Nothing about a traditional family as humans view it today.The family in the Bible, as in the Ancient Near East (ANE) and in the Mediterranean world generally, was patriarchal. What this means primarily is that the cultures through and in which biblical literature was shaped and formed over some 1200 years were basically patriarchal. The tribe and the family were centered in the men in the family, especially the first-born. This is seen in the biblical understandings of a family and its character, the "father's house" (bet 'av), the family (mishpahah), the concept of peoplehood (ha'am), brotherhood, kinship, Levirate marriage, and even the Jubilee laws of redemption of debtors and family land. "Round the man the house groups itself, forming a psychic community, which is stamped by his character. Wives, children, slaves, property are entirely merged in this unity" (Pedersen: 63).The children of the family or household were not just the father's future through his name, but the continuing existence of one of the twelve sons of Jacob. Without children his major domo, or head household servant, who was often an alien like Eliezer of Damascus, would inherit the land (Gen 15). Selection of a spouse was a family affair, and not for the individual alone to decide. The wife had to be found not far removed from his family so as not to introduce disruptive foreign or strange elements into the heritage, as Solomon did with his seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (1Kgs 11:3). While the wife chosen for an Israelite was not to be alien, incest on the other hand was to be avoided. Incest and homosexuality were to be shunned because the Hittites and the Canaanites, and other foreigners, engaged in such practices. The prohibition against incest, however, did not preclude marrying half-sisters or half-brothers; and intermarriage with Canaanites and other peoples occurred frequently, as can be seen in the Book of Judges and elsewhere.The man was at the center of the family and the woman his partner in assuring continuity (Wright). In a patriarchal society a woman was basically a regenerative-sexual being. (Please don't moralize yeti) It was the man's family she was committed to multiply when getting married. Everything was grouped around the man as the heir of the patriarch Jacob before him (hence the very term, patriarchal). It was his life which was to be continued in the family, and polygamy was practiced to serve that end. And the man could proclaim divorce from a wife if she did not bear children. But the woman who did produce children attained considerable status in the family, even nobility; indeed a foreign slave woman who bore the man children acquired high status.
|
05-20-2007, 02:30 PM
Linear Mode
