The Wedding Model

Maybe it’s just because of the way that I was raised, but I tend to look at my parents’ relationship as the model for marriage. Don’t misunderstand me, I know that my parents don’t have the perfect marriage, but neither does anyone else. There were some things my parents were very, very good at. I don’t remember them arguing very often when I was a kid. Usually their arguments were not serious, there were a few times when they went and locked themselves in their bedroom so as not to argue in front of the kids. We could hear angry voices, sometimes (they tried to argue quietly when they did that), but we couldn’t understand the words. I can count on the fingers of one hand (without using my thumb) the number of times that happened.
One thing that’s interesting about my parents’ marriage: They grew up in different churches together. They have both attended my father’s church for many years now, but my mother has never formally joined the church. She’s been going there long enough that I don’t think too many people remember that she isn’t, technically, a ‘member.’ From what I understand of the church that my mother grew up in, and did formally join, none of the doctrinal differences have anything to do with salvation. The differences are the sort of thing that I imagine Jesus would refer to as ‘straining at a gnat.’ There will always be people that want to make a big deal over something that really doesn’t matter. (Do you believe in transubstantiation or consubstantiation? I’ve always been more of a transmogrification man, myself. What difference does it make? Do you really think that, at judgment, God is going to say, no, you can’t come in, because you have a basic misunderstanding of communion—even though you did everything else right?). It occurs to me now that maybe I shouldn’t bring up my mother’s religious affiliation, because someone may read this that wasn’t aware and then start giving her a hard time. I would hope that my readers have better sense than that, though.
I think that a lot of people that knew my parents when I was growing up thought that my father was henpecked. To be honest, most of the time, if my mother asked my father to do something, he did it. Usually, there wasn’t even any discussion about it. That certainly supports the theory that he was henpecked. Of course, most of the time, what she asked of him was normal day-to-day stuff. A lot of it he probably would have done on his own if she hadn’t asked. Some of it he wouldn’t have thought to do on his own, but didn’t have any objection to. I was around enough to know that, occasionally, she would ask him to do something that he really felt strongly was not something that he should do. Most of the time, when that happened, he could tell her ‘no’ in a tone of voice that made it clear that the matter was not open for discussion, and she would drop the subject (although, occasionally, they would go lock themselves in the bedroom…).
The Bible says that the man is the head of the household. I think that many men have taken that to mean that the family is an autocracy. What the husband/father says, goes. Period. I don’t think that is what God intended. If two Godly people have joined together in matrimony, they are one flesh. They are partners. If they are truly God-fearing people, that diligently pray for guidance, then they are going to agree most of the time. When they disagree, then one of them is wrong (possibly both of them, but that should be very rare). When one of them is wrong, hopefully the other one can be persuasive enough to get them back on track. News flash! Sometimes the man will be the one that is wrong. That puts the woman in a very difficult position. The Bible says that a woman should not usurp authority over the man. The wife can only do so much to persuade her husband, if he’s messing up, before it becomes usurpation. If he’s stubborn about it (and convinced that he is right) she may have to simply go along with him, even though she knows he’s wrong. The husband will answer to God for his sin, but the wife has to answer for her obedience to her husband as well. In some cases, she may simply have to walk away from the marriage. That should be an extreme last resort, but if she feels that her husband’s leadership is threatening her salvation, then she needs to pack up and go.

God is a Jealous God

I understand that Jessica Biel is doing a remake of “Easy Virtue.” I can’t swear as to how close this will follow the original movie, but in the original movie, Biel’s character, Larita, has an abusive drunk for a husband, but there is a local artist who tries to convince her to leave her husband and run away with him. The husband becomes convinced that she is having an affair with the artist, and kills him, and divorces her. His defense, of course, is that killing the artist was a crime of passion. Most of the film is about what happens to Larita after the fact; she goes to France, where no one knows her, and no one thinks of her as a less-than-virtuous woman who had an affair (this is where the title, “Easy Virtue” come from). I personally found it interesting that the divorce court jury deliberations mostly consisted of, “Well, of course she did it; that drunken lout of a husband, and that handsome artist, she must have done it.”
It’s kind of interesting that, although a crime of passion is not legally recognized as a defense, it is occasionally used by defense lawyers to try to get a lesser sentence. That is, if a husband catches his wife cheating and kills her, or her lover, juries generally consider that to be less criminal than if he planned out a murder, say, for money. Generally, we understand when someone finds out that his or her spouse has been unfaithful, and then gets violent during that moment of passion.
My point is that jealousy, at least under certain circumstances, is an emotion that we understand, that we, in general, can identify with. Now, if I’m jealous of someone else because he has a young wife who is better looking or more passionate than mine (or both), that’s wrong. If I’m jealous because my wife is spending a lot of time with a man who is younger, better looking, and more passionate than me, well, maybe I have good reason to be jealous (and maybe I don’t—after all, I should be able to trust her, right? And yet…). Envy is generally listed as one of the seven deadly sins, but not jealousy. I would imagine that most thesauruses list envy and jealousy as synonyms, but only because if I’m jealous of someone else’s marriage, or house, or job, then that’s envy. If I’m jealous that my spouse may be seeing someone else, that’s not envy.
There are a number of times in the Bible where the relationship between us and God is compared to a marriage (Jeremiah 3, Matthew 9:15, Matthew 22, Matthew 25, John 3:29, Revelations 21:9). It seems very clear to me that God ordained marriage as an image of the kind of relationship that he wants to have with us. It should be a relationship of mutual love and trust. Historically, though, we haven’t done a very good job of upholding our end of the bargain. The situation described in Jeremiah 3 didn’t stop with the Old Testament. We’re under a New Covenant, I understand that, but God hasn’t changed, and people haven’t changed. We still have the same faults and foibles that Ancient Israel had. We, as Christians, still commit basically the same sins that our Jewish forbearers did.
Having said all of that, some people have been very critical of the fact that God is a jealous God (Exodus 20:5, Exodus 34:14, Deuteronomy 4:24, Deuteronomy 5:9, Deuteronomy 6:15, Joshua 24:19, Ezekiel 39:25, Nahum 1:2). God shouldn’t be jealous, jealousy is a bad thing, that’s a negative emotion. Jealousy in the sense of envy is a negative emotion, but jealousy in the sense of protection what is rightfully yours is not. To those that would say God shouldn’t be jealous, I have to ask the question, shouldn’t God be jealous? Haven’t we given Him good reason to be jealous? Shouldn’t we be more careful to be faithful to God, so that He doesn’t have to be jealous?