1. Marriage (Remastered)

Marriage

R.J. Rushdoony

Our Scripture is Ephesians 5:21-33; Ephesians 5:21-33. Beginning our studies in the seventh Commandment, Marriage.

“Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.”

The seventh Commandment declares: 

“Thou shalt not commit adultery.” 

And its purpose very obviously is to protect marriage. It is important therefore to understand the significance of marriage before we deal with the specific laws governing its violation. We have marriage first defined for us in Genesis 2:18-25. But in Genesis marriage is defined in relationship to man. First of all, we need to study it in relationship to God, and hence our concern this week is with the Ephesian passage, and next week with Genesis. 

Marriage, clearly, is according to Scripture of this earth. As our Lord said, there is no marrying or giving in marriage in heaven. But it still has reference to and is governed by God as are all things. God being the Creator and the Maker of all things, all things are absolutely subject to His law.

In order to understand marriage, in fact everything, we must begin with verse twenty-one which asserts a general principle: 

“Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” 

We have here a general principle of subjection affirmed. Calvin commented on this verse: 

“Submit yourselves. God has bound us so strongly to each other, that no man ought to endeavour to avoid subjection; and where love reigns, mutual services will be rendered. I do not except even kings and governors, whose very authority is held for the service of the community. It is highly proper that all should be exhorted to be subject to each other in their turn.” ⁱ

Charles Hodge affirms the same thing, and says that the Apostle requires mutual obedience as a Christian duty. And under this head, St. Paul, in this chapter and the next, discusses not only the relationship of husbands and wives, but of parents and children, of masters and servants, of everyone, a subject in a government and rulers, in other words, we have a general principle asserted here.

But in every age, and especially in our day, men have been in revolt against the necessity of submission, and they have dreamed of autonomous power of kicking over the traces as it were, of all authority, and being independent of all men.

A very interesting passage from the memoirs of the Duke of Gramont cites a discussion of on this same point with the young Louis the XIV: 

“Louis:I have just been reading a book with which I am delighted.

Gramont: What is that, Sire?

Louis: Calcandille. It pleases me to find in it arbitrary power in the hands of one man, everything being done by him or by his orders, he rendering an account of his acts to no man, and obeyed blindly by all his subjects without exception. Such boundless power is the closest approach to that of God. What do you think, Gramont?

Gramont: I am pleased that Your Majesty has taken to reading, but I would ask if he has read the whole of Calcandille?

Louis: No, only the preface.

Gramont: Well then, let Your Majesty read the book through, and when he has finished it, see how many Turkish Emperors died in their beds and how many came to a violent end. In Calcandille one finds ample proof that a Prince who can do whatever he pleases, should never be such a fool as to do so.” ⁱⁱ

Gramont’s observations, of course, were to the point. But this dream of absolute power, being like God, as Louis XIV clearly saw it, is now the popular dream, it is in fact the dream of the new left, of anarchism; every man his own God. And so today the idea of submission to authority is in particular despised, and we are again and again told by intellectuals and by prominent leaders of youth as well as politicians that we are duty-bound to violate any law we differ with; in other words, there is no law save our own will.

However, this ideal of anarchism is an impossibility; men are interdependent one upon another. But the general principle of subjection as here given in Scripture, and of service, is rooted in far more than man’s interdependence, it is grounded in a theocratic state, that is that ultimately all men are under God and subject to His Word and to His law-order. Men are to be in subjection and in submission one to another in mutual service, not because the needs of humanity require it, but in fear of God and in obedience to His Law-Word. The human interdependence exists because of a prior dependence upon God because man is not God, man is a subject; primarily and essentially to God, and to others in the Lord only.

Where men reject the idea of submission to authority and to God and assert their autonomy, they do not thereby gain independence. This rejection of God's authority and the assertion of man’s total independence, of course, was the essence of Marxism as well as of Anarchism. And the revolution of 1917, as well as the French Revolution, had at their heart this assertion of man’s total independence of God and man. But on the contrary, it led to a greater subjection by man to men.

This subjection, however, was now without the restraint of the fear of God and His Law. And so, every attempt to destroy due submission to authority brings about a total submission to lawlessness and to tyranny. The fact about Biblical submission is that it is always limited, always under law. It is the constitutional submission, that is, a husband is to be obeyed in everything we are told, in so far as he is in the Lord. In other words, he cannot command his wife to sin. Parents, rulers, all have a limited authority. Their authority is at all times strictly limited by the Word of God, and is subject to God. God's prior lordship governs and conditions all situations and all authority. To deny the Biblical principle of subjection, of submission, is to open the door to tyranny because there will be subjection; it is inescapable. 

Consider for example, the kind of world that has prevailed over and over again in history, and will prevail again when Biblical principles of authority are denied. Where do women come out? You had, of course, feminism in the Roman Empire, and women fought for and won the right to do as they pleased and to be independent of all authority, denying that anyone had the right to tell them anything, least of all their husbands. What was the consequence? Well, the consequence was a lawless empire ultimately in which every kind of authority was broken; the authority of women over their children, the authority of the state over its subjects, of the police, over criminals. And women ended up under greater subjection, because now it was the subjection of brute force, of total lawlessness, of no safety at all. And so, they lost, they lost everything.

Thus, in terms of Scripture wives are not placed in bondage by Biblical Law, but are rather established in liberty and security. In the liberty and security of a God-ordained relationship, and a God-ordained law-order where the husband under God exercises his authority for the welfare of his household, and where the wife exercises her authority under God for the total welfare of the family. But without Biblical faith there is no law-order, there is anarchy, and everyone suffers especially the weaker, especially women. Without Biblical faith what happens? Marriage is soon reduced to feeling. And as a result, where feeling prevails, there is very little security.

As an indication of this, a very revealing little book of poems written some years ago by a woman, Mary Carolyn Davies, has a poem entitled: A Marriage in which she writes:

Took my name and took my pride

Left me not much else beside,

But the feeling … that insures:

Sort of joy at being yours.

Property! That’s what it meant.

Property! And we content!

Now you’re gone; and can I be

Anything but property? ⁱⁱⁱ

In other words, a relationship such as hers, that had nothing but feeling, ended with a feeling and left her with nothing. So that she could write:

“Here is a woman,”

They’ll say to all men,

“A little soiled by living,

A little spoiled by loving,

A little flecked,

A little specked—”

Oh, they are forgiving.

To you who did the wrong, but still of me,

Like Cabbage in a market, critically,

They’ll say: “Not quite as fresh as she should be.” ^iv

In a world of feeling, what else is there? Only feeling prevails. Romantic feelings, mutual exploitation, and then self-pity because the lot of those who reduce the man-woman relationship to one of anarchic liberty. The Biblical principle of subjection is our ground of liberty and security as men and as women because it creates a society in which because there is authority, there is also liberty. The modern perspective opposes liberty and authority, but in terms of the Biblical perspective they are inseparable. Deny authority and you deny liberty, affirm authority and you have affirmed liberty; that is, if it is God’s authority; authority under God, and restrained and controlled and governed, by God's Law-Word. 

The Biblical principle of authority, moreover, is hierarchical, in that there are classes and levels of authority. That is, rulers have their authority, but it is strictly limited. Teachers have their authority, but it is limited. Employers, husbands, wives, all have their place, their station, in the hierarchy of authority, but each limited by God's Law.

The husband, we are told, is, “the head of his wife even as Christ is the head of the church.” “For the husband is the head of the wife,” St. Paul said, “even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.”

“Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.”

Ephesians 5:23–28.

Now what is clearly stated here is that the love of the wife is shown by submission, the love of the husband is shown by service. Self-sacrificing service for the welfare of the family. And so there is clearly a principle of subjection affirmed here, which rests ultimately on a chain of authority going back to Christ, who is the pattern in His relationship to the church. So that all authorities are Christ-centered, and are types of Christ, and the husband is compared to Christ, who gave Himself for His church that He might present it spotless and blameless unto God. 

One of the sad facts about this passage is that when we go to commentaries to understand it, we find that by and large they miss the point. For example, Bishop Barry of the Church of England a century ago, wrote in an otherwise excellent commentary:

“The subjection of the Church of Christ is a free subjection, arising out of faith in His absolute wisdom and goodness, and love for His unspeakable love. Hence we gather (1) that the subordination of the wife is not that of the slave, by compulsion and fear, but one which arises from and preserves freedom; next (2), that it can exist, or at any rate endure, only on condition of superior wisdom and love in the husband; thirdly (3), that while it is like the higher subordination in kind, it cannot be equally perfect in degree—while it is real “in everything,” it can be absolute in nothing. The antitype is, as usual, greater than the type.” ^v

Now there are some good points here that Bishop Barry has made, but there are some highly ridiculous ones. In other words, the wife is only to obey if the husband is smarter than her. Well, this is not always the case, and I would say in a good percentage of marriages it is definitely not the case. Does that give her the right to be independent? And is it like, and he says: ‘The obedience of the church is entirely free and voluntary thing?’ 

Well, now, what we are talking about here is law. The church is, by the Law of God, required to obey Christ as its head. And the husband is clearly the law authority in the family, and the wife is required by law to obey Him. Is it just when she feels like it? And do we obey Christ only when we have a mind to do so? Certainly it is not a slave relationship, but the alternative to slavery is not anarchy; there is such a thing as law. And the tragic fact is that Bishop Barry and most commentators discuss law without ever mentioning the fact that it is law. Is it any wonder that the church is in a mess today when what is clearly given as law is never cited as law, it is reduced to an emotional response, and that is blasphemy!? The whole universe is one of submission to law, to Authority, and the fulfillment of each and every aspect is to discharge its duties in terms of law and its place under law. In a world without submission to law and authority under law, lawless force would prevail, and all of us would suffer. The world of God's Law is man’s true liberty. Only when we begin with the fact of marriage as law, and the relationship of man and woman as one under law for both of them, that we can talk about free consent as a necessary but secondary aspect.

And what are the marriage vows about? They are of course, voluntary, but they are an acceptance and an affirmation of the fact of law. The very fact that they are called ‘vows’ is revelatory. They are vows unto God whereby God's law-order is invoked, both in its promises of blessing, and in its promises of judgment and curse for violation.

Now, the alternative to submission is not freedom, it is exploitation. As we have already pointed out, there is no freedom in anarchy. The purpose of submission is not to degrade men to those who are over them, or to degrade women in marriage, or to degrade anyone who is under authority, and we are all under authority, but to bring to them their best prosperity and peace under God's order. In a world of submission, the submission of a man or woman to their due authority is not in isolation or in a vacuum, it is set in the context of a law-abiding society, where those in authority use their authority for service, and those who submit do it knowing this is their peace and security. An interdependence and a service prevails in such a world.

But in a world of moral anarchism, neither submission to authority nor service, which is a form of submission, exists. A husband or father who uses his authority and his income wisely to further the welfare of the entire family is serving the welfare of all thereby, and he is submitting his authority to their welfare. But in anarchism, every man serves himself only, and seeks to exploit all of it.

Authority and law are things of the spirit. Where they prevail, there is little policing necessary. For example, in India today among the Hindus, practically no policing is necessary to enforce vegetarianism. Why? Because it is a religious principle in which they all believe. We, of course, do not accept it. And therefore if vegetarianism were required of Americans there would not be enough police to enforce it. Authority and submission are things of the spirit. And where you have as a part of the faith of the people, a belief in God's authority, then there is submission to authority.

Some months ago I cited the fact that in England centuries ago at one time it was impossible for anyone to leave their house in safety, and yet within a few generations it could be said that a virgin on horseback with a sack of gold could cross from one end of England to the other in safety.

Now what was the difference? The difference was that now there was not only policing, but that there was a common faith that undergirded the whole of society. Now, how could a woman, out of sight of the police with a stack of gold be safe? But once there was a faith that undergirded the whole order, that faith was the primary policing. And it is because today that primary policing of a common faith has been systematically destroyed, that it would be very difficult, even by doubling our police services, or changing the complexion of the Supreme Court, to do more than temporarily halt the decay of law and order.

Humanism today is denying the foundation of law for purely relative, purely personal considerations. A personal outlook is impersonal in its view of other people. That is, if your only criteria for judging things is yourself, personal, then you are impersonal in your use of other people because there is nothing outside of yourself that matters, and as a result an externalism prevails wherever humanism flourishes.

And so it is today that the basic qualities men desire in a woman are purely external, and similarly the qualities that women increasingly desire of men. And this has happened again and again in society. This externalism replacing God's law-order, an externalism that seeks to exploit people. For example, Sir Thomas More, now supposedly a saint of the Catholic church who was actually a militant humanist, in his book, Utopia, in which he portrayed an ideal communistic society, said that before marriage men should have the right to examine, in the nude, their prospective bride before they said “yes” or “no” to her.

When Sir William Roper, who was showing interest in both of Sir Thomas More’s daughters, said: “Well, why not practice what you preach?” Sir Thomas More took him into the bedroom where the two girls were sleeping, and whipped off the blankets, and the girls nightdresses were up under their elbows, the girls, when they were awakened by the light rolled over, and Sir William Roper, said: “I’ve seen both sides.” And he slapped one of them on the backside, and said: “I’ll have her.” 

Now the only thing we can call this, whether Sir Thomas is now an official saint or not, the epitome of coarseness and externalism. And this is precisely what prevails when the primacy of the spirit is destroyed when God's law-order and authority, which are things of the spirit, are eroded. Marriage, we are told here, is a type of Christ.

In Ephesians 3:14-15, according to James Moffat’s translation we read: 

“For this reason, then, I kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name and nature…” ^vi

“The Father of all families” can also be rendered: “The Father of all fatherhoods.” So that all Fatherhoods are a type of Christ, and every family in Heaven and earth derives its name and nature from God. 

Now, what St. Paul is saying in the third chapter is that the name and nature of all earthly relationships derives from the triune God. That is, apart from God there is no law, no society, no relationship, no justice, no structure, no design, no meaning. So that, what is hell? It is just bare existence in total isolation, there is no community in hell, nothing. No relationship between person and person in hell because God, having been denied, who is the Father of all fatherhoods, from whom every relationship derives its name and nature, to deny God is ultimately to deny all law, all society, every possible relationship. Hell has none of these things, it is total isolation.

This typology of marriage, whereby marriage is compared to the relationship of Christ and the church, therefore says that the marriage relationship sets forth something of that which in its origin comes from the triune God and from His redemptive purpose in Christ and the church, that the source of all relationship and its law structure comes from God. Therefore it is that husband and wife shall be one flesh; not an identity of substance, but a community of life.  And therefore this which is called a “great mystery” has reference to this; the primacy of God as the source of all relationship and of all community and therefore of all authority. 

Scripture says emphatically, St. Paul speaking for example in his epistle to Timothy, that Christ is the only mediator between God and man. But what we must recognize is that men are mediators, not between God and man, but between men and men; that God mediates His law-order through men. Thus, every teacher mediates an order to the pupils in His classroom. Every employer mediates an order to those working under Him. Every government mediates an aspect of God's law-order to its citizens. Every father, every husband, mediates God's law-order to those under Him as covenantal instruments. God's law-order not only governs therefore our every relation, but is the ground and happiness and prosperity of the whole of our lives. And we continually as we submit to authority, and as we exercise due authority, are mediating God's law-order to those around us.

Let us pray.

* * *

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee for this thy Word. We thank thee that thy Law-Word speaks plainly, and that our liberty is grounded in thy law-order and authority. Make us ever mindful of our responsibilities and our authority that day by day we may exercise all due authority under thee, and to thy praise and glory. In Jesus' name. Amen.

* * *

Are there any questions now, first of all with respect to our lesson?

Yes?

[Audience Member] Could you comment about the administration of justice by Moses in a centralized court before the Lord’s intervention through Jethro? Was this the ideal? ^vii

[Rushdoony] In the passage with regard to Jethro and Moses, Moses was trying to carry on the whole province of the courts, and what Jethro said and God confirmed was that it should be progressively decentralized, yes, and shared. But it was all authority under God and subject to His Kingship. Now, the essence of the rejection of Samuel was that they were rejecting God as the kind and the lawgiver of the nation for a man. But while certainly, while we are to grow in responsibility, and to grow in responsibility means to grow in authority, always it is to be subject to all due authority, and there is always authority in various realms ordained by God; church, state, family, vocation, school, and so on. So that these authorities are never dispensed with, they are strengthened as people become more responsible.

Let me emphasize that point again. Responsibility means growth in authority. And the more responsible we became, the greater the authority with which we exercise our calling in our place, our appointed place.

[Audience Member] Could you expound on the term ‘equality,’ Dr. Rushdoony? Is it at all useful as a term? ^viii

[Rushdoony] ‘Equality’ is a modern term basically, and I think it is best for us to bypass the word entirely because the word equality is a mathematical term. 2+2=4. Both sides of an equation are identical. Now, equality as a mathematical term has reference to abstractions. In other words, it has reference, say, to things that have been reduced to a common size; for example, you cannot say that two trees are equal to two trees, but you can say two 2x4’s are equal to two 2x4’s. But you cannot use the equality sign when you are dealing with people, because you are not dealing with an abstraction or something that has been cut to measure.

It has been part of the curse of our modern world in that we have taken terms out of science, and applied them to sociology, to human relations. But because science deals with precise measurements and abstractions and things like board feet [of lumber] and other things, it cannot be applied to the human scene. So the sooner we kick sociology out of the window and all of the scientific terminology out of human relationships, the better off we are. Then we won’t talk about ‘equality’ and ‘inequality,’ and other things that have reference to a domain that does not apply to us.

Yes?

[Audience Member] Was Mary Baker Eddy a feminist? ^ix

[Rushdoony] Yes, of course Mary Baker Eddy was first of all a feminist, and therefore she resented the whole idea of God being referred to as ‘Father.’ And second, she coined the Father/Mother God phrase when in reality God was neither Father nor Mother for her, God was simply impersonal cosmic mind. So it represented not only blasphemy, but inconsistency in terms of her own thinking.

Our time is limited, and there are a few things I would like to share with you; I referred I believe last week to the fact of one college, Marshall and Franklin, where the college students demanded that final examinations be cancelled. They felt that it was unfair because of course they obviously would not do well; and so, they demanded that they be allowed to grade themselves. I won’t read all of it, but they did besiege the buildings, and cooped up the instructors and so on.

“They met with President Keith Spalding, who said that the school would honor the instructors’ decision. The instructors gave in. ‘The instructors expressed deep regret over the circumstances under which we were forced to deliberate.’ They said they also regretted that the questions and demands raised by the black students had not been aired sooner.”

That is what happens in a world without authority. I referred also last week to the fact of ‘change’ as basic to education, that is the only thing that they believe in today, and a week ago Saturday the paper had “Today’s Youth, the Word is Change.” A long article. This is the only thing they teach. Since they believe in no absolutes, what can the schools teach today? Nothing but ‘change,’ which means revolution.

Along the same lines, I think it is interesting to see the demands by the retail clerks against the supermarkets now, in case you missed this over the holidays. The demands include: 

“Among original union proposals, according to the FEC, are paid auto insurance for teenagers in clerks families. Paid legal service for private litigation. Three months’ vacation a year with pay to train for second careers. Five weeks’ vacation with pay, and doubling of present pension rates.”

At the same time we have had a lot in the paper the last week or two about the incident at Berkeley, and all the reports have been dishonest in that they have not presented the real demands of the students. 

Now, the students as you know demanded that a portion of the university property at Berkeley be made into a ‘people’s park.’ They moved in and planted some trees, and then the university put up a chain link fence around it. Now of course the president has offered to give at least half of that to the students for a people’s park. 

Now this paper, which was published by students at Berkeley and distributed on every state college campus throughout the state of California; this is what the strike was about, which most of the students participated in across the State. These are their demands: 

“We demand and we will fight for; people’s park back to the people; all troops out of Vietnam, the black ghettos in Berkeley; amnesty to all political prisoners free Huey, bring back Eldridge.” 

And then in larger letters, the big demands: 

“Build parks everywhere. All fences down. The land belongs to the people, all institutions to the people, all wealth to all the people.”

Now, that of course is total communism. But this has not been in any papers, and yet this paper published by the students there has been truck loaded to every campus, and the majority of the students on almost every campus have gone along with this in the student strike. So don’t let anyone tell you that the students by and large are not in favor of it. The majority of them went along with those demands, and it is no wonder in view of what they have been taught over the years in the public schools; change is the only law. When professors of education say: “We cannot know what the world will be like 10 years from now, so why teach the children a lot of useless facts? But teach them the fact of continual change or revolution.” What else are we going to get?

One final, somewhat more humorous note, Piper, Jules Piper, in his cartoon strip, which is usually very much to the left, this time has a picture of a long-haired, long-mustached student saying: 

“I occupy buildings, raid files, scream obscenities, throw rocks, and call cops pigs in an attempt to humanize this brutalized society.”

With that note, we can adjourn.

i. John Calvin and William Pringle, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 316–317.

ii. W.H. Lewis, Assault on Olympus, The Rise of the House of Gramont between 1604 and 1678 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1958), p. 151.

iii. Mary Carolyn Davies, Marriage Songs (Boston: Harold Vinal, 1923), p. 16

iv. Mary Carolyn Davies, Marriage Songs (Boston: Harold Vinal, 1923), p. 13.

v. Alfred Barry, “Ephesians,” in Ellicott, VIII, 52.

vi. Ephesians 6:14,15. James Moffatt. The New Testament A New Translation By James Moffatt. Parallel Edition with Introduction. New York: George H. Doran Company, 1922.

vii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

viii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

ix.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.