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The marital customs of the ancient world lie in the background of much of the New Testament. The infancy narratives, the parables of Jesus, the letters of Paul, and even the book of Revelation all assume that readers have a working knowledge of these customs and a familiarity with betrothals, weddings, marriages, divorces, and widowhood. While there remains much of ancient marital culture that we lack a full understanding of, we do know much. In this paper I will examine the role of marriage, divorce, and remarriage in the ancient world on two fronts. First, I will discuss how marriage, divorce and remarriage were understood and practiced in the first century through an examination of the extant primary sources and current secondary literature. While these parts of the paper may feel a bit too technical or encyclopedic, the topic of marital customs in the first century is a complex one, and there is a great deal about life in the first century in general that remains unclear to us today. As such, I want to be as careful and nuanced as possible, parsing out what can be said with confidence while being wary of assuming too much. Second, I will explore how such an understanding of first-century culture can help Latter-day Saint readers gain a deeper appreciation of the New Testament through an application of this understanding to the teachings of Jesus, the writings of Paul, and the narrative accounts of the four evangelists.

Marriage

The betrothal

Marriages among the Jews of Jesus’s time typically occurred in two key phases: the betrothal and the wedding. Many young women married in their late teens, although some may have been married as early as the age of twelve,[1] when they were seen as mature enough to come under the authority of someone other than their father and they were seen as prepared for pregnancy.[2] Betrothals could happen at a young age and were typically arranged by the families of the bride and groom either through a payment of money to the bride’s father or a document or contract.[3] Betrothal could involve an actual courting of the bride, but this wasn’t necessary.[4] An unmarried couple who had a sexual relationship were considered automatically betrothed.[5] Young men were more often married in their late teens or early twenties, although they were thought to be ready to begin adult responsibilities as young as thirteen.[6] Often, but not always, the groom would have the opportunity to see his potential bride in person so as to approve of the choice of spouse.[7] If he was old enough, he may seek out the young woman himself and initiate the betrothal.[8] The groom or his family (depending upon the age of the groom) would sign a marriage contract with the young woman’s father,[9] after which the young woman was legally under the charge of the groom, although a year or more could pass before they would cohabitate and consummate the marriage.[10] Once the contract was signed (the process could quite often be a contentious one), for all intents and purposes, the couple was married, even if they had never spoken before. A public celebration may have been held at the bride’s home, and the groom may even have sent gifts to the bride’s family.[11] If the betrothed young woman had an affair with another man, she could be punished as an adulterer or divorced. If her betrothed groom died, she would be considered a widow.[12]

In addition to laying out the responsibilities of the groom, a key element of the marriage contract was legally determining the amount of the ketubah, a payment that would accompany the young woman into her marriage and acted as protection in case of divorce.[13] If he died, perhaps while traveling, the amount would be returned to the wife from the husband’s estate. Again, this served to protect the wife in a world where death was rampant and divorce was common.[14] An additional rationale may have been that husbands would think twice about divorcing their wives if they knew there were financial repercussions, that the departing wife would take the ketubah with her. One exception to this rule (other exceptions will be discussed later in the paper) occurred if the wife was found guilty of adultery. In such cases, the groom was legally allowed to withhold the ketubah.[15]

In the New Testament, a description of a betrothal is provided by Matthew in the first chapter of his Gospel.[16] Here readers are informed that Mary is “betrothed” (Greek ����ŧ���ٱ�ܳٳ�𾱲�ŧ��) to Joseph, who is referred to by Matthew as Mary’s “husband” (Greek ho anēr autēs). The implication is that a marriage contract has been arranged for the two of them at some point previously, perhaps a year or so earlier. Legally, they are married, even though the marriage hasn’t been formally finalized through a wedding ceremony.[17] As Craig Keener observes, “Although a betrothed couple like Joseph and Mary did not live together or have intercourse, their union was as binding as marriage.”[18] Mary is under Joseph’s authority, although she remains in her father’s house, as they have not yet come together (see Matthew 1:18). Now Mary has become pregnant, a perceived violation of the marriage contract.[19] Matthew describes Joseph as “a just man” (Greek dikaios), a word implying that Joseph is prepared to divorce Mary in accordance with the law. This should in no wise be seen as a strike against Joseph—from his perspective, Mary has become pregnant through having sexual relations with another man, and he has a legal obligation to divorce an adulteress.[20] Under the law of Moses, if the sexual relationship was consensual, both Mary and her partner could be put to death (although there is a question of how strict the death penalty was imposed at this time).[21] Joseph was well within his right to make a “public example” of Mary’s situation and have her brought before a law court. However, he decides instead to “put her away privily” (Matthew 1:19), which would entail handing her a bill of divorce in the presence of two witnesses, after which she would be free to marry someone else if she were even able to find a partner who would accept her in her current condition.[22]

The wedding

The angel’s arrival, fortunately, alerts Joseph as to the source of Mary’s pregnancy, and Joseph “took unto him his wife” (Matthew 1:24), meaning that he publicly accepted Mary as his wife and brought her into his house, actions that could be seen as a tacit admission that Joseph was, in fact, the father of Mary’s child. While a consummation of the marriage would be expected at this point,[23] Matthew informs his readers that Joseph “knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son” (Matthew 1:25). Here Matthew alerts readers to the second phase of the wedding ceremony, the wedding itself. After the year or more of the betrothal period had passed, it would be time for the marriage to be finalized.[24] Thanks to the Gospels, we are able to reconstruct what the marriage ceremony may have involved. There may have been an evening procession of the groom and his friends, often lit by torches, to the house of the bride’s father, where the bride would be waiting with her bridesmaids, and here (or another prearranged location) the wedding would take place. Afterward, the groom may have led another procession, now joined by his bride, back to their new house, where a wedding feast or other celebration would occur, like the one described in John 2:1–11.[25] That the marriage be properly consummated was also of great concern.[26] At this point, the couple would live together as husband and wife. If the groom was still young, this house would often be the residence of the parents of the groom, especially since Mediterranean families in this period were usually patrilocal.[27]

It is this finalization of the marriage that serves as the context for the popular parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1–13). Here readers encounter a story centered on ten young women who are themselves not yet married (but were likely close).[28] This would have been quite the occasion for them, because “weddings provided one of the high points in village life, and the question of who was and was not included affected one’s social standing.”[29] Matthew tells us that these ten young women “went forth to meet the bridegroom” (Matthew 25:1). This could mean that they are waiting with the bride at her house for the arrival of the groom, or perhaps they were waiting at the house of the groom for him to return with the bride. The procession would have taken place at night, hence the need for the lamps (or torches lit with rags soaked in oil).[30] For whatever reason, the groom was delayed in reaching his destination (this was, after all, a time to celebrate), not arriving until midnight. In a culture where most went to sleep at sundown (maintaining light in a house after sundown was tedious), the ten young girls were obviously tired and “all slumbered and slept” (Matthew 25:5). After the announcement is made that the groom had arrived, five of the young girls find themselves with insufficient oil for their lamps or torches and are advised to go buy some more oil, which may or may not have been readily available at such a late hour.[31] While the five young women are away searching for oil, the bridegroom arrives, and the wedding banquet commences. When the young girls return, they find themselves shut out from the party. Due to the young women’s lack of foresight, the wedding procession had only half the planned number of bridesmaids, a situation that may have been perceived as a slight against the bride and groom.[32] Furthermore, to allow anyone to enter the banquet room after the groom could be an additional slight. After all, this feast is a celebration of his wedding.[33]

As the couple settled into marriage, both the husband and the wife would have had well-defined social responsibilities. It is important to remember that in the ancient world “increasing family honor and avoiding shame were the chief motivating factors in influencing behavior, especially women’s behavior as portrayed by men. The individualistic motivators of passion and desire were treated with suspicion as disruptive to the social order.”[34] Thus, the roles of both men and women were, for the most part, clearly laid out, and any movement away from the fulfillment of these roles risked bringing shame upon the family. For example, a wife in the Greco-Roman world was generally expected to “obey her husband in everything and refuse to listen to any negative comments about him.”[35] Furthermore, “eschewing fancy clothes and remaining silent in public reveal her noble character.” A husband, on the other hand, “must allow his wife some personal expressions. . . . He must control his own passions, thereby setting an example for his wife, for he is responsible to teach her.” The idealized domain of the husband was the public sphere, while the wife’s was the home.

The letters of Paul and those attributed to him frequently touch upon the theme of how husbands and wives ought to interact in sections of his letters sometimes referred to as household codes. In these household codes, the three traditional social pairings of the ancient world—husband and wife, parent and child, master and slave—are addressed. Ephesians’ injunction that “wives” should “submit [them]selves unto [their] own husbands, as unto the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22; compare Colossians 3:18–19) tends (understandably so) to be frowned upon in today’s culture, but we would be wiser to view these words through the lens of the first century, where talk of a husband’s control over his wife and commendation for her subservience are commended.[36] While Ephesians does speak of a wife’s submission, there is notably no talk of a husband imposing his will or controlling his wife, and the words in subsequent verses (5:23–33) suggest that the author has in mind a family structure where husbands emulate Jesus Christ and treat their wives the way Jesus treated the church, namely with sacrifice and love.[37] In other words, Pauline admonitions such as these temper contemporary expectations and roles and call Christians to improve their interactions.

One of the primary purposes of marriage among ancient Jews was to bear children, in accordance with Genesis 1:28: “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.”[38] Women who could bear children “signified God’s blessings and were a source of honor in the community”, while the inability to bear children “was a sign of divine punishment and source of shame.”[39] This stigma comes out perhaps most noticeably in the case of Elizabeth, the wife of Zacharias, who, upon finding out that she is pregnant, thanks God for taking away her “reproach [Greek oneidos] among men” (Luke 1:25). According to later rabbinic tradition, it was permissible for a husband to divorce his wife after ten years if she had not delivered any children.[40] The Samaritan woman at the well provides another possible implication of this custom. Her response to Jesus that “I have no husband” and his reply that “thou hast five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband” are too often interpreted as signs that the Samaritan woman is immoral or promiscuous (John 4:17–18).[41] But it is just as possible that she finds herself in the situation that she does because she is widowed or because she is barren and each of her husbands has moved on to different wives.[42]

A related concern was the sexual boundaries a couple were expected to operate within. As Latter-day Saints living in the United States, a predominantly Christian nation, many of us take for granted that husbands and wives know they are to preserve any sexual activity for and only for their spouse. However, in the ancient world, this was by not necessarily the case. In the Roman world, for example, men often had multiple sexual partners before they were married. Even after they were married, sexual relationships with others (both men and women) would barely raise an eyebrow. The exception would be sexual relations with a married woman.[43] The purpose of Roman marriage was to secure a legal heir, an aim that was threatened if a husband was unsure as to whether his child was his or not.[44] Thus, a man was free to have relations with anyone who wasn’t married, while a woman’s options were restricted to her husband.[45] In first-century Judaism, adultery occurred when a married (including betrothed) woman had a sexual relationship with someone who wasn’t her husband.[46] A married man could commit adultery with a married woman (an offense against her husband), but a married man could not commit adultery with an unmarried woman, although their actions were still considered immoral.[47] Polygamy, or strictly polygyny, was permitted by the law of Moses, and “the law allowing polygamy made it technically impossible for a man to be sexually unfaithful to his wife.”[48] The opposite, however, was not true, and the marriage of one woman to more than one man (polyandry) would be seen as adultery.[49]

Understanding the nuances of first-century sexual boundaries helps us to make sense of certain New Testament episodes. We have already looked at the story of Joseph and Mary, where her pregnancy while betrothed would have opened her up to charges of adultery and, in accordance with Deuteronomy 22:23–24, death by stoning. John 8 relays the story of a woman who is brought to Jesus and accused of being “taken in adultery, in the very act” (John 8:4). The woman’s accusers then state that the woman ought to be stoned because that is what “the law commanded” (John 8:5). According to the law of Moses, a betrothed woman is to be stoned (along with her partner), but no punishment is given in the case of women who are already married. Deuteronomy 22:22 simply says that “then they shall both of them die.”[50] The specification that this woman is to die by stoning may indicate that she was betrothed, but it is unknown whether first-century Jews would have made such a distinction in respect to the punishment.[51] Missing, of course, is the woman’s presumed partner, who is nowhere to be seen, but who should be likewise punished. His absence casts doubt on the motivations of those who are pushing for her punishment. Jesus’s response, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8:7), refers to the provision in the law of Moses that any conviction be based upon the testimony of two witnesses who presumably have had personal knowledge of the incident (Deuteronomy 17:5–7). Jesus is likely not stating, as is sometimes assumed, that only those who haven’t sinned should carry out punishment; rather, he is inviting the two witnesses to step forward and commence the execution. The presumption is that the witnesses act from a position of integrity before God, a confidence that they are performing a just act rather than a malicious one.[52] Because Jesus himself was not present to witness the woman’s act, he is not qualified to pass judgment against her. Since the episode was not motivated by justice but rather entrapment, no one else steps forward to initiate the punishment either.

Notably, New Testament figures often push back against many of the accepted cultural ideas when it came to marriage and sexuality in the first century.[53] In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus declares that instead of drawing a moral line at simply abstaining from adultery, “whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matthew 5:28), indicating that husbands (or men in general) should not ever harbor physical attraction for someone not their wife, even if they aren’t actually able to act upon it.[54] Additionally, while it was common in the ancient world for the husband to be seen as superior to the wife, leaving her little recourse but to do whatever she was told to do, Paul explicitly instructed his Corinthian readers that some equality must exist within marriage. Few of Paul’s readers, if any, would have disagreed that “the wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband” (1 Corinthians 7:4). But Paul’s injunction that “the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife,” and that each husband was obligated to “render unto the wife due benevolence” (1 Corinthians 7:3; Greek �DZ��𾱱�ŧ��), called for reciprocal and exclusive conjugal rights,[55] that would have certainly raised some eyebrows among his first-century readers who viewed marital rights as extending only in one direction, the husband’s. Paul’s argument was that marriage must entertain a “marked mutuality” in which wives and husbands both share equal privilege.[56]

Divorce and Widowhood

Much as is the case today, not every marriage in the first century had a happy ending, with husband and wife growing old together, walking arm in arm into the sunset.[57] Divorce was such a common occurrence in the Roman world that the Roman philosopher Seneca commented that there were Roman women who numbered the passing years not by whomever was consul but by whomever their husband had been that year.[58] Because of the age disparity between husbands and wives and because life was so precarious in the first century (the average life span for men was about forty years, and probably five or so years less for women), a fair number of marriages ended in either divorce or with a spouse passing away at an early age.[59] In the case of the husband passing away first, this left the (often much younger) wife in a precarious position of finding some means of support, either through family or through a remarriage. In this section I will explore both these paths, looking first at the occasion of divorce and then at the circumstances of widowhood.

Divorce

During the first century, divorce for Roman citizens worked in a fairly equal manner for both men and women. Marriage was seen as a joint endeavor, and when one party decided they were finished with the marriage it was dissolved. The divorcing party was not required to cite their grounds for the divorce and (excepting for the circumstance of adultery) neither party was penalized. If the husband committed adultery, he was required to return the wife’s dowry in full, plus another 50 percent. If the wife was the adulterous party, she forfeited the dowry.[60] The result, at least in the case of Roman citizens, especially among the upper class, is that divorce became fairly common, reaching perhaps as high as 30 percent.[61]

In Judaism, the prerogative to perform a divorce fell upon the husband, although a wife could initiate a divorce if she felt her circumstances warranted it and she could make her case to the rabbinic court.[62] In such cases, because it was still the husband’s prerogative, he had to be convinced to go through with the divorce. In such occasions where the rabbinic court failed to persuade the husband to finalize the divorce, other forms of persuasion may have been used.[63] Generally, however, a divorce in which the marriage contract was not in question could be resolved outside of a court. All that was needed was for the husband to issue to his wife a signed get, or bill of divorcement, and for the wife to issue a quittance, or receipt, to her husband signifying that she had received her dowry in full.[64] At this point, the woman was now “free to marry any man.”[65] Valid reasons for divorce at the time of Jesus included infertility, adultery, material neglect, and emotional neglect.

Infertility

Many of those who lived at the time of Jesus saw procreation as a, if not the, primary reason to enter a marriage (compare Genesis 1:28). Therefore, anything that threatened a couple’s ability to bear children could be considered grounds for divorce. Thus, “any couple who did not have children within ten years of marriage was expected to divorce. Each party was to remarry someone with whom they might be fertile.”[66] If a wife found her husband to be unattractive due to such things as physical defects or an unpleasant occupation, this could potentially limit opportunities for the couple to bear children. The Mishnah allowed for divorce in such an occasion, although it is unknown how much this provision was employed in the first century.[67] The result was that “in New Testament times lack of children was a permissible ground of divorce but not perhaps a compulsory one.”[68]

Adultery

Technically, adultery was punishable by death under Jewish law, although, as we have discussed, it is debatable whether first-century Judaism possessed the authority (or even the inclination) to execute anyone.[69] Further adding to the difficulty is that adultery is difficult to prove, as it required the presence of two witnesses to condemn the offenders. For this reason, suspected adultery often was what led to divorce: “Even a faint rumor had to be treated as suspicion of adultery, and a woman who was alone in a room with a man was presumed to have committed adultery until proved innocent.”[70] An additional complication, as referred to earlier, was the following:

Although a man could divorce his wife for adultery, a woman could not divorce her husband for adultery because the law allowing for polygamy made it technically impossible for a man to be sexually unfaithful to his wife. The fact that a husband could have more than one wife meant that he did not have to promise to be faithful to his wife when he was married. This did not mean that a man could not be guilty of adultery, but if he committed adultery it was an offense against the other woman’s husband, and not against his own wife. If he committed fornication with an unmarried woman, the offense was against the woman’s father with whom he had failed to make a contract.[71]

To summarize, on the one hand a husband could (and was expected to) divorce his wife for adultery (or suspicion of adultery), and in such cases he could retain the ketubah (the marriage contract). On the other hand, a wife could not divorce her husband on account of adultery, because he technically could not commit adultery. However, grounds did exist for the wife to pursue a divorce, which I will turn to now.

Material and emotional neglect

On a practical level, a husband was expected to provide suitable food and clothing for his wife. This provision, according to the Mishnah, was supposed to be equal to or exceeding the lifestyle the wife had experienced while growing up in her father’s house. In other words, a husband was expected to provide for the wife a life that was, at the very least, economically like what she had grown accustomed to.[72] Husbands could not force their wives into the diaspora if the wife did not grow up there. Likewise, if a wife was from Jerusalem, a husband could not force her to move out into a surrounding area.[73] As far as a wife’s other needs were concerned, a couple’s sex lives were closely regulated based upon the husband’s occupation and how often he could realistically be present if he was employed in a profession that kept him away from his wife for days or even months at a time.[74] If a wife refused her husband, she could be fined.[75] Other areas of conduct by a husband that could lead to divorce were if he forbade his wife to eat certain foods, prohibited his wife from wearing certain jewelry, or if a husband prohibited his wife from visiting her father’s house or visiting a house of mourning or celebration. Cases where a husband might seek to humiliate his wife were also forbidden.[76] If a husband was found guilty, it would lead to divorce. In a similar fashion, if a wife fed a husband food that had not been tithed, engaged in sexual relationships while menstruating, or made a vow and did not carry it out, a husband could seek a divorce and retain the ketubah.[77] As far as physical violence against a wife, while “in post-talmudic Judaism it is clearly named as a ground for divorce, . . . there is no record that this was cited for divorce in early Judaism, though it is likely that the courts would look favorably on such cases.”[78]

With this background in mind, although this material comes somewhat later than the New Testament period, we can perhaps better grasp why the question of divorce caused such bitter debate in the first century. Some of Jesus’s most difficult teachings to wrap our modern minds around involve the question of how to understand and regulate divorce. In the first century, there were two primary positions when it came to divorce: that represented by the school of Rabbi Shammai and that represented by the school of Rabbi Hillel. The conflict arose due to differences of interpretation of Deuteronomy 24:1: “When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness (Hebrew ʿerwaṯ dāḇār) in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.” The overall purpose of Deuteronomy 24:1–4 seems to be to restrict what could have been perceived as a loophole in the law, because “If divorce became too easy, then it could be abused and it would become a ‘legal’ form of committing adultery.” [79] So restrictions were set upon whether or not one could re-marry a former spouse. But what exactly, first-century rabbis asked, constituted “some uncleanliness?”[80] The more conservative school of Shammai interpreted ʿerwaṯ dāḇār to refer almost exclusively to adultery—a husband was allowed to initiate divorce proceedings if his wife was found to have been unfaithful either during their betrothal or after the wedding.[81] The more liberal school of Hillel interpreted ʿerwaṯ dāḇār to include anything that the husband might find indecent about the wife, including occasions when she burned dinner.[82]

This context allows us to better understand Jesus’s statements on marriage and adultery. In Matthew 5, Jesus states, “It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery” (Matthew 5:31–32).[83] Here Jesus sides with the school of Shammai in resisting “easy” divorce (and even moves beyond it in that he does not allow for remarriage). Marriage ought to be treated as a sacred arrangement, and if a couple married, they should remain married, allowed to work out whatever sources of contention may arise.[84] This goes for both the husband and the wife—if either manipulates their spouse into a divorce and then marries someone else, they are essentially committing adultery as, in God’s eyes, they are still married to their first partner. Divorce should not be used to grant a spouse a “do-over.”[85] The exception, as Jesus states, is for “fornication” (Greek porneia).[86] The Greek word porneia is notoriously difficult to define but is probably akin to “serious moral failure, specifically in the sexual area.”[87] Sexual infidelity can cripple a marriage, and at that point a couple are within their rights to terminate the marriage and move on.

Similarly, in Matthew 19 (parallels Mark 10:1–12) Jesus is engaged by some Pharisees over the question of when divorce is permissible. Their question, “Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?” falls clearly within the school of Shammai/school of Hillel debate. Their motivation may be to reveal to the “great multitudes” that Jesus holds a position close to that of the house of Shammai, and in the process alienate those of his followers who themselves hold to the more liberal position of the legality of an “easy” divorce. Halakhic (legal) questions were, after all, right in the wheelhouse of the scribes and Pharisees, and they likely felt that they had Jesus backed into a corner. Jesus’s response is a clever one. Rather than engage Deuteronomy 24:1 directly, Jesus makes an argument based on Genesis 1–2, the origin of God’s instructions on marriage, in favor of divorce being a last resort in cases of sexual misconduct. God’s primary purpose since the beginning has been to bring to pass an order where “they twain shall be one flesh.”

Of Deuteronomy 24:1–4 and its nebulous ‘ervat davar language, Jesus further contends that the option for divorce was a concession given to the people “because of the hardness of your hearts” (Matthew 19:8). True disciples of the new kingdom don’t argue over semantics; they seek to understand the gospel in its fullness: “What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder” (Matthew 19:6). The curious response of Jesus’s disciples that “it is not good to marry” (Matthew 19:10) leads Jesus to his claim that voluntary celibacy is a gift that not everyone is equipped to handle, a comment (if it is not meant facetiously) that is often used as evidence that Jesus himself was not married and favored a celibate lifestyle.[88]

Remarriage and widowhood

Divorce was far from the only thing that split up marriages.[89] Husbands (who were already customarily older than their wives) often engaged in hazardous occupations, while more than a few wives died in the course of childbirth.[90] For those wives who were left alone when their husbands died, as with those women who found themselves divorced, there were two viable options: remarriage or widowhood.[91] According to David Instone-Brewer, “Remarriage was normal and even expected after divorce or widowhood, though many women found it advantageous to remain single. If their finances were sufficient, a life being single gave them more freedom than married life.”[92] One of the primary reasons for granting a bill of divorcement to a wife was so that she had proof that she was no longer married and therefore could take a second husband. If a husband was involved in a hazardous occupation or was travelling abroad (a hazard itself), he may give his wife a conditional bill of divorcement so that she would not bear the responsibility of providing evidence of his death if he did not return.[93] Helping to facilitate remarriage was the fact that whereas the ketubah for an unmarried woman was two hundred zuz, in the case of a woman who had already been married the dowry was reduced to one hundred zuz.[94]

One complication that could arise occurred when a husband died and left his wife without leaving a male offspring behind. This left the woman bound to her deceased husband. A provision was included in the law of Moses (Deuteronomy 25:5–10) to protect the widow and avoid any loss of property. Under the provision, known as levirate marriage, it became the obligation of the closest male relative to the husband to marry the widowed wife and provide her with a son, who legally becomes the heir of the deceased husband.[95] Levirate marriage plays a major role in the stories of Tamar and Ruth in the Old Testament and provides the setting for an encounter between the Sadducees and Jesus during the final week of Jesus’s mortal ministry. As recorded in Mark 12:18–27 (parallels Matthew 22:23–33; Luke 20:27–40), a group of Sadducees approach Jesus and present him with a hypothetical situation: If a woman is married to a man who dies without leaving her with a son, and then she is, through levirate marriage, married to each of the dead husband’s brothers, to which brother will she belong to in the resurrection? The question itself is disingenuous, as the Sadducees don’t believe in resurrection to begin with (and the Jews, while they do believe in polygyny, reject polyandry), and their question seems aimed at mocking resurrection further by highlighting the absurdity of a woman finding herself in a situation where all seven of her previous husbands have been restored.[96] Jesus’s response, that “when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven” (Mark 12:25) is a clever one. He doesn’t say that people aren’t still married in a postmortal state, he simply says that marriages aren’t initiated in such a state, in particular levirate marriage. As Ben Witherington III observes, “When death ceases to happen, the rationale for levirate marriage falls to the ground as well.”[97] Jesus’s subsequent discussion of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob implies that they are alive and well and leaves little doubt as to where he stands on the question of resurrection.[98]

While Jewish women had the option to remarry (provided they had evidence of their divorce or husband’s death), they were not necessarily required to do so.[99] If, for example, a wife had received enough money from her husband’s estate, she may decide to remain single. Although the Jews did subscribe to polygyny, unless a woman wanted a husband who already had a wife, she would be forced to find an unmarried (probably divorced or widowed) man, who himself would likely be looking for a younger bride.[100] Joseph does not make an appearance in the New Testament Gospels after Matthew 2 and Luke 2. It is likely that, when Mary stands at the cross in John and is entrusted to the care of the beloved disciple, it is because she is a widow (see John 19:26–27).

One of the early growing pains of the nascent church involved ministering to some of the Christian widows, leading Peter to select seven men to specifically address the needs of the Greek-speaking widows (see Acts 6:1–5). In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul expressed his hope that those who are widowed (or divorced) will delay getting remarried and instead turn their efforts toward dealing with the “present distress” (1 Corinthians 7:26). Later, according to 1 Timothy, Paul gave a lengthy series of instructions to Timothy on how to treat widows in Ephesus (1 Timothy 5:9–16). Paul requested that the church community provide support for widows who are sixty or older, while those younger than sixty be supported by family.[101] Paul also encouraged the younger widows to remarry and to maintain a respectable behavior that will not bring any undue criticism upon the Christian church.[102]

Conclusion

One issue that can make understanding the New Testament a difficult task is that its writers and compilers were addressing an audience with an intimate familiarity with the society and culture of the first century. There was no need to explain certain features of Roman or Jewish culture to readers because those in the first century would be well aware of how marriage worked or why the topic of divorce was a contentious one or what possibilities existed for those who were left without a spouse. Thus, the burden falls on us as modern readers to dig into the past and try to put the pieces together, reconstructing entire cultural systems based upon, in some cases, only a few words. But it is critical that we do so if we want to truly understand what Jesus and other New Testament figures taught. Joseph becomes more sympathetic when we understand more about how Mary’s pregnant state impacted him socially and religiously. Jesus’s seemingly hardline position on divorce become more reasonable when we see how certain groups were presenting divorce at the same time. Our hearts ache a little bit more for the widow who gave all she had to the church. As much as a reader can gain by studying the New Testament without a familiarity with first-century context, there is also much to lose. Many of Jesus and Paul’s statements can certainly be difficult to interpret, often leaving readers to ignore the passages they don’t understand or to decide they don’t believe what Jesus taught. Neither of these are positions helpful to a believer. Increasing our understanding of these issues will help readers come to know the ancient world better, and in the process become more successful interpreters the New Testament itself.

Notes

[1] See m. Ketubot 4:4. While twelve is the age provided in the Mishnah, it is more likely that women married “in their late-teens or early twenties.” Michael L. Satlow, “Marriage and Divorce,” in The Jewish Annotated New Testament, 2nd ed., ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 608. For a more nuanced study, see Michael L. Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 101–32. For a discussion of how marriage worked in Roman society as a whole, see Susan Treggiari, “Marriage and Family in Roman Society,” in Marriage and Family in the Biblical World, ed. Ken M. Campbell (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 132–82. All citations from the Mishnah come from The Mishnah: A New Translation, ed. Jacob Neusner (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998). The Mishnah, a record of the oral debates that occurred within Judaism beginning in about 200 BC, was written down about AD 200. For New Testament scholars, the problem is one of propinquity—can the Mishnah be used to give insight into the New Testament era, or is it more accurate to see it as representing post second-temple Judaism? This topic has been hotly debated and has not necessarily been resolved one way or the other. Those interested should begin with David Instone-Brewer, “The Use of Rabbinic Sources in Gospel Studies,” Tyndale Bulletin 50, no. 2 (1999): 281–98. Those wanting a deeper dive should consult Instone-Brewer’s series of volumes entitled Traditions of the Rabbis from the Era of the New Testament. While oftentimes the Mishnah relays the ideal, rather than the reality, of what life looked like for Jews living in the first century AD, I choose to use it here as a useful point of reference but one in which we should be wary of investing too much historical weight.

[2] At times, discussions of Jewish social customs, particularly those written by Christians, can sometimes degenerate into condemnations of first-century Judaism as unfriendly or even oppressive to women. Such discussions often involve depicting Jesus as a “savior” of first century Jewish women, lifting them up and giving them a voice when they had none. In an excellent discussion, New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine describes ten “Common Misconceptions about Early Judaism.” Of this trend, she writes, “The fourth misconception is the view that early Judaism epitomized misogyny, and that Jesus liberated women from this oppressive, repressive system.” After laying out the evidence for why this view of a “feminist” Jesus can be problematic (and quite frankly historically inaccurate), she concludes, “These common stereotypes, and there are others, can be addressed by reading and teaching the entire New Testament carefully within its context. The message of Christian sermons should not be a negative one, such that the congregation concludes, ‘thank heaven we’re not like the Jews.’ Christian Bible study should not consist of divorcing Jesus or Paul, or the other Jews of the New Testament, from their community. When Jewish history is misunderstood, the ‘good news’ of the New Testament is deformed.” Jewish Annotated New Testament, 759–63. See also Amy-Jill Levine, “Jesus, Second Temple Judaism, and Women: Yeast of Eden,” Biblical Interpretation 2, no. 1 (1994): 8–33. David Instone-Brewer adds, “Women were equal to men in almost every way in rabbinic Judaism, except in the realm of their fertility. They could even be witnesses in court, so long as it concerned a matter within her area of expertise. They could own land and goods in their own name and trade from the doorways in the communal courtyard.” David Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible: The Social and Literary Context (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 125. However, it is also important to not overcorrect in our perception of how the ancient world viewed women, and therefore interested parties should also see Judith Romney Wegner, Chattel or Person: The Status of Women in the Mishnah (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).

[3] See m. Kiddushin 1:1. “There are many cases throughout tannaitic literature of men betrothing their daughters to prospective husbands, sometimes at a very young age.” Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, 105.

[4] “Matches were likely made according to familiar criteria (e.g., social status, physical attraction). In the ideal world of the upper classes, fathers would arrange these marriages; in practice there was undoubtedly a more complex dynamic that involved the options of both mothers and the prospective couple. We have no ancient evidence for independent matchmakers, but it is not impossible that some existed.” Satlow, “Marriage and Divorce,” 608.

[5] “A woman is acquired [as a wife] in three ways, and acquires [freedom for] herself [to be a free agent] in two ways. She is acquired through money, a writ, and sexual intercourse”. m. Qiddushin 1:1.

[6] According to the Mishnah, the general timeline for the stages of a man’s life included “(1) At five to Scripture, (2) ten to Mishnah, (3) thirteen to religious duties, (4) fifteen to Talmud, (5) eighteen to the wedding canopy, (6) twenty to responsibility for providing for a family, (7) thirty to fullness of strength, (8) forty to understanding, (9) fifty to counsel, (10) sixty to old age, (11) seventy to ripe old age, (12) eighty to remarkable strength, (13) ninety to a bowed back, and (14) at a hundred— he is like a corpse who has already passed and gone from this world.” m. Abot 5:21. Satlow adds that “in upper-class families, Jewish men typically married around the age of thirty, when they would take control of the family holdings.” Satlow, Marriage and Divorce, 608.

[7] “It is not unlikely that a son . . . would at least have a chance to look at his prospective bride before acquiescing to his father’s wishes.” Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, 113. He later adds, “Female beauty was an overriding consideration of a groom in selecting a mate.” Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, 132.

[8] “In fact, it appears that it was the son who frequently found his own bride.” Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, 113.

[9] This would not necessarily be the case for women who are betrothed as adults, at which point they no longer need their father’s permission: “Adult women are thus legally free to betroth themselves to men of whom their fathers (or brothers, mothers, or guardians) did not approve.” Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, 122.

[10] “They give a virgin twelve months to provide for herself from the time that the husband has demanded her.” m. Ketubot 5:2.

[11] Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, 163–66.

[12] See discussion below.

[13] Compare Exodus 22:16–17 and Deuteronomy 22:28–29, which speak of a bride price (mohar) that would be supplied by the groom and paid to the bride’s father. The minimum amount of the ketubah, according to the Mishnah, was 200 zuz: “Even though they have said, ‘A virgin collects two hundred zuz and a widow a maneh,’ if [the husband] wanted to increase that sum, even by a hundred maneh, he may add to it,” (m. Ketubot 5:1). According to the Talmud the zuz was considered equal to the Roman denarius, which is typically understood to represent a day’s wage for a laborer.

[14] While “Rabbinic law subordinates a wife to her husband in certain respects,” it also “assumes that all adult women, married or not, are fully-independent economic agents.” Satlow, Marriage and Divorce, 609.

[15] “And those women go forth without the payment of the marriage contract at all: She who transgresses against the law of Moses and Jewish law.” m. Ketubot 7:6.

[16] We should remember that just because a custom was followed in the more conservative regions of Galilee, such as Nazareth, does not mean that all Jews in areas such as Jerusalem or in the diaspora would have also followed these customs: “The evidence suggests that some Jews practiced a form of inchoate marriage and others did not. The picture emerges that perhaps rural Galilean Jews followed the ancient biblical practices, while urban Jews and those in the Diaspora followed the patterns of the surrounding Greco-Roman culture.” Lynn H. Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 64.

[17] Compare Deuteronomy 22:23–27.

[18] Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 91. Satlow adds, “Joseph and Mary are portrayed as legally married through their betrothal but have not yet celebrated their wedding to begin their life together.” Satlow, Marriage and Divorce, 609.

[19] As today, there was something of a double standard when it came to the chaste nature of men and women. As Satlow states, “Female virginity was a sine qua non, but male virginity was a case of non sequitur.” Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, 120.

[20] “In contrast to most of modern Western culture, Joseph lived in a society where he had no option of giving Mary a second chance, even if he wanted to (which he presumably would not have). Jewish, Greek, and Roman law all demanded that a man divorce his wife if she were guilty of adultery. Jewish law demanded that a man charge his wife immediately on discovery that she had not been a virgin. Roman law actually treated a husband who failed to divorce an unfaithful wife as a panderer exploiting his wife as a prostitute. Mediterranean society viewed with contempt the weakness of a man who let his love for his wife outweigh his appropriate honor in repudiating her.” Keener, Gospel of Matthew, 91.

[21] Deuteronomy 22:23–24. However, while the Bible does allow for stoning an adulterer, “it is unlikely…that this law was followed in any formal or institutional way; elsewhere the rabbis assume that the appropriate penalty for an adulteress is for her to be divorced with forfeit of her ketubah.” Satlow, “Marriage and Divorce,” 609.

[22] “The text of the writ of divorce [is as follows]: ‘Lo, you are permitted to any man.’” m. Giṭṭin 9:3. Compare Deuteronomy 24:1. However, as Instone-Brewer notes, a woman suspected of committing adultery who is then divorced “could not marry her lover, or the person with whom she was suspected of committing adultery.” Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible, 121. Compare m. Yebamot 2:8.

[23] “During the celebration the couple would retire to a wedding hut (huppah) to consummate their marriage.” Satlow, Marriage and Divorce, 610. Compare Deuteronomy 22:15, which describes the “tokens of the damsel’s virginity, that is to say the bloody sheet would serve as proof of the bride’s lack of sexual activity prior to marriage.”

[24] According to the Mishnah, “A virgin is married on Wednesday, and a widow on Thursday.” m. Ketubot 1:1.

[25] See discussion in Morris, Gospel according to Matthew, 621. However, see also Nolland, who cautions, “We have little knowledge of the specifics of wedding customs among first-century Jews, and we do not know how fixed various patterns were.” Nolland, Gospel of Matthew, 1004.

[26] See discussion in Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, 173–77.

[27] Joseph H. Hellerman, “Mediterranean Family Systems,” in The Ancient Church as Family (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 32–33.

[28] “The Greek term parthenoi (literally ‘virgins’) indicates unmarried friends or relatives of either the bride or the bridegroom.” France, Gospel of Matthew, 946.

[29] France, Gospel of Matthew, 946–47.

[30] “There has been considerable discussion over what tas lampadas are. The term lampas is etymologically imprecise. See G. Schneider, “lampas,” Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990–93), 2.338–39. It could refer to clay lamps with their wicks and oil supply or of flaming torches (sticks wrapped in rags and soaked in oil). The more fitting here will depend on what exactly is intended to be happening in the imagery of the parable.” John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 1003.

[31] “Evidently it was quite possible to buy oil in the middle of the night, though, of course, it might mean routing the sellers of oil out of their beds and getting them to open up their stores, which would have been safely locked up for the night. All this would take time and may explain why the foolish girls did not suggest this to one another in the first place.” Leon Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992), 623.

[32] Although see France, who says, “The closing of the door is another element in the story which seems out of place in the open hospitality and conviviality of a village wedding; late arrival is not normally an issue in oriental society, certainly not penalized in such a dramatic fashion.” France, Gospel of Matthew, 949–50.

[33] “The privilege of the occasion makes it fitting for the bridegroom to be the last participant in the banquet to arrive. Once he arrives, the door is shut. It would be to insult his significance for the occasion to allow other guests to arrive after him.” Nolland, Gospel of Matthew, 1008–9.

[34] Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians, 66.

[35] Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians, 71. Cohick here and in the next two quotes is providing her summary of Plutarch’s Moralia 748C–771e; 138a–146a.

[36] See, for example, Plutarch, Conj. Praec. 142e. See also Xenophon, Oec. 3.10–15; 7.1–10–13.

[37] “Paul pictures the wife’s submission as the recognition of the authority of a husband who imitates the self-sacrificial, nurturing, and supporting roles that Christ fills with respect to the church.” Frank Thielman, Ephesians (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010), 379. Compare also Ephesians 5:21, where the verb hypotassomenoi, “to be submissive,” is used (uniquely in the Pauline corpus) to apply to all believers.

[38] Having children was enough of a concern that the Emperor Augustus passed, in 18 BC, the lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus (and later, in 9 CE, the lex Papia Poppaea), which encouraged Roman citizens to marry and have children (ideally three or more). Additional reforms withheld inheritance privileges from those who declined to marry. See discussion of P. Forbes et al., “lex Papia Poppaea,” in Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed., ed. Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 851. From the Jewish perspective, “The rabbis say that a man has an obligation to father a least two children, with one opinion also obligating women to procreate.” Satlow, “Marriage and Divorce,” 610. Compare m. Yebamot 6:6.

[39] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997), 65. See also Joseph A. Fitzmyer, who writes “For a couple to be childless in Judaism was a misfortune, even a disgrace or a punishment for sin.” Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke 1–9 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1970), 323.

[40] Instone-Brewer writes that “any couple who did not have children within ten years of marriage was expected to divorce. Each party was to remarry someone with whom they might be fertile.” Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage, 92. Compare b. Yebamot 64a.

[41] As J. Ramsey Michaels has noted, “She is not one of the prostitutes or sinful women with whom we see Jesus dealing on some occasions.” J. Ramsey Michaels, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 248.

[42] Cohick writes “It is . . . possible that a particular husband would choose to divorce her [the Samaritan woman] on grounds of barrenness,” although she also raises the point that “if she lived within this village all her life, a common experience with most people, then why would the fourth or fifth man take a chance on marrying a woman who was barren.” Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians, 124.

[43] As Carolyn Osiek and Margaret Y. MacDonald have written, “Societal norms were designed to protect the sexual adventures of married men. The Augustan legislation on adultery clearly reflects a double standard on fidelity within marriage and was designed largely to protect a woman’s chastity within marriage. A husband incurred no legal punishment at all for infidelity unless the woman was married.” Carolyn Osiek and Margaret Y. MacDonald, A Woman’s Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), 22.

[44] “In Roman law and the law of many Greek cities, the legal status of children was dependent on whether their parents were married. This is not true in rabbinic law, according to which one’s status as a Jew is dependent on the status of one’s mother, but her marital state is immaterial. At the same time, children born out of wedlock might encounter a social stigma.” Satlow, “Marriage and Divorce,” 610.

[45] This applied to enslavers as well. A wife who had sexual relations with a slave would be considered guilty of adultery, as would the slave. A husband, however, who had sexual relations with female slaves “would be legally neutral, and for the majority of men, morally neutral.” See discussion in Oseik and MacDonald, Woman’s Place, 103–5.

[46] A lengthy discussion is devoted to this topic, with an eye turned specifically to rabbinic tradition, in Michael L. Satlow’s Tasting the Dish, 119–84.

[47] “Cohabitating with an unmarried woman was not, strictly speaking, adultery, because adultery was a crime against the husband of a woman. It is regarded as immoral, but it did not fall within the definition of the legal term ‘adultery.’” Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage, 151.

[48] Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage, 98. Satlow adds, “Although Romans were monogamous by law and in practice, Jewish men, following the Hebrew Bible, had the legal right to take more than one wife. . . . They appear, however, to have done so rarely.” Satlow, “Marriage and Divorce,” 609. See also Joshua M. Sears and Avram R. Shannon, “ ‘Let Me Take Another Wife’: Israelite, Jewish, and Latter-day Saint Polygamy in Historical and Literary Perspective” in this volume.

[49] See Saltow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, 189.

[50] According to the Mishnah (m. Sanhedrin 7:4), the penalty for adultery with a betrothed woman is stoning, while the penalty for adultery with a married woman is strangulation, the implication being that the former is the more serious of the two.

[51] A related question is whether the Jews were allowed to impose capital punishment or whether the Romans reserved this fate for themselves. Traditionally, AD 30 is seen as the date when the Romans stripped the Sanhedrin of their right to exercise capital punishment. If that is the case, the episode preserved in John 8 would be an attempt by certain opponents of Jesus to see if he would overstep his authority and authorize a stoning in violation of the Roman position. If he did the reverse and freed the woman, he would come across as violating the law of Moses. Jesus’s act of writing on the ground demonstrates an awareness of this legal trap. See discussion in Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John 1–XII (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966), 848–50. However, as E. Mary Smallwood points out, the topic of whether or not the Sanhedrin could exercise the right of capital punishment remains “complicated and controversial.” The Jews under Roman Rule from Pompey to Diocletian: A Study in Political Relations, 2nd ed. (Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2001), 49.

[52] “The law required that such witnesses not be ‘malicious’ or ‘lying’ witnesses. Jesus’ version of that requirement is that this person be ‘without fault,’ a term denoting not so much abstract ‘sinlessness’ (in the sense in which later Christian theology has believed Jesus himself to be sinless), as simply personal integrity before God in the matter at hand. That is, whoever takes on himself the role of witness-executioner must be confident before God that he is doing the right thing—hardly an unreasonable demand.” Michaels, Gospel of John, 498–99.

[53] This hypersensitivity toward wifely modesty and chastity also may help us better understand one of the New Testament’s more confusing passages—namely, Paul’s discussion with the Corinthians about women and their veils in 1 Corinthians 11. In the ancient world, it was common for married women to wear a veil covering her hair. See Judith Lynn Sebesta, “Symbolism in the Costume of the Roman Woman,” in The World of Roman Costume, ed. Judith Lynn Sebesta and Larissa Bonfante (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001), 48. For the Jewish perspective, see m. Ketubot 2.1; 7.4. A woman’s hair was seen by many as her most attractive sexual feature, and for a woman to reveal her hair to those to whom she was not married could be interpreted as an act of flirtation or even a desire for a different partner. See discussion in Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2010), 517–18. According to the Mishnah, a Jewish husband was permitted to divorce his wife if she went out in public unveiled, “And what is the Jewish law? If she goes out with her hair flowing loose.” m. Ketubot 7:6. While the circumstances in Corinth aren’t entirely clear, apparently some (or one) of the women in Paul’s nascent branch had decided not to veil their hair, “a point of significant concern for those with a traditional sense of sexual and moral propriety.” Ciampa and Rosner, First Letter to the Corinthians, 516. Whatever their motivations were, the act of veil removal in church was enough of a concern for Paul to address nearly an entire chapter of 1 Corinthians to it. Paul’s response to the situation was to say “For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered” (1 Corinthians 11:6), as “uncovering or shaving a woman’s head were forms of shaming, punishment, or mourning in biblical and later culture.” Jewish Annotated New Testament, 340.

[54] “The ‘woman’ in Jesus’ declaration is thus to be understood also as another man’s wife, and the looking ‘in order to desire her’ (literally) specifically of wanting (and planning?) sexual relations. The focus is thus not (as some tender adolescent consciences have read it) on sexual attraction as such, but on the desire for (and perhaps the planning of) an illicit sexual liaison.” France, Gospel of Matthew, 204.

[55] While the term literally means “debt” or “what is owed,” M. Worther notes that in a marital context “the sexual relation in marriage is described as the ὀφειλή, obligation, that a husband and wife owe each other.” “opheilē,” in Exegetical Dictionary, 2.550. See also the excellent discussion in Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 493–97.

[56] “The marked mutuality of Paul’s comments was, however, revolutionary in the ancient world where patriarchy was the norm. For the husband to have authority over his wife’s body was nothing special. In fact, it was understood that the husband had authority over the bodies of virtually all the members of his household (at least those of his wife, children, and household slaves). . . . Paul’s following statement affirming the reverse, that “the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does,” clearly pointed to a radical and unprecedented restriction on the husband’s sexual freedom. It communicates, negatively, his obligation to refrain from engaging in sexual relations with anyone other than his wife and, positively, his obligation to fulfill his marital duty to provide her with sexual pleasure and satisfaction.” Ciampa and Rosner, First Letter to the Corinthians, 280–81.

[57] On a rare occasion, however, they could be. A late first-century BC funeral inscription written in Latin reads, “Uncommon are marriages which last so long, brought to an end by death, not broken apart by divorce; for it was our happy lot that it should be prolonged to the 41^st year without estrangement.” New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, ed. G. H. R. Horsley (Sydney, Australia: The Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, Macquarie University, 1983), 33–36.

[58] Illustres quaedam ac nobiles feminae non consulum numero sed maritorum annos suos computant. Seneca, De beneficiis 3.16.2.

[59] “The vast majority of residents of an ancient Mediterranean city or town lived lives full of hardship, poor health, and crowding, with high rates of infant mortality and low life expectancy.” Carolyn Osiek and David L. Balch, Families in the New Testament World: Households and House Churches (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), 32. Satlow adds, “Marriages were inherently unstable primarily because of high death rates, particularly among birthing mothers but also among husbands who could have been more than a decade older than their wives.” Satlow, “Marriage and Divorce,” 610. Satlow figures that “more than 40 percent of women alive at age twenty would die by their forty-fifth birthday, with men doing only slightly better” with the result that “anyone who married around the age of twenty would have expected to be widowed within the next twenty-five years.” Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, 183.

[60] See discussion in Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage, 72–73. Much of this next section is indebted to his fine work.

[61] Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage, 74. Additionally, “there is no reason to think that divorce was less common among Jews than it was among Romans.” Satlow, “Marriage and Divorce,” 610.

[62] Grounds for a divorce initiated by the wife included instances where the husband “broke his marriage vows or other obligations in the marriage contract.” Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage, 86. For further discussion, including documentary evidence of a woman issuing a bill of divorcement against her husband, see David Instone-Brewer, “Jewish Women Divorcing Their Husbands in Early Judaism: The Background of Papyrus Ṣe’elim 13,” Harvard Theological Review 92, no. 3 (July 1999): 349–57. The biblical foundations for divorce are found in Deuteronomy 24:1–4.

[63] “And so do you rule in the case of writs of divorce for women: They compel him until he says, ‘I will it.’” m. ‘Arak 5:6. Instone-Brewer clarifies, “The nature of this force is not specified, but talmudic commentators suggested that if persuasion failed, then whips were used.” Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage, 86.

[64] The policy for enacting a divorce is carefully laid out in m. Giṭṭin.

[65] The bill of divorcement explicitly included the line “You are free to marry any man.” m. Giṭṭin 9:3. Paul likely has this in mind in 1 Corinthians 7:39 when he writes, “The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.”

[66] Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage, 92. As for ten years being the appropriate length of time, Instone-Brewer adds, “Rabbinic literature does not record the scriptural reason for this, but it is likely to be based on the ten years that Abraham waited after the promise of a son until taking Hagar.” Divorce and Remarriage, 92n24.

[67] “And these are the ones whom they force to put her away: (1) he who is afflicted with boils, or (2) who has a polypus, or (3) who collects [dog excrement], or (4) a coppersmith, or (5) a tanner—whether these [blemishes] were present before they were married or whether after they were married they made their appearance.” m. Ketubot 7:10.

[68] Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage, 93.

[69] Capital punishment is discussed in Josephus, Against Apion, 2.25 and m. Sanh. 6.4; 7.2; 7.4. The question, as always, is just how much capital punishment was enforced in New Testament times.

[70] Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage, 94. Compare m. Soṭah 6:1, “He who expressed jealousy to his wife, but she went aside in secret, even if he heard [that she had done so] from a bird flying by—he puts her away but pays off her marriage contract.” Women were also perceived by some to be very sexually motivated: “A woman wants a qab [of food] with sexual satisfaction more than nine qabs with abstinence.” m. Soṭah 3:4.

[71] Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage, 98.

[72] “They remove [wives] from a bad dwelling to a good one but not from a good one to a bad one.” m. Ketubot 13:10.

[73] “They do not remove [wives] from town to town or from city to city [in another province]. But in the same province, they do remove [wives] from town to town or from city to city, but not from a town to a city, and not from a city to a town.” m. Ketubot 13:10.

[74] “The sexual duty of which the Torah speaks [Exodus 21:10]: (1) those without work [of independent means]—every day; (2) workers—twice a week; (3) ass drivers–once a week; (4) camel drivers— once in thirty days; (5) sailors—once in six months,” the words of R. Eliezer.” m. Ketubot 5:6.

[75] “She who rebels against her husband [declining to perform wifely services (M. 5:5)]—they deduct from her marriage contract seven denars a week.” m. Ketubot 5:7.

[76] Compare m. Ketubot 7:2–5.

[77] Compare m. Ketubot 7:6. These reasons are in addition to a wife going out in public with her hair unveiled, which was discussed previously.

[78] Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage, 109.

[79] Peter C. Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1976), 305.

[80] This phrase is notoriously difficult to fully comprehend, hence the high level of attention it received in the first century. According to John Nolland, “This [phrase] could be understood quite restrictively by emphasizing the first term and relating ‘nakedness’ to sexual immorality, or it could be understood quite expansively by emphasizing the second term, taking ‘matter’ to mean ‘any matter’ and ‘nakedness’ as metaphorical of anything shameful.” Nolland, Gospel of Matthew, 768–69. Duane L. Christensen suggests translating “some uncleanness” as “a naked thing,” although he acknowledges that “Such a rendering does not communicate the terse quality of the original Hebrew expression, however, which defies concrete objective definition.” Duane L. Christensen, Deuteronomy 21:10–34:12 (Dallas: Word Books, 2002), 566.

[81] “The House of Shammai say, ‘A man should divorce his wife only because he has found grounds for it in unchastity.’” m. Gittin 9:10.

[82] “And the House of Hillel say, ‘Even if she spoiled his dish,’ since it is said, ‘Because he has found in her indecency in anything.’” m. Gittin 9:10. Compare Josephus, Ant. 4.253. A statement attributed to Rabbi Aqiva suggests that a husband finding someone more attractive than his wife could also fit the requirement for indecency, but there is no way to know just how common that interpretation was: “R. Aqiba says, ‘Even if he found someone else prettier than she,’ since it is said, ‘And it shall be if she find no favor in his eyes.’” m. Gittin 9:10.

[83] Compare the similar teaching in Mark 10:11, where Jesus states that divorce is a crime “against her,” meaning the wife. This provocative declaration “imputes to women the status of sovereign moral agents.” J. R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 304.

[84] As France nicely words it, “His [Jesus’s] quarrel with current ethical teaching is that it is basing its standards on an assumption of failure rather than on God’s original purpose for marriage.” France, Gospel of Matthew, 208.

[85] This is well stated by John Nolland: “It is, therefore, likely that the intention of the present Gospel text is to challenge easy divorce, whether initiated by the husband or provoked by the wife, in each case by labelling the subsequently formed relationship as adulterous. In each instance the challenge is addressed to the man: whether he be the one contemplating divorce or the one planning to collude with the stratagems of a woman who has found her way out of a marriage in pursuit of something better. Marriage is not a contract to be cancelled when no longer convenient but rather . . . a covenant relationship that calls for sustained faithfulness.” Nolland, Gospel of Matthew, 247.

[86] “The language used to indicate the exceptional case is quite striking, and probably not natural Greek. It is best taken as an evocation of the language of Dt. 24:1, where the basis of divorce is ʿcrwt dbr.” Nolland, Gospel of Matthew, 244.

[87] G. Fitzer, “porneia,” Exegetical Dictionary, 3.137–39. See the discussion of Nolland, Gospel of Matthew, 245–46.

[88] On this topic (and many more), see the thorough discussion in Mark D. Ellison’s “Family, Marriage, and Celibacy in the New Testament,” in New Testament History, Culture, and Society: A Background to the Texts of the New Testament, ed. Lincoln H. Blumell (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2019), 532–54. The classic source for the arguments regarding whether or not Jesus was married is William E. Phipps, Was Jesus Married? The Distortion of Sexuality in the Christian Tradition.

[89] “The instability of all marriages in antiquity, Jewish or not, led to frequent remarriage and blended families.” Satlow, “Marriage and Divorce,” 610.

[90] “The birth itself was fraught with danger for the mother and infant; the mortality statistics are alarming. About 30–35 percent of all newborns did not survive their first month, and 50 percent of children died by the age of ten. Some estimate seventeen maternal deaths out of a thousand births.” Lynn H. Cohick, “Women, Children, and Families in the Greco-Roman World,” in The World of the New Testament, ed. Joel B. Green and Lee Martin Macdonald (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013, 184).

[91] This is possibly the circumstance in 1 Corinthians 5, where Paul admonishes the Corinthians due to someone having married “his father’s wife” (1 Corinthians 5:1). This need not be the woman’s own son, but more likely the son of the woman’s former husband, and therefore her stepson, one who would perhaps be closer to her age than her husband had been.

[92] Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage, 117.

[93] See Instone-Brewer, Divorce and Remarriage, 122.

[94] As discussed earlier, a zuz was considered equal to the Roman denarius, which is typically understood to represent a day’s wage for a laborer.

[95] It is debated just how much Levirate marriage would have been practiced at the time of Jesus: “As a policy it was perhaps more honored in theory than in actual practice, . . . though the existence of a large body of rabbinic regulation for levirate marriage (m. Yebamot) shows that it continued to be valid at least in theory.” France, Gospel of Matthew, 837–38. Satlow comments on the difficulties caused by such an institution, saying, “The institution of levirate marriage, whereby a childless widow is supposed to marry her dead husband’s brother, created the potential for a variety of complicated scenarios, from polygyny (if the brother is already married) to incest (if he is married to the widow’s sister or mother).” Satlow, “Marriage and Divorce,” 610. A further complication would be whether land was considered inalienable during the Second Temple period.

[96] An additional complication, as Christensen notes, is that “though the Sadducees cited their law to Jesus in a dispute about resurrection, the law of the levirate marriage concerns matters of social and economic justice in this world brought on by premature death, not in relationships in another world beyond death.” Christensen, Deuteronomy 24:10–34:12, 609.

[97] Ben Witherington, The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 328. Witherington’s observations can be especially helpful for Latter-day Saints who wonder why Jesus seems to be preaching against an eternal concept of marriage: “I would suggest that Jesus, like other early Jews, likely distinguished between normal marriage and levirate marriage. In Mark 10 Jesus grounded normal marriage in the creation order, not in the order of the fall, which is the case with levirate marriage (instituted because of death and childlessness and the need to preserve the family name and line).” Witherington, Gospel of Mark, 329. See also the discussion in Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Thomas A. Wayment, Making Sense of the New Testament (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2010), 193–94.

[98] In Mark 12:26–27, God is, not was, “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

[99] This does not seem to have been the case for Roman woman. As part of his legal reforms (the lex Papia-Poppaea) of AD 9, Augustus enacted legislation that all woman under fifty (i.e., of childbearing age) were required to get remarried within eighteen months (those who had been divorced) or three years (those who had been widowed). Financial penalties and loss of inheritances followed those who refused a timely remarriage. See discussion in Judith Evans, ed., Women and the Law in the Roman Empire: A Sourcebook on Marriage, Divorce and Widowhood (New York: Routledge, 2002), 84.

[100] “In Palestine, divorced or widowed women were almost certainly not desirable partners for men who had never been married. They could probably expect remarriage with a man who was widowed, divorced, or had another wife.” Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, 184. Satlow adds that, once you consider those around their mid-thirties and older, the scale would tip heavily in favor of widowers rather than widows since men typically lived longer. See discussion in Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, 184–85.

[101] “The burden of such care on the resources of the community is reduced by Paul’s stipulation that the widow be no less than sixty years old (5:9). Life expectancy in the first-century Mediterranean world was shorter than it is today. The list of widows in the Ephesian church who were sixty-plus years old cannot have been a long one.” Luke Timothy Johnson, The First and Second Letters to Timothy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 274. Johnson presumes the historical Paul’s direct influence on the text of the pastorals, but this is questioned for a number of reasons by other good scholars; see the thorough discussion in Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 14–27.

[102] The circumstances and intent of Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 5:11–16 have been the topic of much debate. See the excellent discussion in Johnson, The First and Second Letters to Timothy, 269–76.