Marriage as Equal Partnership: The Argument from Creation (if not Nature)
The opening address of The Book of Common Prayer marriage rite, “The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage” (423) cites several sources of scriptural authority: “The bond and covenant of marriage was established by God in creation (Genesis 1:27; 2:23-24), and our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee (John 2:1-11). It signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church (Ephesians 5:23, 32), and Holy Scripture commends it to be honored among all peoples” (Hebrews 13:4).
Although the more obvious reference to God establishing marriage in the order of nature is to Adam and Eve, the natural order of male and female sexual difference is first laid out in Genesis 1:27: “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” This seminal passage, source for all imago dei theology, is also a rich source of scriptural reflection on natural sexual difference in humankind (literally, Adam): “In his image he created them, male and female he created them”—surely this means that his (God’s) image includes male and female, as does Adam’s (humankind).
Later, in Genesis chapter 2, the genesis of human sexual difference is portrayed through a story of loneliness, sleep and divine surgery. God takes a part of Adam and fashions Eve. She is immediately recognized by Adam as the missing part of him—that which (in the immortal words of Jerry McGuire) “completes” him—“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman (ishah) for out of Man (ish) this one was taken.” A narrative voice then comments: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife; and they become one flesh” (Genesis 2:23-24).
For those who advocate same sex marriage an important question to answer is this: is this essential complementarity (as defenders of traditional marriage definitions call this part of their reasons to limit marriage to male and female) a complementarity of gender, or is there also a way in which it applies to same sex unions? To answer this question it is necessary to go back a few verses to the reason why God created Eve. It was because Adam was lonely: “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the human (Adam) should be alone; I will make him a helper (‘ezer) as his partner’” (Genesis 2:18). None of the other animals would do (“there was not found a helper as his partner” 2:20). So God made Eve. The key point is this: not even a human family and friends (mother and father, friends and siblings)—let alone an animal as pet-- will slake the longing for “a helper as his partner.”
What is interesting here is that the stated scriptural reason for the creation of Eve is not the “natural” (biological) reason for sexual differentiation (as a strategy for the procreation of the species). The stated scriptural reason for the creation of Eve is that Adam was lonely and needed a “helper as a partner.” As Phyllis Trible has taught, the Hebrew word for helper here can refer as well to God as to oxen—we are in need of helpers above and below.[i] But in this case our helper is to be an equal—a partner. As Trible notes, it is only as a consequence of the Fall that Adam “shall rule” over Eve (Genesis 3:16). The original pattern of equal creation in the image of God is being restored through the coming of Christ’s kingdom. One might think another human –a friend or family member—would do, but no, for there is a clear recognition of a special kind of intimacy, sexual union, between spouses: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh” (2:24). The “one flesh” union is a unique bond of intimacy and partnership; we are (most of us) lonely without it.
And in God’s original plan of creation this longing and union is good, as all creation is good, even very good: “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed”.[ii] Of course the first marital argument and assignment of blame follows shortly thereafter, as does the begetting of generations, but this very order—that procreation comes after the Fall--shows that the first biblical principle of marriage is as the Book of Common Prayer suggests: “The union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity sand adversity; and [then], when it is God’s will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord” (BCP 423). This human need for equal partnership is obviously as great for people whose sexual orientation is toward members of their own gender as for heterosexual people. Nor, indeed, is the biological impulse for procreation necessarily limited. Social experience over time will allow a fuller test of child-raising by couples of the same sex. It is too early to tell, but certainly given the prevalence of divorce and single parents it is not the greatest threat to child welfare. Providing appropriate gender role modeling is a practical obstacle, not an insurmountable one.
[i] Phyllis Trible, “Eve and Adam: Genesis 2-3 Reread,” Andover Newton Quarterly 13 (March, 1973), reprinted in Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion, ed. Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979), 74-83. See also Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality: Overtures to Biblical Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), 88-105. Trible prefers the translation, “I will make a companion (‘ezer) corresponding to it,” instead of the NRSV, “ I will make him a helper as his partner.’ ibid., 90.
[ii] For less innocent sex read Paul on fornication with prostitutes: “Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, ‘The two shall become one flesh’.” (1 Corinthians 6:16)
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