According to Google search statistics, my article “What Constitutes Biblical Marriage?” has been the article that has generated the most organic clicks from Google search results out of all of my articles. Along with the follow-up “Towards a Definition of Marriage” and “On Divorce” and its “Redux,” they collectively form a foundational description of biblical marriage.
Over at Sigma Frame there has been an ongoing discussion of what constitutes marriage, with issues of agency, consent, vows, and witnesses. Interestingly there has been a multiplicity of differing viewpoints, rather than a simple binary point and counterpoint. I wasn’t planning to comment, but this comment—written by the tastefully named “Thinking”—caught my eye and it deserves to be highlighted:
“He killed 10000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt and forcibly-but-consensually-took Sela by war”
“Potiphar’s wife caught(Taphas) him by his garment.”
Taphas:
KJV: catch, handle, (lay, take) hold (on, over), stop, X surely, surprise, take
NASB: seized, captured, caught, seize, handle, take, took
The straightforward reading is that she grabbed him by the cloak, and he shrugged the cloak off as he fled.
What does your progression of events look like?
Does the father’s unilateral authority to repeal any and all of his daughter’s oaths only apply when her judgement was externally compromised?
No, it does not. There are no limits on that authority except time(‘when he hears’. Some translations say ‘on the day he hears’).
They were both translated as rape in this case, but they’re contextual words that have a broad and mildly metaphorical meaning. The thing that’s different is marital status, so that must be the reason that different words were chosen.
NOT MARRIED, is the important bit.
We both know there is no morality apart from God, and you going ‘but muh moraly heinus’ will not make me backpedal from the solid foundation of God’s word.
All moral judgement flows from God’s character. These were God’s laws for His pet nation, and if you wanna call God’s rulings heinous, well.
— Hebrews 5:12-14
I think I have figured out why different words were used for betrothed and unbetrothed. Sex=marriage means sex-with-virgin=consumnation of marriage. One flesh means that marital sex is definitionally incapable of being rape, which means deepstrength was right that taphaq does not equal rape, and I was right that taphaq does not imply consent.
It’s difficult to find fault in this reasoning. If I had to nit-pick, I would say only that there is a normative way for marriages to be established, and we should follow it, but undesired exceptions to this (e.g. rape; premarital sex) do not negate or invalidate how a marriage is established. In particular, it is both logically and theological possible for rape to be wrong and for it to create a marital bond. These are not mutually exclusive.
The reality is that the father’s unilateral authority to undo his daughter’s marriage (Exodus 22) or her oaths (Numbers 30) stands regardless of whether her consent was completely coerced (i.e. without agency), given with partial agency, or the considered result of full agency. None of these matter: the agency of the woman (or the man!), whether it was witnessed and by whom, and whether there was formal consent (by any party). The only qualification limiting the father is a kind of statute of limitations regarding when he has a right to make his decision.
As for the question of the marriage itself, the only relevant issues are whether sexual relations took place and whether or not the woman was already married (i.e. sex is either a marital act or an act of adultery). As described in the comment below, after sexual relations take place—for whatever reason—there is simply no question about the resulting marital status.
Since so much of the discussion in that comment thread hangs on a finer understanding of Exodus 22:16-17—and I’ve written about this in the past—I’ll reproduce my comment from five years ago:
The difference is largely social and cultural. However, the broader answer is found in Exodus 22:16-17:
The Law gives the father the right to forbid the union, so why does the man have to pay the bride-price unconditionally? In “Man and Woman in Biblical Law”, Tom Shipley writes that it…
“…does not mean he must marry her, but to bestow a dowry because of the marriage that has already taken place via sexual relations.” [part 1 – p46]
Furthermore, he writes:
“That a marriage took place during the seduction is the very premise of this law.” [part 2 – p.67]
But there is another reason why the man must pay the bride price: to make her a bride. If he did not pay, she would be his concubine (i.e. servant-wife). They would still be ‘married’ as a consequence of having sex (as per the above), but she wouldn’t be his [free-]wife. Shipley notes:
“The point is that a man who seduces a woman into marriage without her father’s consent is forbidden to make a concubine out of her.” [part 2 – p.67]
Under Law, a man can’t sneakily have ‘premarital sex’ in order to bypass the normal requirement to marry (i.e. pay the dowry). This is the Hebrew equivalent of a shotgun wedding.
Exodus 22:16 is distinguishing between a free wife and a concubine/servant wife, not between married and unmarried.
Also of note is that if the father forbids the union, he is instituting a divorce. Since all divorce is forbidden of Christians, this patriarchal rule no longer applies to us. Thus, when two people have sex, they are permanently married.
Further proof is in Exodus 21:7-10 where a concubine (someone sold for marriage; possesses no rights of inheritance for her children) is explicitly called a wife.
The law in Exodus 22:16-17 presumes that a marriage took place via sexual relations and the subsequent cancellation ends a legal marriage legitimately created by the one-flesh bond. It is a divorce, not an anullment or time travel. You can read more in this and this comment thread with Artisanal Toad. In particular, I note:
A father could force his daughter to divorce her husband in that case, but the punishment (bride price) still had to be paid unconditionally. Witnesses, vows, consent, and agency were all irrelevant, because the marriage took place through the act of sex regardless of whether or not the woman (or man!) approved of the marriage. The only issue was whether or not the marriage would result in divorce then-and-there or else be made permanent.
Fundamentally, no biblical marriage requires a vow (besides God’s previous established covenant of marriage), a witness (besides God’s ever-present witness), consent (besides God’s desire that men and women be fruitful and multiply), permission, or even attraction.
In my next post, I’ll explain why Deep Strength is wrong when he says..
Although, if you’ve read this post, you probably already know what it is.