Genesis 24:3
And I will make thee swear by the LORD, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that
thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell: But
thou shalt go unto my country, and
to my kindred, and
take a wife unto my son Isaac.
How much freedom do you have? Well, perhaps that is too large a question. How much freedom do you have in who you will marry? Ok, maybe better narrow it down a little. Assuming you are not married, and that the ‘universe’ of marriageable people is all other people on Earth of the opposite sex, how much freedom do you have to choose amongst them and marry them?
This question occurred to me when I got in a discussion about ‘cousin marriage’, where the OP said that there must be some twisting of the choice, since the average female knew X number of other people, and thus the odds were Y that they would marry their cousin etc etc.
To which I replied:
And was told that that very limitation was the point of the post. That the choice of a spouse, being so important, should be unlimited.
Now, I disagree on the principle… but my point in this post is to point out that the shoe is on the other foot.
Ten Foot Pole
I Samuel 18:20
And Michal Saul’s daughter loved David: and
they told Saul, and the thing pleased him. And Saul said,
I will give him her, that
she may be a snare to him, and that
the hand of the Philistines may be against him. Wherefore Saul said to David,
Thou shalt this day be my son in law in the one of the twain
It is common for moderns to congratulate themselves on how much ‘freedom’ they have, but rarely do they examine the ‘freedom’ of the ‘dating market’. Or, to cut to the chase… the path to marriage. They picture a man, or woman, standing at the threshhold and looking out at the entire world and saying, “Freedom!”
But, not so fast. There is an interesting thing about freedom, when the issue involves more than one person: they interact. The person who has the ‘freedom’ to have a hot dog stand interacts with people who have the ‘freedom’ to decide not to eat hot dogs.
And thus the first problem with the marriage market: a lot of people would not touch our threshold stander with a ten foot pole.
Communication
Genesis 29:16
And Laban had two daughters:
the name of the elder was Leah, and
the name of the younger was Rachel.
Leah was tender eyed; but
Rachel was beautiful and well favoured.
And Jacob loved Rachel; and said,
I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter. And Laban said,
It is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man:
abide with me.
And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.
And it gets worse. Let us imagine a universe where some super computer existed that was able to to communicate to each of us, perhaps by smart glasses, which of the members of the opposite sex would be interested in marrying us. We could wander around the streets and see various people and know, instantly, if they could be ‘the one’.
But, of course, we would have to ask them if they would be someone we would want. Ok, my imagination has duly failed… alho I see a good sci-fi story in there somewhere.
But my point here is we don’t have that computer, we don’t have those glasses. We can’t look at people and see if they would like to marry us, let alone if we would like to marry them. We have to find them!
The Dance
Judges 14:1
And Samson went down to Timnath, and saw a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines.
And he came up, and told his father and his mother, and said,
I have seen a woman in Timnath of the daughters of the Philistines: now therefore
get her for me to wife.
Then his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said unto his father, Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well.
And the process for finding them… oy vey! What a disaster! What a minefield!! And what a limitation of… freedom.
Let’s take a short break in the dance to talk about ‘freedom’. Because there are two meanings, and only one reality. If you and I go to some store, and we see all sorts of wonderful things on the shelves, one might speak of our ‘freedom’ to buy them. But that ‘freedom’ only becomes reality if we have enough money in our pockets.
And then suppose, disappointed, we go to a different store, a smaller store, with a lot fewer items on the shelves… but we have the money to buy them… then our smaller ‘freedom’ is a lot bigger in reality.
So back to the dance. Our society does not have matchmakers, we don’t even really have ads. We have a bizarre non-system for attempting to figure out who we want to marry and who wants to marry us.
The Prejudice
Jeremiah 29:6
Take ye wives, and
beget sons and daughters; and
take wives for your sons, and
give your daughters to husbands, that they may
bear sons and daughters; that ye may
be increased there, and
not diminished.
So, coming around back to the ‘cousin marriage’ crowd (did I mention I am against cousin marriage? First cousin, anyway.). One difference between their system and ours is… the prejudice. When the family gets involved, their goal is to get you married. When they stay away, as in our system, the result is… that you don’t get married.
Conclusion
Psalm 45:10-11
Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and
incline thine ear;
forget also thine own people, and
thy father’s house;
So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for
he is thy Lord; and
worship thou him.
So in our current system you are free to marry anyone you want… except those who won’t marry you, those that you will never meet, those that would marry you but you weren’t able to figure it out.
If you asked a girl to marry you, and she said no, and then you asked another one, and she said yes, then in a very real sense you aren’t marrying ‘the girl you wanted’, your marrying some other girl. A second, third, or thirteenth choice.
There was (at least) one girl I wanted to marry in Junior High. Hint: We aren’t married. There were several in High School. Note: We aren’t married. There were some in college. N.B. We aren’t married. I am happily married and have been for years, but not to any of these. And along the way there were lots of girls that wanted to marry me… some of them even asked. None of them succeeded.
There was a famous sketch called ‘The Cheese Store’ by Monty Python. In it a man walks into a cheese store and wants to buy some cheese. Just the place for it, one would have thought. However (and it is a comedy sketch) as he asks for cheese after cheese he finds out that, for one reason or another, that particular cheese is not available at that particular store at this particular time. In fact, at the end, the conclusion is reached… there is no cheese.
And far too many of our young men and women (and even older men and women) are finding out that, for them, there are no spouses. Not because other young women and men don’t exist… they do. We are not post apocolypse. Not because they don’t want to get married… they do. They are sitting around despondently.
But because in contrast to the system that tells you to marry your cousin (I did mention I am against cousin marriage), our system tells you you can marry anyone you like… but there is no cheese.
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Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von