I had admittedly forgotten that Levites could only marry virgins or widows. So obviously under the law you could marry a non virgin, unless widowed virgins could be a thing.
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Meat Virgins or bridesmaids
- Thread starter Paulsen
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I had admittedly forgotten that Levites could only marry virgins or widows. So obviously under the law you could marry a non virgin, unless widowed virgins could be a thing.
I hope that nobody has gotten the impression that I believe that all non-virgins would be concubines.
That is a good article, especially for recent history (Middle Ages on), but doesn’t help much with a cultural standard during biblical history.
Even from the wiki article
A dowry is a transfer of parental property, gifts, or money at the marriage of a daughter (bride).[1] Dowry contrasts with the related concepts of bride price and dower. While bride price or bride service is a payment by the groom side or his family to the bride's parents, dowry is the wealth transferred from the bride's family to the groom or his family, ostensibly for the bride. Similarly, dower is the property settled on the bride herself, by the groom at the time of marriage, and which remains under her ownership and control.[2]
The dowry/wealth transferred to the groom or his family mentioned above does not fit the ideal I’ve seen presented by you or Pacman.
It wasn’t his property to do whatever he wanted with, but IF it was transferred to the groom or his family, it was in trust for her (or her children’s) benefit. They/he was accountable for its usage and if it was wasted under his management, he must restore it from his own monies.
So there’s a couple of issues I have with this article.
- It’s not really addressing biblical or Hebrew culture, (though there are similarities) but rather a later European practice and culture.
- It’s era is a later era than biblical culture.
- Later customs, while interesting and informative, are of less value to me in understanding biblical concepts. Basically the closer I can get to the source, the smaller the chance of cultural drift.
There were non virgins married without the concubine title for various reasons. The only difference I’ve seen was that her non virgin status had to be disclosed as part of the negotiations and the bride price was half that of a virgin.
A daughter married/betrothed/negotiated as a virgin that wasn’t at her wedding night was the one in jeopardy. One that was disclosed a non virgin and accepted as such by the prospective husband could never be refused or divorced on those grounds. Also a virgin bride that wasn’t, once it was discovered, had to be punished/divorced then. If he had sex with her after that discovery, that was considered tacit acceptance of her fault and could not be used as evidence against her.
Leviticus 21:10-15 NASB
'The priest who is the highest among his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil has been poured and who has been consecrated to wear the garments, shall not uncover his head nor tear his clothes; [11] nor shall he approach any dead person, nor defile himself even for his father or his mother; [12] nor shall he go out of the sanctuary nor profane the sanctuary of his God, for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is on him; I am the LORD. [13] He shall take a wife in her virginity. [14] A widow, or a divorced woman, or one who is profaned by harlotry, these he may not take; but rather he is to marry a virgin of his own people, [15] so that he will not profane his offspring among his people; for I am the LORD who sanctifies him.'"
I question the interpretation here. I see no prohibition against him taking more than one as is commonly claimed. Also is it possible that this simply applies to the first one he takes? I think elsewhere something is said about taking widows being permitted...
One non biblical historical reference should be as good as another.
Should be? Could be? Might be? Etc. maybe they are as good and maybe not. My issue is that there’s no sense in using a European, or Hawaiian or even a Martian dowry custom to understand it in regards to Biblical culture.
To my knowledge, the closest point of reference we have would be the Kethuboth Tractate, or Tobit (which is quite informative BTW) or Gad or Testament of the patriarchs or Josephus or Philo etc. All of those have a Hebrew bias and as such will be much closer to customs passed down and observed by their patriarchs.
Now you're just being silly.
Also, that is specifically talking about the High Priest, isn't it? Not all Levites, not even all priests. It's specifically about one individual and uses the singular "he" throughout.
Nope. That was just me musing errant-ly. I'm not really sure what you believe.
Oh snap. I seem to have remembered that verse running totally different.
I just did a word search on widow (H490) and found no other commandment for priests. I think we both remembered the same command the wrong way!
I wonder if there were broke Jews who only shopped for non-virgin brides. I'm that way about new cars. They lose half the dang value once you drive them off the lot and they wanna be like "congratulations on your investment".
Of the women men own, there is a subtype called concubine (for whatever reason). Concubines were always of lower status. I've yet to see any evidence of a concubine becoming a not-concubine while remaining his woman. (with one exception in Hamurabi related to it being an institution of slavery).
@Slumberfreeze That was a good point, although the text itself doesn't mention concubinage so it's hard to say for sure. There is no mention of dowry or contract. Maybe widow/divorced woman/harlot are those that would end up as concubines? IDK
I don't think most people have any concept of what the word means. Except maybe 'bad'.
I thought of another good use.
If the difference is one of virgin bride from father vs. non-virgin then concubine provides us a powerful tool to turn back the tide of the culture war.
The biggest problem related to sex and marriage in the church and culture today is promiscuity. Preachers bang on the pulpit regularly about abstinence to little effect. And we act like all women are virtuous and worthy of honor and do nothing of the rampant premarital sex going on in front of our noses among our Christian sisters.
But, if we start calling all married women concubines, unless she was married as a virgin, then it would provide a strong status signal to women in the church today. Young women would know that if they remained chaste, they would be honored as a wife all their days but if they sleep around they will be relegated to the lower status of concubine. This would undercut the feminist plot of sleeping around during their 20's before finding a man to make an honest woman of her and grant her the high status of wife.
This would likely provide a much stronger incentive to virtue than the present approach.
While it would, the word “overkill” comes to mind.
What is needed is a change of heart, a return to holiness. Without a reverent, holiness mindset, people are just playing the religion game. Creating rules for the game just isn’t going to solve the heart problems.
I believe that there are various reasons and sometimes the reason is one that prevents upward movement.
On the whole, I don’t see any theological reason that would prevent it.
For my purposes, the reason for accepting a woman as a concubine would mostly involve giving her a path into the family that isn’t as scary as the all-or-nothing choice that she would be faced with when changing from one culture into another. If she couldn’t handle such a huge change that would require her to commit to an alien lifestyle (being under patriarchal headship, for example) for the rest of her life, why not try it in increments?
You may be on to something here... We are brought in to Messiah in our unrighteous and he cleans us up (Eph. 5:25-27) are we brought in as concubine and then elevated to bride?
Bilhah is labeled as both in different passages... Gen. 30:4 and Gen. 35:22 Although it would be the other way around first labeled as his woman and later as his concubine...
Did Jacob’s concubine wives stay servants, or did the whole group just eventually morph into a homogeneous team of his wives?
Other than Rachel’s children, were the children treated differently? (His unequal treatment was a failure on his part)
As far as Solomon’s 700 wives and 300 concubines, my guess is that they were locked into their category based upon the wedding that they were given. He just couldn’t accept all of the girls given to him by the various leaders of city-states at the same level. I believe that the honor of even being a concubine in his house was a satisfying social distinction.
I believe Zilpah is called both also. This shows that "concubine" is simply a subset of "wife" ("woman"). All concubines are wives (but not all wives are concubines), and it is entirely appropriate to call a concubine a wife, because she is a wife.
Anyway, to not be a "wife", she'd have to not be a "woman", given that's the actual language used...
While my interpretation is that the "queens" (daughters of nobility) were those women he married for political reasons, while the "concubines" were those he married out of his own personal choice - meaning he probably preferred them and they might have had an actually better private life with him than a wife he'd never really wanted in the first place. But that's my personal speculation.
Interesting speculation, but what jumps out at me is if he married 300 out of his own personal choice, as you say, that would make him an extreme jerk in most people’s minds.
From what I have read, the more formal wedding ceremony lasted for a week. Do the math, each year only has 52 weeks and he had 700 wives. That’s why I think that the 300 concubines got a more minimal ceremony, reducing their status somewhat. All because they weren’t that high of a status to begin with that would call for the more formal wedding.
I expect he held mass weddings for the wives (e.g. all the women given at a diplomatic event being married simultaneously), with each not getting their own week at all, and nothing for the concubines. There'd simply not be enough time on his schedule as king for any of this.
