marriage,’ Eile Post (Studien, p.

248), ‘is that a widow is inherited in accordance with the system of kinship dominant among a people, and is married by the heir—whence there then arises the obligation to provide for her and her children.’ In the narrower sense it is defined (as by Starcke, Prim. Fam. p.

141) as ‘the custom which enjoins a man to m the widow of his brother, if he die childless, in order to raise up children to the dead man, to whom the children produced by such a marriage were supposed to Belaaes Obviously, the custom is one which is capable of large modification in detail, and it would seem that even within the limits of OT times there was some shifting of view as to the object of the levirate marriage, and the range of the obligation.

What is virtually an enactment of the levirate law, and that the oldest, is given in narrative form in the story of Tamar and Judah (Gn 38). Here the object of the marriage is ‘to raise up seed’ to the deceased (v.8); the person upon whom the obligation rests is the younger brother, failing whom the next in age (v.*); the issue of the marriage becomes the head of the family (v.™; cf.

Mt 1’) ; and the sanction of the law, the binding character of which is generally admitted, is in the last resort a special retributive judgment (v.?°). In the formal enactment of the Deut. code (25°-!) the ancient custom is similarly motived and as ear- nestly supported, if with some relaxation in detail. The obligation rested on a brother only if he had estate,’ ‘dwelt together’ (i.e. ‘on the same famil Driver) with the deceased (y.

°), and only the eldest son of the new marriage was to be reckoned as the son of the deceased (v.*). On the other hand, the obligation was not superseded if the deceased left daughters (ν. ‘no son,’ as against the Sadducean interpretation in Mt 22%, Mk 1919. Lk 20%). The duty was not legally enforced, but was supported by the resources of public opinion.

A eae evading it publicly forfeited his right—symbolized by drawing off his sandal—and was to be openly insulted by the widow, and condemned to perpetual obloquy (v.*). The Book of Ruth, while certainly referring to the custom, is by no means faithful to the Deut. model.

As judged by Dt, Boaz was under no obligation to wed Ruth unless it should be argued that as Elimelech’s brother (43) he was bound to marry Naomi, and that as the latter was past child-bearing he married instead her widowed daughter-in-law. As a fact, the view taken is that the next of kin, who may be quite remote, is in duty bound to redeem a dead man’s estate and marry his childless widow. Further, as Ruth’s son by Boaz ranks as the son of the latter (ν.

3}), not of Ruth’s former husband, it would seem that the earlier intention of the law is abandoned (Nowack, Arch. i. p. 347, who even argues that in the writer’s view the sole object is the welfare of the widow). It is also noticeable that the repudia- tion, with the ceremony of the drawing off of the shoe, no longer has the ancient stigma attached to it (v.7).

On the whole, it must be said that the book reveals a state of things when the strict law had been found impracticable, but when its principle * The parallel in the Laws of Manu (ch. ix. 59-64) has been often cited. Instances of the custom among other races have been collected by Post, Hinleitung in das Stud. d. ethnolog. Jurisprud, 1866, and Westermarck, Hist. of Hum. Marriage.

MARRIAGE continued to be in a wider way operative, and was favoured as fostering humane dealing and averting the pathetic event of the extinction of a line. The attitude of the later legislation towards the custom is matter of dispute. Certainly Ly (1815 20") forbids marriage with a deceased brother’s wife without any qualification ; and it is therefore held by many modern critics that P designed to abolish this type of marriage as incestuous in the minor degree (Nowack, Arch. i.

346; Benzinger, art. ‘Ehe,’ Real-Encycl.*). In confirmation of this it is pointed out that in this code the estate, failing a son, descends to the daughters (Nu 27). By others the traditional view is still maintained that P lays down the general rule against marriage with a deceased brother’s wife, while Dt specifies the exceptional case (Driver, Deut. in loc.)

It has also been held that the collision of the codes is only apparent, as Lev prohibits illicit intercourse with a brother’s wife, and is not legislating in the passage in question about marriage (Bertholet, Com. on Dae: but erroneously). Whether P in- tended to repeal the special law is a question likely to be determined by subjective considerations.

The famous disputation with the Sadducees clearly im- lies that the levirate law was regarded as binding in the time of our Lord, while it was perhaps even acted on (ἦσαν δὲ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν ἑπτὰ ἀδελφοί, Mt 22°"). In the later period, however, its observance was exceptional: in the language of the Mishna, the dispensation (7*9n) was preferred to the observance (Bechoroth 13a).

Theoretical opposition accom- anied, and the opinions of the Rabbis of the first ge Christian centuries were divided as to its lawfulness—Rabbi Jose declaring it unpermissible even when desired by both parties concerned. The same division of opinion ran through the Middle Ages, though the preponderance of opinion favoured the dispensation (Mishna, treatise Yeba- moth; Surenhusius, ii. ; Hamburger, Real-Encyk. art. ‘Schwagerehe’).

Of the origin and primitive purpose of the levirate marriage various explanations have been propounded. (1) The first group of theories accepts the biblical statement that the object was the procreation of a son or sons who were regarded as the children of the deceased. But on this assump- tion the further question arises, What was the object of the fiction by which the line was con- tinued?

To this the principal answers which have been given are (a) that it was regarded as ἃ calamity (where personal immortality was not realized, a calamity tantamount to annihilation) that one’s line snack become extinct (Dt 25°); (4) that the custom was connected with a system of ancestor-worship, under which failure of offspring entailed deprivation of cherished rites and service.

* Popular, however, as the latter theory is, it assames the influence of a form of religion, for the existence of which in Israel the evidence is of the scantiest. (2) A second theory, propounded by M‘Lennan and supported by W. R. Smith, pushes the question further back and discovers in it a survival from polyandry.

‘It could more easily be feigned,’ says the former, ‘that the children belonged to the deceased brother if already, at a prior stage, the children of the brotherhood had been accounted the children of the eldest brother’ (Prim. Mar. p. 164). And in regard to this view it must θὲ admitted that polyandry may well have left behind such a custom as its legacy. As Starcke observes (Prim. Fam. p. 150), ‘the Levir-child was * An expression of this idea is quoted from the Mahabharata (Muir's tr.)

by Max Miller, Anthrop. Rel, p. 31— ‘That stage completed, seek a wife And gain the fruit of wedded life, A race of sons, by rites to seal, When thou art gone, thy spirit’s weal’ MARRIAGE ascribed to the dead man in virtue of the same ideas according to which, in Tibet, the eldest brother and ruler of the house was held to be the father of all the children of the household.

’ This proves that a system of polyandry may sometimes nave had as an offshoot the levirate marriage, but does not preclude the possibility of its develop- ment in other quarters from other primitive prac- tices and modes of thought—e.g. the exercise of paternal authority in setting aside in certain cases the direct fatherhood (Starcke, p. 151).

(3) Yet again it has been suggested that in conditions where marriage was associated with purchase, and the wife was treated as a chattel, it was natural that she should be claimed by the next of kin as part of the inheritance (Spencer, Principles o Sociology).

Well, however, as this practice is vouched for, the inheritance of a wife by a sur- viving brother is widely removed from the bibli- cal theory, for the essence of the latter is the concession that the younger brother, instead of himself heiring, raises up heirs to the deceased.

(4) Yet again the object of the custom has been found in an agrarian motive, the law being de- signed to keep together under the levirate hus- band the property which would otherwise have been divided among all the brothers (Meilziner, uoted by Starcke, p. 150). But, though at a late ate (Ru 45) the custom was utilized in connexion with the conservation of lands, the evidence points to its having reached back into the nomadic stage of civilization.

On the whole, the question of origin is, and probably will remain, matter of controversy. Widespread as the custom is, it may well have sprung from various roots—according as in one region an ancestor-cult prevailed, in another a system of polyandry had developed, etc.

Where it meets us in Hebrew history it clearly connects itself with the natural desire for survival in pos- [ΣΎ later with the endeavour to perpetuate family property ; and if in spite of the benediction of early tradition and law it gradually fell into abeyance, the cause is to be sought in the growth of the self-consciousness and of the claims of the individual with the progress of society. iii) MARRIAGE PROCEDURE.—1. The System of Betrothal.

—The betrothal, as the first stage in the formation of a marriage union, had a prominent position among the Hebrews, as among other peoples at the same stage of social development. The act of betrothing is described by three Heb. verbs :— 718 (Pi. of [218] ‘ pay the price,’ Dt 207, Hos 219.

20), qy» ( desig- nate’) Ex 218-9, [725] (‘acquire’) Ly 1920; and by one Greek verb —prrersiuy (Mt 118, Lk 127 25), In AV the Hebrew verbs are usually rendered by ‘betroth,’ occasionally by ‘espouse’ (2S 814): the Greek verb is translated by ‘ espouse.’ In RV‘ betroth’ is exclusively used where the reference is to the initial stage (28 314, Mt 118 etc.)

, while ‘ espouse’ is restricted to the passages which imply completed marriage (Ex 218-9), The ceremony of betrothal has no namein OT, The Talmudists refer to it under the names of ]'~7p (consecration), ἢ Ύ ΝΣ (betrothal), and ]’31w (compact) or 0°X3N (conditions). The custom of allowing the individuals con- cerned to arrange a marriage according to inclina- tion is a late and exceptional concession.

In societies in which the family organization is stron and stable the betrothal is treated as a concern Ὁ the family group or of the tribe. The powers are vested in the head of the tribe, or they may be devolved BpSn particular members of a family oup—under the patriarchal system upon the father or nearest paternal relative, under the matriarchal upon the maternal uncle or the eldest uterine brother (Post, Studien, pp. 163, 164). From this standpoint the betrothal is viewed in OT.

In the exercise of his patriarchal function Abraham through a servant negotiates with Bethuel for the hand of Rebekah, and Laban as her brother is MARRIAGE taken into council (Gn 24); Hamor endeavours in treaty with Jacob and his sons to arrange a marriage on behalf of his son Shechem (Gn 34°") ; even the lawless Samson requests his father to srocure for him to wife a woman in Timnah (Jg 145).

The advances, further, were made by the house of the bridegroom, except in cases where the superior rank of the bride’s family justified them in taking the first step (Ex 2”, Jos 15", 1S 1857). Resent- ment was expressed when a man repudiated the rights of the natural guardians and took the matter into his own hands (Gn 264)—a feeling strongly shared by the Arabs, who held it sufli cient ground for withholding a bride (Wellhausen, Die Ehe bei den Arabern, p.

432) ; and the protest= were not unreasonable in view of the interest of the family in the alliance that might be formed, and of the women in the bride with whom in a patriarchal society they were to be so closely associated (Gn 27%), Yet, while the system re quired that the machinery of the family should be employed, it might easily happen, as the cases of Shechem and Samson show, that it might be set in motion by a lover, and the more so that in ancient Israel the association of the sexes was comparatively unrestrained, and naturally led to personal attachments which sought satisfaction in marriage (Gn 2416 291; οὗ, 1S 18%), Among the Hebrews, in any case, the tyranny of family rule does not appear to have dispensed with the con- sent of the parties (Gn 24%), which under this regime is often treated as matter of indifference, at least as respects the bride (Post, Studien, p.

166 ff.) The first important stage in the iseteabiial procedure was the settlement of the amount of the so-called dowry, and the payment or part payment of the same. he dowry of the OT (rnb Gn 3413, Ex 2271S 18% ; cf. Ex 2216, where RV has ‘pay a dowry’) was not a portion brought by the bride into the husband’s family, but a price or ransom paid to the father or brothers of the bride. That this was its original significance is not open to doubt.

In primitive conditions it was naturally claimed as compensation for the loss to a family of a valuable member. Recent research has shown that it was so regarded in ancient times in Arabia (Kinship and Marriage, 68, 78 ff.; Die Ehe bei den Arabern, 433 ff.); and among the same stock it retains this character.

‘An Arab father,’ says Tristram, ‘regards his daughters much as he weal his sheep or cattle, selling them for a greater or less price, according to his rank and fortune and their beauty’ (Hastern Customs, p. 92). And so it appears in OT: Hamor offers to pay for Dinah ‘never so much dowry’ (Gn 341%) ; in Ex 2917 it is referred to as a settled custom. Dt 22” assesses the damages for seduction, which are payable to the father, and thus fixes the amount in one par- ticular case.

For the common people the sum to be paid was doubtless settled by custom, while in the case of important alliances it was matter of negotiation (Gn 34"), The ‘dowry’ was not neces- sarily paid in money or kind, but might take the form of service, as in the case of Jacob (Gn 29) and David (1S 18% ; ef. 17%). With the advance of families in dignity and wealth the ‘dowry’ easily passed into a new stage.

It was natural that a portion, if not the whole, should be appropriated to ensure the com- fort and security of the bride.

A hint of the custom of so diverting a part is given in the com- plait made by the daughters of Laban, when they eclare that he ‘hath sold us, and hath quite devoured our money’ (Gn 31"), In later times the appropriation of the ‘dowry’ to the wife became customary ; it was conserved as capital; and in the event of the death of the husbang, or an MARRIAGE arbitrary divorce, it furnished a useful provision.

A parallel development took place to some extent among the Arabs, as the Koran assumes that the ‘dowry’ falls to the wife (Wellhausen, Die Ehe bei den Arabern, p. 435). The dowry in the modern sense was not cus- tomary, but was occasionally met with. The daughters of wealthy houses at least received handsome gifts: Rebekah brings female slaves with her to her new home (Gn 24"), Laban makes a similar present to Leah (29%).

As a special instance at liberality, doubtless also with some reference to proprietary rights, mention is made of Caleb’s gift to his daughter of a field of springs (Jg 1).

The alliances of the kings with foreign princes furnish examples of the dowry—in one case a princess brings with her a city as her portion ql K ΒΝ In addition to the mohar, there is mention of other gifts which, naturally prompted by the occasion of a betrothal, might be distributed more or less lavishly as a means of con- ciliation or a token of goodwill (5, Gn 3412).

The gift to the bride, which came under this category, was significant of the wealth of the wooer (2453), The latter had its counterpart in the saddk of the Arabs ; and as the bestowal of the saddk came to be treated as part of the marriage ceremony, it is possible that among the Hebrews also it was incorporated in the formal P ure either of the betrothal or of the marriage.

While the settlement and payment (in whole or in part) of the ‘dowry’ was the decisive act in the betrothal, there was probably also an additional ceremony of a more «less formal kind. Of the rocedure various elements appear to be preserved in the narrative of Rebekah’s betrothal (Gn 24). The terms in which she is asked, and gives her consent, in all likelihood preserve an ancient and familiar formula (‘ Wilt thou go with this man ?’ ‘I will go,’ v.

%); and the same applies to the blessing which is pronounced upon her when she is handed over or ‘sent away’ (v.") The conjecture that a ring was given to the bride has no support in the passages referred to (Ex 35%, Is 3”), yet the use of the ring, which plays an important part in the Talmudic formalities, may well have been of considerable antiquity.

In the procedure sanctioned by the Talmudic authorities the bridegroom handed to the bride an article of value, such as a ring, or a written document, adding: ‘ By this ring, etc., may she be consecrated (or betrothed) to me.’ The presence of two male witnesses was required, so that the appropriate bene- dictions might be pronounced on the union.

According to the Mishna (treatise Kiddushin), there were three modes of be- trothal—by the payment of money, by the conveyance of a contract, and by coition; but the third was prohibited by the later Rabbis under penalties (Hamburger, arts. ‘Trauung,’ ‘ Verlébniss’). After the betrothal the bride was under the same restrictions as a wife.

If unfaithful she ranked and was punished as an adulteress (Dt 22™-™); and on the other hand the bridegroom, if he wished to break the contract, had the same privileges, and had also to observe the same formalities as in the case of divorce. The situation is illustrated in the history of Joseph and Mary, who were on the footing of betrothal (Mt 1"). 2. Nuptial Rites and Customs.

—Upon the be- * Among the Greeks the dowry had a similar origin and a rallel Meda eee In the Homeric age it was customary or the father receive a purchase-price from his future son- in-law (71. xi. 244)—hence the expression σαρθίνος ἀλφεσιβοία, the oxen-bringing virgin; and if it was rare for a father to give his daughter gratuitously (&r@sdver), it was reckoned an act of the most signal generosity to offer presents (ieis/se), as Was done by Agamemnon (ix. 146) along with the daughter.

The ancient custom graduall ar , and was referred to by Aristotle as barbarous (Pol. il. 5. 11), but Euripides voices a complaint of the women of later day that it had become the custom that women had to purchase their husbands at a t ee (Med, 282; Derenberg, Dict. des Antig. Greeg. et Rom., ‘aris, 1892, art. ‘Dot’). In Rome from an early period the wife who did not bring with her a dowry was regarded as a concubine rather than as a wife (Plaut. Trinum. iii. 2, v.

73, 5), and it was a duty of cl’ents to make up a dowry for the daughter of a poor patron (%.) trothal followed, after a longer or shorter period, the marriage proper or wedding, the features of which may be collected partly from incidental allusions in Scripture, partly from survivals of ancient custom in Talmudic literature and in the life of the East. The Heb. terms translated ‘marry’ are N29 ‘to take’ (Gn 1914 etc.), in late Heb. xyj (2 Ch 1321 aJ.)

—both with a probable reference to ancient marriage by capture, wx nny ‘to be married’ (Hos 33 ai.), and myxd ey) py ‘to become a wife’ (Nu 863. 6. 11), Sys to ‘become master of,’ expressive of the husband’s authority (Dt 2222 etc.); later 2°v7, lit. ‘make to dwell,’ ‘give a dwelling to’ (cf. Ps 1139), Ezr 102 10. 14. 17. 18, Neh 13°3-27(a/.) ‘To form marriage alliance with’ (lit. ‘to make oneself daughter’s husband’) is 5 ΠΗ Π (Gn 349 etc.)

AV ‘given to marriage’ in Ps 73 is merely a apa ject Heb. ia lit. ‘were not praised.’ In NT γαμεῖν is used of either sex (Mt 582199. 10 etc.) ; also γίνεσθαΐ τιν, (Ro 73), used of a woman, means to be married to a man (RV to be ‘joined to a man’), yaui- extcle:, to be given in marriage (Mk 12%), γαμίζεν, to give in marriage (1 Co 7%). The word translated “espousals’ (Ca 314) comes nearest to describing the subject here discussed.

It is probable that in the early period the prin- cipal if not the only ceyemonies were connected with the betrothal, and that when these were completed the consummation of the marriage might follow at the option of the parties concerned (Nowack, Arch. i. p. 162).

In the case of Isaac and Rebekah the formalities were over with the be- trothal, and on the bride’s arrival at her new home she was simply conducted to her tent (Gn 24°%-), Similarly, whenever David has fulfilled the condi- tions imposed by Saul, he receives Michal to wife (1S 187).

That this was, however, not universal appears from Gn 29*7, The later practice was to draw a clear distinction between betrothal and marriage (Dt 207 28%), to magnify the final fune- tion, and to invest this increasingly with characters of poblictty. and pomp. And in the celebration of Hebrew marriage the most noteworthy point is the retreat of the distinctively Hebrew element. We seem to be in the atmosphere of Hellas rather than of the Holy Land.

There is no evidence that, in the older peried, the proceedings were regulated from the theocratic point of view, or even that they included a religious ceremony: rather is there a tem- porary abandonment to the cult of mere happiness, with its unconsecrated ritual of feasting and song. In the biblical references to the marriage cele- brations two functions stand out prominently—the wedding procession and the wedding feast or mar- riage supper.

As regards the nature and place of the ceremony by which the woman was trans- ferred to the husband (the counterpart of our marriage service), the biblical notices leave us un- informed. The wedding procession naturally fell into two arts. First the bridegroom and his friends may supposed to have marched to the home of the bride, then in a return procession the festal com- pany, reinforced by the bride’s friends, conducted the pair to their future home.

Of the movement and colour of this picturesque drama graphic touches are preserved in Scripture. We catch a glimpse of the garlanded bridegroom in his lead attire (Is 6110), and of his veiled bride surrounded by the friends of her youth (Ps 451" 18); the attendant throng gives vent to its jubilant feelings in dancing and shouting, and songs are struck up (some per- haps preserved in the Song called Solomon’s) which oad the praise of wedded love and of the newly- wedded pair.

The relation of the Apt Sa re to the situation pre- supposed in the parable of the Ten Virgins requires elucidation. ‘More rarely it happened,’ says Nowack (i. p. 163), ‘that a procession poniinrtadi Sie bride to meet the bridegroom as he approached with his friends (1 Mac $7"); in the evening such a procession sometimes took place by lamp and torchlight.

’ The explanation here suggested is that the marriage took place law at night, and that the bride’s company was preparing to sally forth to meet the bridegroom on his first appeararce. It le 272 MARRIAGE MARRIAGE however, plausibly argued by Mackie (Bibl. Manners and Customs) that the parable presupposes that this stage is t.

The bride, he infers from existing custom, has already been conducted to her future home, the bridegroom has subsequently withdrawn to the house of a relative, where he is to stay with his companions till .a late hour ; meanwhile the bride and her companions grow weary, and sleep falls upon them; until at last a clamour in the street heralds the agree of the torch- illumined party, and within all are roused to life and excitement.

‘ Before he arrives the maidens in waiting come forth with lam and candles a short distance to light up the entrance and do honour to the bridegroom and the group of relatives and inti- mate friends around him. These in to the final rejoicing and the marriage supper ; the others, who have discharged their duty in accompanying him to the door, immediately disperse and the door is shut’ (p. 126).

The marriage supper, which took place in the house of the husband, was the great social event in the life of a family, and, where the standing and means allowed it, might be planned on the most lavish seale.

In the parable of the Marriage of the King’s Son we have an example of boundless hos- Re ity, and also an indication of the resentment elt when the invitation was slighted (Mt 22'™), A difficulty in the parable has been met by the con- jecture that persons of high rank further showed their magnificence by furnishing the invited guests with festal robes (ἔνδυμα γάμου).

The wedding at Cana of Galilee gives usa glimpse of the way in which the spirit of hospitality was exhibited in humbler homes (Jn 2"). But, while the same spirit prevailed throughout Hebrew society, it is to be remembered that enone we poorer classes the marriage feast must have been very different from the picture which at the name naturally rises before the imagination.* The scene at the marriage supper is depicted with some fulness of detail.

Now (probably not in the procession) the high-born bride appeared in the full splendour of her bridal array, in a robe embroidered with gold (Ps 45"-14, Jer 9533), which was gathered up by a peculiar girdle adorned with jewels (Is 49), and on her head a crown. Prominent in honour, as they had been in service, were the male friends of the bridegroom (υἱοὶ rod νυμφῶνος, Mt 9°), one of whom was charged with the duties of a master of ceremonies (Jn 28, οἵ. Jn 3%).

From descriptions of later times we can fill out other spaces with panegyric and blessing uttered by the company in song and speech. At the close the bride was con- ducted by her parents to the nuptial chamber (cf. Jg 15). Throughout the whole proceedings it may be noted, as ex laining the deception practised upon Jacob, the bride had remained veiled (Gn 29%).

The duty of preserving evidence of the bride’s antenup- tial chastity, which was enforced in Dt 22'*, was attended to as a safeguard against the slanders of a malicious or inconstant husband. A marriage ceremony, to which proceedings like those described are mere adjuncts, is naturally assumed by us, but the idea is not to be summarily imported into early Hebrew marriage. We are doubtless nearer the mark in regarding the mar- riage supper as being in early times itself the marriage ceremony.

Among primitive peoples the public meal has a quasi-sacramental character ; and it was quite in harmony with this mode of thonght to look on the feast of which bridegroom and bride partook in company with their friends as * The following realistic descrivtion by a modern traveller is of use in this connexion: ‘He foun at the villagers of Schwat- el-Blat were engaged in the wedding festivities of one of the young men of the family. After the reception, etc.

, a huge platter, 6 feet in diameter, made of tinned copper, was brought in, on which was piled a mountain of boiled crushed wheat mingled with morsels of boiled meat. When this had been set in place, a dish of melted, clarified butter was poured over the wheat until it was quite saturated.

Loaves of bread in the form of cakes were placed by the side of the platter, and the guests, rolling up their sleeves, proceeded to help themselves with their fingers, and consumed the provisions, as is usual, in silence. Water and soap were then passed around to the guests, who washed off the remains of their greasy meal, after which coffee and pipes were served ' (Pal. Expl. Fund Quart. St. 1888, p. 204). the rite by which they were definitely placed upon the conjugal footing.

The view is supported by the fact that at a late period the feast was still treated as so essential a pee of the proceedings that γάμος stands oF or the marriage and the supper (Mt 224). Its original significance would thus have been similar to that of the confarreatio —a mode of contracting marriage through a sacri- ficial use of bread anciently practised in Rome. It was, however, inevitable that in course of time a more definite rite should be instituted.

The most natural occasion might seem to be the point at which the bridegroom came to fetch the bride from her parents, but the evidence goes to show that the matter was still in suspense so long as her parents, who accompanied her to the feast, were at hur side. The act upon which attention would readily fasten as the decisive and uniting act was the leading of the bride to her ‘chamber,’ which in the old period was a tent specially erected for the wedded pair.

The central importance of this act is further attested by the cireumstance that the chamber (97) supplied a name for marriage—marriage being described, as it were, as ‘the tenting’ (Wellhausen, op. cit. Ἢ: 444). Out of this other acts would as naturally develop to form a kind of ritual.

From a hint in Mal 2 it is supposed that the pair entered into a solemn cove- nant, and it is also probable that the good wishes of the company came to be crystallized into defi- nite benedictions craving prosperity and ἘΣΘΛΆ After the Exile the ‘covenant’ was embodied in a written contract (To 7! συγγραφή, 73:n2). This somewhat conjectural account of the ancient marriage ceremony would have an important addition could we follow Mackie in interpreting Ps 196 in the light of modern custom.

“At a Jewish wedding,’ he says, ‘ the most interesting feature is the canopy under which the bride; mand bride sit or stand during the ceremony. It is erec in the court or large room of the house where the guests are assembled, and it is made of 1m branches and embroidered cloth. It is suggestive of the ome sometimes seen above pulpits, and gives to the wedding the appearance of a coronation. .

The sight of the robed bride- groom issuing from the canopy (tabernacle) and receiving the congratulations of his friends suggested the simile of the sunrise in Ps 195’ (p, 123). But in early times the Aw, would seem to have been an actual tent (cf. 7] 216), and the canopy described by Mackie (a picture of which is given in Boden- schatz, Kirch. Verfas. iv. p. 126) is doubtless a late ornamental ezection evolved from the old bridal tent.

The wedding festivities which followed wera long drawn out. In ancient times, as still among the fellaheen of Syria, the usual period for the rejoicings was a week (Jg 7). Feasting, music, and dancing, such as celebrated the return of the Prodigal Son, were the staple of the festivities of the season, and we hear of the exercise of the wits by riddles and wagers (1ῤ.)

The ex- pense must have pressed somewhat heavily on the humbler folk—the more so that a marriage seems to have been treated as a festival for the community, and more than one thrifty saw in Pr may well have been suggested by an extravagance that injured the guest with the host. It is prob- able that then as now some contribution towards the cost was made in the case of peasant marriages by the guests themselves (Tristram, p. 93).

One of the most important contributions to this subject is the description of the marriage rejoicings of the Palestinian fellaheen in an article on the Syrian threshing-sledge by Dr. J. G. Wetzstein (Zeitschrift fir Ethnologie, Rae τερον 287 ff.) The following are the principal points. During thr seven days following the wedding the young couple are treated by the villagers as king and queen; the threshing-floor, where they are married, is their court; and the threshing-sledge is their throne.

March is the favourite month. The most pro- minent incidents of the wedding-day are the sword-dance of the bride, and the great feast. On the following day they hold a reception, being greeted first by the best-man (wezir), then by the friends of the bridegroom (seldb el-aris). Then the sledge is transported on stalwart shoulders, with singing of martial or erotic songs, to the threshing-floor.

Here a sta or scaffolding some two ells high is erected, and on this the sledge is placed and covered over with a gaily-coloured carnet on which two embroidered cushions are planted. On this with all pomp the husband and wife are enthroned. A tribunal ie MARRIAGE MARRIAGE posed to include dropsy, Jos. Ant. 11. xi. 6), and is shunned as accursed (v.27); if innocent, she has the compensation of again becoming a re other (v.)

The Jewish law of divorce has a long history, beginning with the early period in which the right of ‘ putting away’ a wife appears as the traditional prerogative of the husband, then passing into the stage in which the exercise of the ae was at least impeded by prophetic protest and legislative enactment, and ending with the effective protec- tion of the wife’s position, alike by the Talmudic jurisprudence and the ethics of the Gospel.

That the power of divorce should have been anciently regarded as a traditional right was in harmony with the general ideas and practice of the time in regard to woman’s status. When compensation was given to the wife’s relatives it was natural to regard her under the point of view of property, and the notion of property involves liberty to alienate it.

In heathen Arabia the continuance of a marriage depended on the hus- band’s pleasure, and Mohammed was content to leave matters on the old footing (Wellhausen, Gott. Nach. 1898, p. 4521). The old Hebrew practice, perhaps also the very procedure, is ex- emplified in Abraham’s dismissal of Hagar (Gn 21%).

From the action of Saul (1S 25%) it might be supposed that the wife’s father had also power to dissolve a marriage, but the transference of Michal to another husband by paternal authority evidently has the aspect of an outrage. * The Deut. code acknowledged the husband’s right of divorce, but guarded against its abuse. To prevent so important a step being taken in the heat of passion, it required him deliberately to write her ‘a bill of divorcement’ (241).

Another check was imposed upon impulsive action by the provision that, under certain conditions, the separa- tion should be final—if, that is, the divorced woman should marry a second time, and should later on be again free to marry (vv.**‘). That this was an innovation may be inferred from the story of Hosea (Nowack, Arch. i. p. 347).

The purely arbi- trary exercise of the prerogative was discouraged by assuming that there was some solid ground of resentment—‘ that she finds no favour in his eyes because he hath found some unseemly thing in her’ (y.1, see below). In certain cases, again, the right of divorce was forfeited by misconduct. The husband who falsely charged his wife with ante- nuptial fornication (22'%1*), and the ravisher of a betrothed virgin (2238. 39), were bound in perpetuity by the marriage tie.

In the school of the prophets the higher conception of woman’s claims, which has some expression in Dt, found more definite utterance. The germ of the Deut. reforms, and of greater than these, was contained in J (Gn 28:35), which in the narrative of the Creation had described the husband as knit to the wife in the most intimate union. It is, however, in Mal that the prophetic spirit definitely breaks with established custom, and declares without qualification that God hateth divorce (218).

God’s disregard of the sacrifices is due, he teaches, to His wrath at men’s treacherous dealing with the wife of their youth (v.’4), In the period following the Exile it would seem that divorce had become very common ; doubt- less the divorce of strange women required by Ezra (9. 10) had reacted upon the general practice, and had retarded and even set k the movement carried forward by the prophets. In the succeeding period interest centred in the question of the precise nature of the Deut.

con- dition justifying divorce, and the vagueness of the language in which the wife’s offence was described gave rise to one of the most famous of rabbinical controversies: What was the ‘unseemly thing’ (22 nny, lit. ‘nakedness of a thing,’ LXX ἄσχημον πρᾶγμα) The account of the dispute is given as follows in the Mishna (Gitfin ix.

10) :— ‘The schoo] of Shammai says, ‘‘No one shall divorce bis wife In the ordeal of the bitter waters (so called as the instrument of a curse) we have doubtless an ancient custom surviving in a modified form, and amended in the interests of good sense and humanity. Similar practices have been discovered among other peoples, e.g.

in Sierra Leone and Upper Guinea, and, according to various authori- ties, in the African practice it is common to employ a deadly poison, when the accused may hope to escape only by the accident of vomiting, or by the surreptitious use of an antidote. In the OT legislation, on the other hand, the case was not prejudged against the accused ; the ingredients of the potion were innocuous, and reliance was placed on exposure through divine intervention.

That the ordeal was at least occasionally efficacious in revealing guilt through the workings of fear and an accusing conscience, need not be doubted. From the long persistence in Christendom of the judicium Dei in various forms (judicium ignis, aqui, panis adjurati, etc.), the last trace of which only disappeared in the 18th century, it may be surmised that the ordeal appeals strongly to human nature. But among the Jews as among the Christians, experience bred doubts as to its trustworthiness.

Sometimes the curse failed to operate, and that although the guilt was morally certain, or was established by later discoveries. Of such miscarriages of justice two explanations were offered. God, it might be said, stayed His hand because adultery had become so common among the accusing husbands that they had lost all claim to justice as against their wives.

* Another reason was discovered in the doctrine of ‘merits,’ and it was suggested that, on the ground of other good deeds, the woman might, if not altogether escape, at least have the punishment deferred. But at all events it was no longer relied upon, and so naturally fell into disuse. v. THE LEGAL DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE.— Divorce (Old Eng. Aiw-gedales, forlaeton, Germ. Ehescheidung) is expressed in Heb. and Gr. by a number of words embodying the idea of dismissal or separation.

The usual Heb. verb is nbw ‘to send away,’ LXX ἐξαποστέλλειν (Dt 22”, Jer 31), and for the peotite of divorce n>v is once used (Mal 916), in the later books xy: occurs in Hiph. (‘make to go forth,’ Ezr 108-19), A divorced woman is 77372 πον (Ly 217, Ezk 44"). The bill of divorce (Old Eng. hiw-gedales b6k, later ‘book of forsaking’) is 759 no? (Dt 24"). In classical Greek the legal terms are ἀποπέμπεσθαι, ἀποπομπή (of the man), ἀπόλειψις (usually of the woman).

In the Greek of NT their place is taken by three verbs: (1) ἀπολύειν, used throughout the Synopt. (Mt 1} 59-8, Mk 1074, Lk 1638); (2) ἀφιέναι, which with St. Paul describes the action either of husband or wife in romoting divorce (1 Co 7! 1, cf. Rey 22), but in ynopt. has the meaning of ‘leaving’ a wife at death to another (Mt 22") ; (3) χωρίζειν, χωρίζεσθαι, ‘to separate, depart,’ then (cf.

scheiden) to ter- minate a marriage union (1 Co 7-15), In the translation of those terms, both AV and RV are timid about using ‘divorce,’ and prefer the vaguer phrases of deo away’ (ἀπολύειν) and ‘depart’ (χωρίζειν), the explanation of which is to be sought in a desire partly to mark the fact that ancient and modern divorce are on a different legal footing, partly to avoid prejudicing the much dis- puted question as to the dissolubility of marriage.

* ‘After that adulterers multiplied, the bitter waters ceased, and R. Jochanan Saccai abolished their use according to Hos 414 I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom, for they themselves go apart,’ etc.—Mishna, Sota, cap. 9, Surenhusius, iii. p. 291.

MARRIAGE unless there shall have been found in her some unchastity (737 my ‘a thing or matter of nakedness’), since it is written, Because he hath found the nakedness of a thing (127 ΠῚ") in her”; the school of Hillel says, “‘ Even if she shall have burned his food in cooking, since it is written, Because he hath found in her the nakedness of a thing” (i.e. anything); R. Akiba says, ‘Even if he find another fairer than ghe, as it is written, If she find no favour in his eyes.

”’ As indicated in this passage, the latitudinarian view was adopted on the ground that the ‘overning principle is laid down in the opening clause ‘if she ind no favour in his eyes,’ and it was also supported by refer- tnce to v.38, where it is implied that a second husband will also divorce the woman if he hate her. The emphasis was also laid on ‘matter’ rather than on ‘ unseemly,’ thereby suggesting that the unseemliness might appear in various matters.

The school of Shammai treated the second clause as the significant one, and emphasized ‘unseemly,’ which they interpreted as meaning immoral or at least indecent conduct. The opinion of Hillel was generally adopted as the true representation of the state of the law (‘decisio juxta scholam Hillelis,’ Maimon. in Joc.), although it is to be remembered that many who endorsed the | reshaie as jurists condemned it as moralists. ‘Over him who ivorces the wife of his youth,’ said R.

Eleazar, ‘even the altar of God sheds tears’ (Amram, Jewish Law of Divorce, p. 37). That ‘the unseemly thing’ was not a euphemism for unchastity may be confidently assumed in view of the fact that Dt pre- scribes the capital punishment for adultery. But recent scholar- ship at least agrees with Shammai in confining it to the region of immodest or indecent behaviour (Driver, in doc.)

Upon this vexed question of the schools the judgment of Jesus was eagerly sought (Mt 19%, Mk 10"), and in view of the great practical im- portance of the subject it was even spontaneously given (Mt 5%-*, Lk 168). Our Lord decreed in favour of the rigorous view, and indeed disallowed any ground of divorce, with the probable excep- tion of adultery.

He does not, it is true, base this on His interpretation of ‘the unseemly thing’; on the contrary, He grants that the Mosaic law gave some latitude in the matter of divorce, and goes on to reform the law so as to bring it into con- formity with the older ideal (Gn 2%), or the original purpose of God. But did Jesus allow even adultery to be a valid ground of divorce? A negative answer is given from opposite quarters. The Rom. Cath.

Church, as is well known, is committed to the position that adultery does not justify the total dissolution of a marriage (quoad vinculum) between two Christians, but only separation from ‘bed and board,’* and some modern German critics have supported this contention as at least corre- sponding to the teaching and intention of Christ.

his view, it must be admitted, is not without foundation, while yet regard for the accepted canons of NT criticism precludes the claim that it has been established. A presumption that Jesus intended to prohibit divorce in all cases is created by the following considerations :—{1) In two pias. bd of the Gospels it is stated without reservation that he who putteth away his wifeand marrieth another committeth adultery ‘(Lk 1615, cf.

Mk 1011), and the Pauline report of our Lord's teaching on the subject (1 Co 710.11) is similarly un- qualified ; (2) it is in harmony with the spirit of Christ’s general teaching to suppose that He inculcated towards the erring one utter constancy in love and forgiveness unto seventy times seven. The Book of Hosea, it may be added, shows the possi- bility of a love which feels that the bond which binds a husband to even a faithless wife is indissoluble.

But the force of this seems to be dissipated by the fact that Jesus actually admitted the exception in the proviso, ‘saving for the cause of fornica- tion’ ¢ (Mt 582199), 6 objection is met in two ways. (1) The Rom. Cath. theologians deny that the punishment contemplated was more than a separation, and urge in proof that the woman who is put away commits adultery if she marries another. I. the union was really dissolved, it is argued, there could be n> allegation of adultery.

But these statements rest on erro- * ‘If any one saith that the Church has erred in that she bath taught and doth teach, in accordance with the evangelical and apostolical doctrine, that the bond of matrimony cannot be dissolved on account of the adultery of one of the married parties; and that both, or even the innocent one who gave not occasion to the adultery, can not contract another marriage during the lifetime of the other; and that he is guilty of adultery who, having put away the adulteress, shall take another wife, as also she who, A put away the adulterer, shall take another husband, let him be anathema’ (Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, De Sacr.

Matri., Can. vu.) t It has been held by some critics that as the word used is πορνεία, the justification of divorce here admitted was ante- nuptial fornication ; but cf. Weiss-Meyer, in loc. MARRIAGE 275 neous exegesis. The verb ἀπολύεμν was a recognized Hellenistic term for divorce, and could not convey to the early Christians the modified conception of a separation.

Further, it is not cer tain that according to this passage Christ taught that a man committed adultery by marrying a divorced guilty wife, and con- sequently it may be held that in her case at least the marriage was regarded as annulled bydivorce.

* (2) Instead of explaining away the exception, Bleek, Keim, and others have denied the genuineness of the clause specifying it, and this on the ground that the original unqualified statement of Jesus was felt to be a stumbling-block, and that the exception (‘saving for the cause of fornication ’) crept into the traditional report as a concession to the realities of social life.

In support of the genuineness it is pointed out that the MSS indicate no uncertainty as to the reliability of the text in Mt; while the absence of the exception from the parallel passages in Mk and Lk is explained either by saying that it was taken for granted (Meyer), or by recalling that the law already provided for the punishment of adultery (Schegg).

Yet another suggestion is that the teaching of Jesus, which was originally comparatively lenient, eventually withdrew the single concession which had been made (Hug, quoted in Weiss-Meyer, in loc.)

The question at issue must eventually be settled in the light of a general theory as to the trustworthi- ness of the ee tee report of our Lord’s sayings, and the ex- planation of the Synoptic divergencies; and it must be added that this particular instance does not materially strengthen the evidence that the oral tradition ey modified the sayings of es ata (on this subject cf. Bruce, Kingdom of God, Crit. ntrod.)

Among Protestant writers the more urgent question has been whether, consistently with the teaching of Christ and His apostles, divorce may be sought on other grounds than adultery ; and the laxer modern practice has usually been justified as an extended application of the principle embodied in the words ascribed to Jesus.

The prima facie sense of the relative p: es in the Gospels (Mt 582 19%) certainly is that Jesus permitted divorce on one ground only, though the precise bearing of His references to remarriage presents considerable difficulties. + Are we then to describe a system of law which has multiplied grounds of divorce as openly defiant of the mind of Christ? To this it is replied in the first place that the apostolic teaching sanctioned furtherextension.

The reference is to what Roman Catholics call ‘the Pauline privilege’ (1 Co 715. 16), according to which if a Christian husband or wife is deserted by his or her consort— being an unbeliever, the former is declared to be no longer under bondage, i.e. free to marry again.

In the second place, it is contended that in this case Jesus, as in so many other cases, states a principle under the form of a particular instance, and that other instances are to be allowed which can be shown to embody the same principle.

{ And certainly it must be granted in general that the Christian morality does not consist of a cast-iron system of laws, but rather of germinal principles which entail the labour and responsibility of thinking out their inmost significance and judging as to their proper application. In the evangelical precept the spirit counts for more than the letter.

If, therefore, we assume that Jesus allowed divorce at all, which is the most doubtful point in the argument, it is quite legitimate to extend the exception to cases involving a * The weakness of the exegetical argument is obviously felt by arecent Rom. Cath.

writer, who, after admitting the reality of the ditficulty, and pleading that the passage be interpreted in the light of the clearer Scriptures, remarks that the matter affords a good instance of the impossibility of arriving at any assured interpretation of seu except in the ane of the traditional teaching of the Catholic Ohurch (Hunter, Dogm.

Theology,§ 815 t As regards remarriage, the main exegetical difficulty to know whether the phrase, ‘whosoever marrieth her that is put away committeth adultery’ (Mt oe rohibits the re- marriage of every divorced woman, or on αὖ of a woman who has been unlawfully divorced.

The latter view, supported by Weiss-Meyer and Alford (who translates ‘her when put away’), is the natural one, though it has the curious consequence that an innocent wife is, but a guilty wife is not, prohibited from forming a second marri The husband of a guilty wife, as is clearly implied in Mt 199, may marry again ; and by parity of reasoning, in a case which could not lawfully occur in the Jewish Church, a woman who has divorced her husband on the ground of his immorality should be free to take another husband.

On the other hand, it does not follow that a legal dissolution of marriage ae remarriage. The legal decision gives rise, for the Christian conscience, to the further question whether the marriage has been broken in the sense intended by Christ. { This argument is suggestively stated by Newman Smyth (Christian Ethic, p. 410 ff.): ‘There is no other legitimate principle for divorce than that presented by the nature of the sin of adultery.

If, however, we can say with a good conscience that some other sin (some sin which possibly in Christ's day had not reached its full measure of iniquity—a sin, for instance, like drunkenness, which may utterly destroy the spiritual unity of a home and threaten even the physical security of one of the per- sons bound by the vows of marriage) is the moral equivalent of the cause which our Lord had immediately before Him for pro- nouncing divorce, we shall be justified in admitting it to be likewise a proper Christian ground for divorce?

’ Martensen argurs to a similar purpose (Christian Ethics, Social, Ὁ. 41.) MARRIAGE 276 real moral subversion of marriage under the proviso that the veritication of such be taken out of private hands and vested in a public tribunal. Nor can it be said that, at least in Great Britain, the occasions of legal dissolution allowed by law amount to less than a moral subversion.

While Christianity broke down the husband’s right of divorce along one line, on another the Talmudic law was developed with the purpose of impeding its exercise. The most important provisions making in this direction may be thus distinguished; (1) Inculcation of the doctrine that the right was not absolute by the statement of grounds justifyin it—viz.

suspicion of adultery, violation of decency and of Jewis customs, obstruction of religious service, refusal of conjugal rights; (2) enforcement of penalty in the restoration of the ‘dowry’; (8) complication of procedure in carrying out the divorce ; (4) deprivation of the right in cases where the husband had come under some incapacity, ¢.g. as insane, or as a deaf- mute, or where the wife—as insane, or a captive, or a minor— was ally entitled to protection (cf. Amram, Jewish Law of Div. c.

4, ‘Laws of the Mishna restricting the husband's right to divorce’). On the other hand, circumstances were specified in which the husband was compelled to divorce his wife, viz. cases of adultery, clandestine intercourse, leprosy, childlessness, ete. (Hamburger, art. ‘Scheiden’). The abolition of the man’s theoretical right to divorce was decreed in 11th cent.

by Rabbi Gershom, who enacted that ‘as the man does not put away his wife except of his own free will, so shall the woman not be put away except by her own consent’ (Amram, op. cit. p. 52). The decree, however, was not universally accepted as law by the Jews, and is ignored by Maimonides (%.) The right of the wife to divorce her husband, which was conceded at least under later Greek and Roman law, was an idea repugnant to Hebrew custom and enactment.

The only trace of such an idea is the legal provision that 1f a bondwoman hecome a wife, and if she be denied conjugal rislits, she shall go out free without money (Ex 217"), This, however, was not a concession to the woman of power to divorce; in any such case the theory was that the husband was called upon, in the exercise of his exclusive prerogative, to put away his wife (Amram, op. cit. p. 60).

Under the influence of alien customs, and with the support of Roman law, the practice came into vogue in NT times, whereby the wife directly repudiated the husband by sending him a ‘ bill of divorce.’ The innovation was opposed by Jos. (Ant. Xv. vii. 11, ΧΥΊΠ. ν. 5), and was expressly condemned by our Lord in the words, ‘if a woman shall put away her husband and marry another, she committeth adultery’ (Mk 1013.

The Tal- mudists upheld the old theory, allowing the wife to demand divorce in certain cases—e.g. leprosy, apostasy, cruelty, impotence (Amram, op. cit. c. 5). The writing or bill of divorcement (np > 150, Talm. 58, Gr. βιβλίον ἀποστασίου), which figures so largely in this subject, was of great antiquity (Dt 24', Is 50', Jer 38). In earlier times no great cereniony was used (Gn 214), and the form of words would doubtless be similar to those in use among the Arabs.

* While necessary to make a divorce legal, it would co ioe that in the time of our Lord the ‘bill’ could be granted without bringing the matter under the cognizance of the authorities (Mt 113). From the Mishna, a treatise of which takes its name from the ‘bill’ (Gitdin), it appears that most elaborate regulations were enforced in regard to the judiciary, clerk, witnesses, time ard place, and also the medium and mode of the delivery of the document.

The following is given bd Maimonides as an ancient and mode form of the get or bill: ‘On the —— day of the week and —— day of the month of in the year —— since the creation of the world (or of the era of the Seleucidz), the era accord- ing to which we are accustomed to reckon in this Bess, to wit, the town of —— do I —— the son 0: of the town of —— (and by whatever *Two formulw are given by W. R. Smith (Kinship, pp. 94, 163: ‘Begone, for I will no longer drive thy flocks to the ture.

’ ‘Thou art to me as the back of my mother’; cf. the tin formula: ‘Tuas res tibi habeto, tuas res tibi agito.

’ MARRIAGE other name or surname I or my father may he known, and my town and his town), thus determine, being of sound mind and under no constraint ; and I do release and send away and put aside thee —— daughter of —— of the town of —— (and by whatever other name or surname thou and thy father are known and thy town and his town), who hast been my wife from time past hitherto, and hereby I do release thee and send thee away and put thee aside that thon mayest have per- mission and control over thyself to go to be married to any man whom thou desirest, and no man shall hinder thee (in my name) from this day forever.

And thou art permitted (to he married) to any man. And these presents shall be unto thee from me a bill of dismissal, a docu- ment of release and a letter of freedom, according to the law of Moses and Israel. —— the son of —— a witness. the son of —— a witness.’ (Amram, pp. 157-158, with which ef. original text and Latin rendering in Surenhusius, Mishnah, iii. p. 323, and commentary, ib. p. 325). vi. MARRIAGE AS A SYMBOL OF SPIRITUAL TruTHS.

—Although modern exegesis has given up the idea that in Canticles divine love is set forth under the image of human love, it is a familiar biblical thought that the marriage rela- tionship is typical of the union and communion of God. with His people. After Hosea, whose domestic life is reasonably supposed to have im- ressed him with the suitableness of the imagery, it became a commonplace of prophecy that God was to Israel as a husband, and Israel to God as a bride (Hos 2, Jer 3! 315%, Is 54°).

* The con- ception passed over into NT, but with modifica- tions agreeable to the nature of Christianity—the bridegroom being now God in Christ (Mt 9%, Jn 3°), the bride the spiritual Israel elect out of every nation (2 Co 113, Rev 197). Now, this conception of God as the husband, though it has been little utilized in theology, cannot be said to be less apt or important than the two other conceptions of God which have been made the basis of systems.

These are the idea of God as King, which lays the main stress on the divine sovereignty, and the idea of God as Father, which lays the main stress on the divine love.

And as the weakness of the system built upon the principle of the divine sovereignty has been widely felt to be that it does less than justice to the ethical being of God; and as, on the other hand, the theology based on the divine fatherhood has been in danger of obscuring the divine might and majesty, there is certainly something to be said for putting in the forefront the thought of Hosea, which, representing God as husband, equally emphasizes to our minds His sovereignty and His goodness.

How large a portion of the body of Christian doctrine may be set forth, and with the sanction of Scripture, under the category of the marriage re- lation, may be briefly indicated.

(1) Under the doctrine of God this representa- tion, besides embodying as its fundamental prin- ciples the divine sovereignty and love, lays special stress on the attributes of clemency and long- suffering, while it safeguards the holiness of God by showing Him grieved and provoked to anger by contumacy and unfaithfulness (Hos passim). As husband God also provides for His people (2°). (2) The doctrine of sin is, from this point of view, characterized as adultery (Hos 2?

, Jer 3° 137; * The germ of the conception, according to W. R. Smith, was found in Semitic heathenism ; and the service of Hosea was to purify the gross physical conception of the god as the husband of the motherland, and to apply it to describe moral relations of Jehovah with His people (Prophets of Israel, new ed. p. 170 ff.)

MARSENA,, on 7} ‘tnx see Driver on Dt 3115), -α designation which, as regards (a) the nature of sin, indicates that its essence consists in indifference or even hatred toward God, and the giving of the affec- tions to other objects (Hos 2°, Jer 2, Ezk 20°); (Ὁ) the heinousness of sin, draws attention to its aggravation as unfaithfulness to solemn obligation and ingratitude for high favours (Jer 5’); and (c) the punishment of sin, teaches that persistence in it entails a casting-off, of which human divorce is a pale emblem (Hos 2", Jer 2°"), (3) In the Christological doctrine the points which are chiefly emphasized by the conception are the love of Christ, His kingly office as exer- cised in His headship over the Church, and His intimate union with it through the indwelling Spirit (2 Co 115, Eph 5%-*), (4) In close relation to the last the doctrine of the Church is elucidated and enriched by the assertion of its mystical union with and depend- ence upon Christ (Eph.

doc. cit.), and of its essential note of sanctity—the latter, which includes all the graces included in sanctification, being beautifully portrayed as the bridal adornment (Rev 19°). (5) Finally, as regards eschatology, the figure concentrates attention on the momentous event of the Second Coming, which is sudden as the coming of the bridegroom (Mt 951-18), and places in a clear light the bliss, the security, and unutterable glory of the everlasting kingdom (Rev 197 21°-*). LireratuRE.

—Next to the Scriptures the chief source is the division of the Mishna 0°73 17D (Liber de re uxoria), containing, with two others, the treatises nin (de levirorum in fratrias ojicio), ΓΥΞῚΠ3 (de dote literisque matrimonialibus), 71D (de uxore adulterti suspecta), 1.82 (de divortiis), and wip (de sponsalibus)—pt. 8 in the ed. of Surenhusius, Amsterdam, 1700.

‘The best of the above material is collected in Selden, Uxor Hebraica, London, 1546, and Hamburger, Real-Encyclopedie fiir Bibel und Talmud, Breslau, 1870. Of the older articles, that in Kitto’s Biblical Cyclopedia is distinguished by Talmudic erudition. The recent German manuals which cover the ground are Benzinger, Heb. Arch., Freiburg, 1894, cf. his ‘Familie ἃ. Ehe’ in Hauck=Herzog3; Nowack, Lehrb. der Heb. Arch., Bd. i.

, Freiburg, 1894, with which may be mentioned Stace, GVJ, Berlin, 1887, i. pp. 371-395. On primitive marriage the chief works from the general standpoint are M‘Lennan, Primitive Marriage, reprin in Studies in Ancient History, London, 1876; Starcke, The Primitive Family, London, 1889; Wester- marck, History of Human Marriage, London, 1891; Post, Studien zur Entwickelungsgeschichte des Familienrechts, Lei zig, 1889; while the theories are tested in the Semitic field with special knowledge by W.

R. Smith, Kinship and Marriage tn Early Arabia, Cambridge, 1895, and Wellhausen, ‘ Die Ehe bei den Arabern’ in the Géttinger Nachrichten, 1893, p. 481 ff., following Wilken, Das Matriarchat bei den alten Arabern, 1884. For the interpretation of the laws there is much to be learned from Michaelis, Mosaisches Recht, Eng. tr. ‘Commen- taries on the Laws of Moses,’ London, 1814. Amram, Jewish Law of Divorce according to Bible and Talmud, London, 1897, is an gy kta discussion by a legal expert.

See also Fenton, Early Hebrew Life, London, 1830; Jacobs, Studies in Bibl. Arch., London, 1894 ; Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, London, 1896; Tristram, Kastern Customs, London, 1894; Mackie, Bible Manners and Customs, London, 1898. W. P. PATERSON.