Page:Woman's Position According to the Bible.pdf/4

 (Judges xxi., 10–23), under circumstances of special difficulty, in order to evade the fulfilment of a vow, and it was practised in times of war (Deut. xxi., 10–13; Numb. xxxi., 18); but women thus captured were not regarded as legitimate wives; such a woman could be turned away without formality (Deut. xxi., 14), whereas the Hebrew wife, though rejectable at will by the husband, was entitled to a "bill of divorcement" (Deut. xxiv. 1, 3). Marriage by purchase, however, was regularly practised among the Hebrews; Abraham's servant gives "precious things" to the brother and mother of Rebekah to buy her for his master's son (Gen. xxiv., 53); Jacob paid seven years' service for his [sic] each of his two first wives (Gen. xxix., 15–28); a man could sell his daughter into marriage (Ex. xxi. 7–10); and the quotations might be multiplied. Polygamy was general, though seldom carried to such excess as by many-married Solomon, with his 700 first-class, and 300 second-class wives. Polygamy appears to be also recognised in the New Testament, for the restriction to one wife is only made by Paul to apply to bishops and deacons (1 Tim. iii., 2, 12), and the rational implication is that non-clerical Christians might increase their marital households. Whether Christian marriage may be polygamous or not, there can be no doubt, as we shall see later, of the entire subjection imposed on Christian wives. The Bible idea of marriage never rises above marriage as servitude. There is not a trace of the higher ideal, in which marriage is the union of two free, self-respecting friends, devoid of masterhood on the one side as of submission on the other.

Passing from the forms in which marriage is found in the Bible, we will next consider biblical marriage laws. In the earlier times there appear to have been no laws concerning it; Sarah "gave" Hagar to be Abraham's wife (Gen. xvi., 3), and when she was tired of Hagar's presence Abraham "sent her away" (xxi., 14) without any formalities. The validity of a Hebrew marriage later depended on the social status of the husband. If the husband were a slave, and his master gave him a wife, then the marriage was broken when the man went free at the end of his term of servitude; "the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he [the husband and father] shall go out by himself" (Ex. xxi., 4). If the husband were a freeman he could determine the marriage at his pleasure: "When