How the Christian Ethic Of Marriage Improved the Lives Of Women and Children (Matthew 19:1-9)

The original sexual revolution began at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-3) when the Holy Spirit started a movement of restoring men and women to an exclusive sexual union of marriage. This is one man married to one woman in a sacred physical and spiritual connection which brings maturity in love and grows families. This marriage, intended from creation, reflects the mutual and self-giving love which is reflected in the Trinity, where God said:

²⁶“Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness… ²⁷So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them… (Genesis 1:26-27)

This brought a complete overturning of the sexual morality of the first century world, as we will soon see. The epicenter of this revolution is described in Jesus’ teaching on the sacredness of marriage. This would be used by the Holy Spirit to radically expand liberation and freedom in the world on a whole new level, especially for women and children. Perhaps few developments would prove to be more important in the ongoing movement of God’s Story of Grace.

In this article we will look at the moral condition of the Roman world when it came to sexual practices, and how the ethic of Jesus would bring a transforming liberation to millions through the ongoing impact of the Holy Spirit increasing a mutual and self-giving love in the world

Sexual Inequity In the Roman Empire

Marriage Inequity

Sexual relations were a major source of inequity between men and women. In the pagan world in which Christianity developed, girls were commonly married off at very young ages to much older men. In some cases girls were married before puberty. This was, of course, without their consent. Many famous Roman women had been child brides:

Octavia, daughter of Emperor Claudius, married at eleven.
Nero’s mother Agrippina married at twelve.
Quintilian, the famed rhetorician must have married a twelve-year-old girl who bore him a son at the age of thirteen.
The historian Tacitus married a thirteen-year-old.

Plutarch (AD 46–120) reported that Romans “gave their girls in marriage when they were twelve years old, or even younger.” The historian Dio Cassius (AD 155–229) agreed: “Girls are considered to have reached marriageable age on completion of their twelfth year.” This was considered normal, and the practice had very few objectors.

One reason Roman men married young girls was because there was a shortage of women. This was caused by high levels of infanticide (killing of infants) of girls, often times by abandoning them to nature. Even in large families more than one daughter was hardly ever reared. According to historian Rodney Stark, “a study based on inscriptions was able to reconstruct six hundred families and found that of these, only six had raised more than one daughter.” This meant there always was a considerable surplus of marriageable men. The best estimate is that there were 131 males per 100 females in Rome. The surplus was even higher in other areas of the Roman Empire. Because of this acute shortage, it was common for women to marry again and again, not only following the death of a husband, but also after a divorce. In fact, state policy penalized women under fifty who did not remarry, so second and third marriages became common, especially since most women married men far older than themselves. For example, Cicero’s daughter, Tullia, was not untypical. She married at 16 ,widowed at 22, remarried at 23, divorced at 28; married again at 29, divorced at 33. She died soon after childbirth at 34. Another woman was said to have married eight times within five years.

Class Inequity

In the ancient world sexual agency was solely in the hands of powerful men. Sexual offenses, including rape, could carry a death penalty. Prostitutes, however, were not given this legal protection and the rape of a slave would only be considered a crime if it was deemed to cause property damage against the slave’s owner. Women who married weren’t expected to attain any pleasure or enjoyment, they simply wedded in order to abide by the legal code and procreate. Moreover, the subservient wife was expected to turn a blind eye to her husband’s sexual infidelity. Males were allowed to sleep around as much as they liked so long as their mistress was unmarried.

Tom Holland has summarized the prevailing outlook:

Sex was nothing if not an exercise of power. As captured cities were to the swords of the legions, so the bodies of those used sexually were to the Roman man. To be penetrated, male or female, was to be branded as inferior: to be marked as womanish, barbarian, servile … In Rome, men no more hesitated to use slaves and prostitutes to relieve themselves of their sexual needs than they did to use the side of a road as a toilet.

Divorce and Remarriage

The teaching of Jesus on the sacredness of marriage and sexuality stood in the sharpest contrast from the picture just painted. In distinction from the rampant adultery and divorce of pagan society¹, Jesus words came as a devastating rebuke:

And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery. (Matthew 19:9).

The early church was unswerving in its commitment to the standard set by Jesus. This standard of Jesus caused the early Christians to reject the double standard that gave men sexual license. In consequence, Paul taught the equality of union between a husband and a wife:

²But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. ³The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. ⁴The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. (1 Corinthians 7:2-4)

No one in the culture of the day would have struggled with the first part of v.4:

The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband.

The second declaration was completely new and shocking to those not sufficiently adapted to the new faith.

In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.

With this new ethic, Rodney Stark makes this interesting assessment:

In fact, devout Christian married couples may have had sex more often than did the average pagan couple, because brides were more mature when they married and because husbands were less likely to take up with other women.

Focused Look at Matthew 19

The chapter begins with the Pharisees coming to test Jesus on divorce and remarriage.

Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” (Matthew 19:3)

Jesus responds:

⁴“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ ⁵and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? ⁶So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6)

When Jesus references the beginning, he is taking his hearers back to the Bible’s first chapters of Genesis when God created the original man and woman:

²²Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

²³The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”

²⁴That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Here, the phrase one flesh is descriptive of the union of bodies sexually which ties together the life-long marriage. From God’s eyes, sex is marital and marriage is sexual. But Jesus adds a sacred dimension with the phrase: what God has joined together. So, our human partnerships are not merely human; they are orchestrated by God. This means that before God there is no casual sex, and there is no easy divorce. With this stricter standard, Jesus’ questioners press him by appealing to the law of Moses:

⁷“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” ⁸Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. ⁹I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 19:7-9)

According to Jesus, not everything in the Old Testament represents the original intention of the Creator. Some Old Testament legislation was a concession to human stubbornness—because your hearts were hard. Jesus’ intention is the restoration of the original pattern as taught in Genesis. Since marriage is for life, divorce is allowed only for exceptions. This means that the Savior is taking all of the sexual energy between men and women and focusing it in on one sacred union. Only in this union does sex become life-giving, bringing the married couple into mature oneness and creating children. This would have major implications in the way men were to treat their wives:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. (Ephesians 5:25)

The ethic of Christianity was a radical overturning of the power dynamic men had over women. Men are now to be servants of their wives. Glenn Scrivener descriptively writes: “Into this world came the Christian revolution, where sex is painted on the canvas of divine romance and where two equals unite in a sacred and unbreakable bond.”

The Changes It Brought to Society

Over time the ethic of Jesus brought incredible improvements to society. Here are three:

The lives of girls and women improved. Unsurprisingly the Jesus movement captured the heart of large numbers of women who had been disregarded or abused. In the 2nd century, Celsus (a critic of Christianity) wrote disparagingly that Christians “are able to convince only the foolish, dishonorable, and stupid, only slaves, women, and little children.” This sneering remark was a boast for the early church. They were honored to give a voice to the voiceless. There was a considerable improvement in the quality of life for many women. A pioneering study based on Roman funerary inscriptions demonstrated that 20 percent of the pagan women were twelve or younger when they married. Four percent were only ten. In contrast, only 7 percent of Christians were under thirteen. Half of pagan women were married before age fifteen, compared with 20 percent of Christians—and nearly half of Christian women (48 percent) had not married until they were eighteen or older. As the power of the Spirit transformed hearts with the ethic of Jesus, most Christian girls married when they were physically and emotionally mature. Most had a say in whom they married which made for more secure marriages.

The Christian population increased. The average fertility of pagan women was so low as to have resulted in a declining population, thus necessitating the admission of “barbarians” as settlers of empty estates in the empire and especially to fill the army. In contrast, the growing Christian communities did not have their sex ratios distorted by female infanticide.

Pedophilia became outlawed. In the ancient world sex with boys and girls was celebrated by writers like Juvenal, Petronius, Horace, Strato, Lucian, and Philostratus. The word they used was pederasty: love of children. Christians were uniformly disgusted by the practice. What the classical world called love, Christians called abuse. In the reign of the Christian emperor Justinian (527–565), pederasty was outlawed and could be prosecuted well after the abuse took place. Here the church influenced the state to legislate against the sexualization of children.

Conclusion

As God’s Spirit empowered men and women to live in the marriage ethic of Jesus, humanity continued to advance in God’s Story of Grace to reflect the mutual and self-giving love of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

_______________________________________________________________________

A survey of marriage contracts, conducted by Semitic scholar Markham J. Geller, going all the way back to ancient Babylon found that they always contained a divorce clause specifying payments and divisions of property with the cause of divorce needing to be nothing more than a husband’s whim.

How Pentecost Led to Gender Equality (Acts 2:17-18)

As God poured out his Spirit on humanity to advance his Story of Grace, he increased mutual and self-giving love by elevating the status of women. In fact, had Jesus and the movement he started not appeared, the world would be an immeasurably darker place for women. Yet, this promise of true female empowerment was prophesied by the prophet 800 years before Christ.. Peter references this at Pentecost:

¹⁷“‘In the last days, God says,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your young men will see visions,
    your old men will dream dreams.
¹⁸Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
    and they will prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18)

In this article we’ll see that Jesus’ example, treatment and teaching provided the way for women to discover and grow up in full dignity which was unprecedented. In God’s Story of Grace this has had an extremely important impact through the centuries for gender rights, freedom, dignity in shaping the world to more closely reflect the mutual and self-giving love that exists between the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The Culture of Jesus’ Day

During the days of Jesus, the status of women was considerably low. Consider how women were treated from a Roman, Greek and even Jewish perspective. Roman law placed a wife under the absolute control of her husband. He had ownership of her and all her possessions. This involved the power of life and death over his wife. Divorce was an easy legal formality that could be taken advantage of as often as desired. Women were not allowed to speak in public. In Greek society the woman’s situation was even worse. Because concubines were common, a wife’s role was simply to bear legitimate children and to keep house. Demosthenes wrote:

We have courtesans for the sake of pleasure, we have concubines for the sake of daily cohabitation, and we have wives for the purpose of having children legitimately and being faithful guardians for our household affairs.

In the case of a respectable Greek woman, she was not allowed to leave the house unless accompanied by a trustworthy male escort. A wife was not permitted to eat or interact with male guests in her husband’s home; she had to retire to her woman’s quarters. Girls were not allowed to go to school, and when they grew up, they were not allowed to speak in public. Jewish women, as well, were barred from public speaking. The oral law prohibited women from reading the scriptures out loud. Many Jewish men prayed each morning, “God, I thank you that I am not a Gentile, slave, or a woman.” More will be said of the Jewish attitude toward women as we look at the sharp contrast of Jesus’ attitude and treatment of them.

The Countercultural Ways of Jesus

The low status that Greek, Roman, and Jewish women was categorically challenged with the appearance of Jesus Christ. His actions and teachings raised the status of women to new heights, even to the dismay of his friends and enemies. Nancy Hardesty and Leah Scanzoni, authors of All We’re Meant To Be, make the profound point: “Jesus came to earth not primarily as a male but as a person. He treated women not primarily as females but as human beings.” Females were seen by Jesus, alongside of males, as genuine persons. James Hurly writes: “He did not perceive them primarily in terms of their sex, age, or marital status; he seems to have considered them in terms of their relation (or lack of one) to God.”

Let’s look at three countercultural ways Jesus elevated the dignity of women.

# 1: Jesus Taught Women

Jesus regularly addressed women directly while in public. This may seem like NO BIG DEAL. But in that culture (as described above) this was unusual for a man to do, especially one of prominence. The rabbinic oral law was quite explicit: “He who talks with a woman in public brings evil upon himself.” Another rabbinic teaching prominent in Jesus’ day taught, “One is not so much as to greet a woman.” For instance, the disciples were amazed to see Jesus talking with the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar. (John 4:7-26)

Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman.
John 4:27

To interact with her required that he ignore the Jewish anti-Samaritan prejudices along with prevailing view that saw women as inferior. This did not stop him from starting a conversation with her in public. We can understand why his disciples were amazed to find him talking to a woman in public. Imagine how it must have stunned this woman for the Messiah to reach out to her and offer to quench the very thirst of her soul.

This example does not stand alone. Jesus also spoke freely with the woman taken in adultery (John 8:10–11); the widow of Nain (Luke 7:12–13); the woman with the bleeding disorder (Luke 8:48, Matt. 9:22, Mark 5:34); a woman who called to him from a crowd (Luke 11:27–28); the woman bent over for eighteen years (Luke 13:10-17), and a group of women on the route to the cross (Luke 23:27-31). When Lazarus died, Jesus comforted Martha with this promise containing the heart of the Christian gospel:

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?“
John 11:25-26

To teach a woman was unusual enough, but Jesus did more. He called for a verbal response from Martha.

Another important example is taken from a scene, again, while Jesus was with Mary, Martha and Lazarus, who entertained him at their home. (Luke 10:38-42) Martha assumed the traditional female role of preparing a meal for Jesus, her guest, while her sister Mary did what only men would do, namely, learn from Jesus’ teachings. Mary sits at the feet of Jesus and engages in theological study, much to her sister’s chagrin. The clear implication is that Mary is worthy of a rabbi’s theological instruction. This again shows the countercultural contrast for the time as Jesus made a practice of revealing great theological truths to women. By doing this he violated another rabbinic law: “Let the words of the Law be burned rather than taught to women.”

# 2: Jesus Had Female Disciples

Besides these open discussions, he has female disciples. In a culture where the idea of women travelling around with a group of men or having the status of disciple was seriously questionable, Jesus has a number of women who are included in his circle.

After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him,and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.
Luke 8:1-3

It is notable that the first evangelist to lead others to Jesus was the woman at Sychar. (John 4:39-42) In addition, the final words of Jesus on the cross were heard by women who were standing there with Jesus before his death. (Matthew 27:55-56) The first people Jesus chose to appear to after his resurrection were women; not only that, but he instructed them to tell his disciples that he was alive. (John 20:17) In a culture where a woman’s testimony was considered of little value, Jesus elevated the value of women to the highest level.

Further, Jesus did not gloss over sin in the lives of the women he met. He held women personally responsible for their own sin as seen in his challenge to the woman at the well (John 4:16–18), the woman taken in adultery (John 8:10–11), and the sinful woman who anointed his feet. (Luke 7:44–50) Their sin was not condoned but confronted. They were called to responsibility because they were called to discipleship.

# 3: Jesus Dignified Women

The full intrinsic value of women is seen in how he spoke to the women he addressed. Jesus addressed the woman with the bleeding disorder tenderly as daughter and referring to the bent woman as a daughter of Abraham (Luke 13:16). Theologian Donald Bloesch explains that when “Jesus called the Jewish women ‘daughters of Abraham,’ thereby according them a spiritual status equal to that of men.” He further showed the value and dignity of women in his teachings by including female imagery. The parable of mending the garment, an everyday image from the female sphere, is coupled with the parable of making the wine, an everyday image from the male sphere (Luke 5.36-39).

Author Dorothy Sayers, a friend of C.S. Lewis, gives a helpful summary:

Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man—there had never been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, who never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made…jokes about them, never treated them either as ‘The women, God help us!’ or ‘The ladies, God bless them!’; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously, who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no ax to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unselfconscious.

She continues:

There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words of Jesus that there was anything ‘funny’ about woman’s nature.

It is because of the counterrevolutionary person and work of Jesus Christ; Paul would make this declaration which stands alone in the ancient world:

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28

This is the golden declaration of gender equality: “YOU ARE ALL ONE IN CHRIST JESUS.” It is a momentous and authoritative assertion of gender worth and co-equality which would go on to bring large political and social sea change as the transforming power of the Spirit would sweep through the world.

Thus in the church the role of women held an unparalleled prominence over such diverse roles and wide swaths of society:

Phoebe was mentioned by Paul in Romans 16:1 to be a servant or “deacon” who taught in the Cenchreae church, which was in Greece.
Junia, who was in Rome, was considered by Paul outstanding among the apostles. (Romans 16:7)
Four women, Mary, Tryphena, Tryphosa and Persis are described as servants who “worked very hard in the Lord,” among those in Rome. (Romans 16:6, 12)
Priscilla is a co-worker, who along with her husband Aquilla, were planting a church in Rome. (Romans 16:3) They travelled with Paul to Ephesus (Acts 18:18-19) and while there encountered Apollos who “they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.” (Acts 18:26)
Chloe (1 Corinthians 1:11), Nympha (Colossians 4:15) opened their homes where the church met. They were in Greece and Asia Minor (modern Turkey).
Tabitha led a benevolence ministry in Joppa, Israel. (Acts 9:36)
Philip’s four daughters were all identified as prophets. (Acts 21:8,9) They were in Israel.
Women prophesied in the Greek city of Corinth. (1 Corinthians 11:5)

To have this many women listed so prominently in the letters of the New Testament writers displays a sharp counter cultural revolution in the role of women in the church.

Effects of Christianity on Culture

Women continued to be elevated to places of influence. Here is a list of notable examples:

In 112, Pliny the Younger noted in a letter to Emperor Trajan that he had tortured two young Christian women “who were called deaconesses.”
Clement of Alexandria (150–216) wrote of “women deacons.”
Origen (185–254) wrote this commentary on Paul’s letter to the Romans: “This text teaches with the authority of the Apostle that… there are, as we have already said, women deacons in the Church, and that women… ought to be accepted in the diaconate.”

Historians now agree that women held positions of honor and authority in early Christianity that was very distinct from the world around them.

Men and women were equally honored in the early church. A study of Christian burials in Rome, based on 3,733 cases, found that Christian women were nearly as likely as Christian men to be commemorated with lengthy inscriptions. This “near equality in the commemoration of males and females is something that is peculiar to Christians, and sets them apart from the non-Christian populations of the city,” according to Brent Shaw, a scholar of Roman history. This was true not only of adults, but also of children, as Christians lamented the loss of a daughter as much as that of a son, which was especially unusual compared with groups of the time.

Conclusion

As Christianity spread throughout the world, its redemptive effects elevated women and set them free in many ways. With the advance of God’s Story of Grace, the Christian ethic through the power of the Holy Spirit declared equal worth and value for both men and women. Husbands were commanded to love their wives and not be harsh with their children. These principles were in direct conflict with the social and legal norms which gave absolute power of life and death to the husband/father over his family.

To this topic our next article turns…