Marriage in the Old Testament

Excerpt

‎Most Old Testament texts about marriage reflect Israelite agrarian society in the early Iron Age. Families lived off the produce of the earth. Men, women, and children needed to work the land and to process its yield in order to survive. The family property was owned and managed by the male head of the household, who would pass it down to his sons. Sons would remain in their parents’ household, marrying women from outside the immediate family and raising their children on their father’s land (Wright, God’s People, 53–58). In order to keep the property intact, the father would leave most of the inheritance to his oldest son (Deut 22:17). Families needed children to contribute to the household labor pool, to learn how to manage the family farm, and to inherit it upon the death of the family patriarch.

‎The Bible’s first marriage story demonstrates this. Adam is a farmer and Eve is the woman who bears his children (Gen 3:16–19; 4:1–2, 25). They share a life of hard work, and the woman is subject to the patriarch’s authority. … More

McWhirter, Jocelyn. “Marriage.” Ed. John D. Barry et al. The Lexham Bible Dictionary 2016 : n. pag. Print.