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Concubines... just a bit of mental jousting.
- Thread starter captainjonathan
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Awesome, I love learning. Thank you guys so much. (dancing the jig) 
Eternitee, gentlemen only, if I post you a wet bus ticket could you slap yourself on the wrist with it please?
Cecil,
Did you just encourage dishonesty? I would take a more theological route. Well, since we are married and therefore one flesh, neither male nor female alone can answer. As we are now one flesh, we answer.
Did you just encourage dishonesty? I would take a more theological route. Well, since we are married and therefore one flesh, neither male nor female alone can answer. As we are now one flesh, we answer.
did you see a difference between the way that the marriage ceremonies were conducted?Eristhophanes said:
on another note,
I agree with you in principal, but the following scenario shows that there are exceptions:
Deu 21:10-14 ¶ When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails; And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her.
Gideon_70
New Member
Pardon me for adding my two cents here. I'll provide verses if I need to.
I think of marriage differently than others do. I divide it into two parts. Marriage means to join two things into one. I think that there are two ways that this happens. In the case of Adam, first he made a promise to God, then he took the woman to himself. Two parts.
I believe that the bond is the joining of two people with sex. I believe that the bond passes from the man to the woman. I'll explain why I believe that in a moment but imagine it's a string that the man gives the woman that links them together that cannot be broken.
I think the second part is the promise. This is when a promise to remain together is made. It is supposed to be public, because it is a promise that is made strong by the knowledge of others. It's also a form of protection.
If the promise is made first, it is proper.
If the secks is first, then the two are told to marry and complete the joining.
Adultery is:
a: A man sleeping with a women that is married to someone else (this bonds him to her, and also to her husband through her)
b: Having secks with a woman and you don't care what her status is. (verse in Matthew, gune - woman of unknown marital status - implies irresponsibility and lack of caring)
c: Causing her to commit adultery by wrongfully divorcing her. (which breaks the promise, but not the bond)
Adultery is adding something that does not belong. When you adulterate a liquid, you add something to it that pollutes it. When she sleeps with someone else, she creates a new bond over top of her proper one, and pollutes it. Worse, she bonds the two men together through her body. This is why a divorce does nothing other than strip the promises away but leaves the marriage intact and why women who are divorced are told to stay single. When two men are bonded together, they become one - and that is really bad. It is called an abomination - or making impure, dirty, filthy.
It's also why fornication is so bad. When a woman fornicates, she is sleeping with many men, and each time she does she's bonded to them... and they are bonded to each other through her! A woman who fornicates is purposely sleeping with men and binding to them. It's something that she does.
Forms of wives: I've discovered that the forms follow authority. They are wives in that they are all bonded to the man. My examples are bible based.
Full Wife: Married to the man, and he is directly over her. She is given an area of responsibility within the household. He has authority over her, even to the ability to nullify her promises. She answers directly to him.
Concubine: A wife that is directly under the authority of a full wife. The Concubine answers to the Wife, and the wife has nearly the same authority over the man as the man has over the Full Wife.
Imagine that you are married to three women. You're a farm owner and have duties that need to be done. Now, imagine that a woman comes to you and asks to be part of your family, but you don't really trust her to be responsible. Instead of marrying her, you give her to a wife, and she keeps her and lets her help on that level. It follows the same pattern I see in the Bible a lot... Captains of Captains. It's also smart. It's a way to divide labor in a family that must work to live, but would become unwieldy if everyone was always going to the man for help/instruction. This way, he can instruct primary wives, and then let them deal with the details.
In an cattle/agricultural society, this would magnify the effects of labor and let a family really accomplish tasks quickly and find more time for leisure and fun.
But hey, it's just my 2c
I think of marriage differently than others do. I divide it into two parts. Marriage means to join two things into one. I think that there are two ways that this happens. In the case of Adam, first he made a promise to God, then he took the woman to himself. Two parts.
I believe that the bond is the joining of two people with sex. I believe that the bond passes from the man to the woman. I'll explain why I believe that in a moment but imagine it's a string that the man gives the woman that links them together that cannot be broken.
I think the second part is the promise. This is when a promise to remain together is made. It is supposed to be public, because it is a promise that is made strong by the knowledge of others. It's also a form of protection.
If the promise is made first, it is proper.
If the secks is first, then the two are told to marry and complete the joining.
Adultery is:
a: A man sleeping with a women that is married to someone else (this bonds him to her, and also to her husband through her)
b: Having secks with a woman and you don't care what her status is. (verse in Matthew, gune - woman of unknown marital status - implies irresponsibility and lack of caring)
c: Causing her to commit adultery by wrongfully divorcing her. (which breaks the promise, but not the bond)
Adultery is adding something that does not belong. When you adulterate a liquid, you add something to it that pollutes it. When she sleeps with someone else, she creates a new bond over top of her proper one, and pollutes it. Worse, she bonds the two men together through her body. This is why a divorce does nothing other than strip the promises away but leaves the marriage intact and why women who are divorced are told to stay single. When two men are bonded together, they become one - and that is really bad. It is called an abomination - or making impure, dirty, filthy.
It's also why fornication is so bad. When a woman fornicates, she is sleeping with many men, and each time she does she's bonded to them... and they are bonded to each other through her! A woman who fornicates is purposely sleeping with men and binding to them. It's something that she does.
Forms of wives: I've discovered that the forms follow authority. They are wives in that they are all bonded to the man. My examples are bible based.
Full Wife: Married to the man, and he is directly over her. She is given an area of responsibility within the household. He has authority over her, even to the ability to nullify her promises. She answers directly to him.
Concubine: A wife that is directly under the authority of a full wife. The Concubine answers to the Wife, and the wife has nearly the same authority over the man as the man has over the Full Wife.
Imagine that you are married to three women. You're a farm owner and have duties that need to be done. Now, imagine that a woman comes to you and asks to be part of your family, but you don't really trust her to be responsible. Instead of marrying her, you give her to a wife, and she keeps her and lets her help on that level. It follows the same pattern I see in the Bible a lot... Captains of Captains. It's also smart. It's a way to divide labor in a family that must work to live, but would become unwieldy if everyone was always going to the man for help/instruction. This way, he can instruct primary wives, and then let them deal with the details.
In an cattle/agricultural society, this would magnify the effects of labor and let a family really accomplish tasks quickly and find more time for leisure and fun.
But hey, it's just my 2c
Welcome to the forum G70.
However I must reject or at least require some proofs of your assertions. But, first, and this is my pet peeve, there is nothing wrong with the word sex. Please feel free to use it, or not, but don't be hesitant to call an apple, an apple. Sex is a beautiful thing created by God. It can be used for bad, but that does not make it inherently so.
First I'm going to need to see scripture on your connection that a second man with a woman joins the men together.
Second, Gune means woman which can mean married or in general female of the species. If I said all Gune are beautiful, I do not mean only the married women. There are two other Greek words to specify maiden and widow, but gune can also be used to include them too.
Concubines did not belong to the wives. However a maidservant who did belong to a wife could become the husband's concubine.
However I must reject or at least require some proofs of your assertions. But, first, and this is my pet peeve, there is nothing wrong with the word sex. Please feel free to use it, or not, but don't be hesitant to call an apple, an apple. Sex is a beautiful thing created by God. It can be used for bad, but that does not make it inherently so.
First I'm going to need to see scripture on your connection that a second man with a woman joins the men together.
Second, Gune means woman which can mean married or in general female of the species. If I said all Gune are beautiful, I do not mean only the married women. There are two other Greek words to specify maiden and widow, but gune can also be used to include them too.
Concubines did not belong to the wives. However a maidservant who did belong to a wife could become the husband's concubine.
Gideon_70
New Member
NetWatchR said:
Thanks for the welcome.
Hi everyone. Thought I would just in there knee deep.
I'm glad to provide my reasoning for the statements I've made, but keep in mind that it's my personal beliefs and I'm not trying to foist them onto anyone.
Hope you all have a nice evening!
Matthew.
Reasoning shouldn't really play that big of a part in it. You did say your statements were bible-based. I think we look forward to reviewing your scripture references.
For the most part, i think that we can agree that to truly learn requires the possibility that what we already know may not be fully correct. I am willing to admit that my info may be wrong, However, your statements leave you with the burden of proof.
For the most part, i think that we can agree that to truly learn requires the possibility that what we already know may not be fully correct. I am willing to admit that my info may be wrong, However, your statements leave you with the burden of proof.
Gideon_70
New Member
Gideon_70 said:
I'll address these two for now.
A long time ago I wanted to look into what marriage really was. For instance, we use a marriage license to gain legal status for the marriage in the USA. The license and contract enact a huge number of laws that are applied to a new couple as soon as the person witnessing the contract signs it. So to me this is not marriage. Or is it? If there is sex involved, and a promise, then is it marriage?
Then an idea occurred to me. What if it was less about the promise than about the authority. Is a marriage authorized by the state a marriage if the final authority in the marriage is the state, and not the husband?
So my thoughts went to Captains of Captains. Authority. Moses striking the rock, David having Saul under his sword and not doing anything about it. Gideon not taking all of his men and instead taking only a small percentage of them. Faith, authority, chain of command, and promises.
I say promises because of the ability of a husband to break a wife's vow. If he does nothing, it stands, if he says no, it falters. He had the authority to break her vow, so she is under his authority and he is under Joshua's authority. Captains of Captains.
The thing about Concubines is that the only examples that we really have are anecdotal and what's in the Bible. Jewish lore says, "A concubine may be defined by Jewish laws as a woman dedicating herself to a particular man, with whom she cohabits without *kiddushin (see *Marriage) or *ketubbah." Ketuba is the marriage agreement between a man and his wife as a negotiated treaty between him and the woman he will be married to the rest of his life. I've looked into this extensively and these ocuments can be as bare as bones, or so detailed it spells out who takes the garbage out. The terms of the surrender, which is what it is, that the woman agrees to.
If a man has responsibility without authority, he places himself in grave danger. If he is bound by the words of his wife, and has no ketuba with the concubine, then how does the marriage work?
She's not a whore. Different term, different concept.
So what?
Then I ran into a verse. "And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands."
Hagar, concubine to Abraham, servant to Sarah. Why? He was sleeping with her. She was growing a child for him. Why would she still be a slave/servant?
The angel requested that she go submit, not to her husband, but to her mistress! Then I read, "And David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem, after he was come from Hebron: and there were yet sons and daughters born to David." Concubines and wives? What is the difference?
Then it dawned on me. It's the authority. He still has authority over the women, but if the concubine is to submit to the wife and the wife submit to the husband, then they both submit but there is a different level of authority. It's not that far fetched, and it fits with the bible and the passages concerning it.
Imagine being husband to twenty wives! Now add ten more, twenty more! Confusion would reign. But if you divided them up, some were servants and some were wives?
So a slave that promises loyalty to a man, or a woman who chooses to join a man as a servant would be a wife of lesser statute? "CONCUBINE, marital companion of inferior status to a wife." Inferior in what way? That she has a different level of authority? So I decided that she would be under the authority of the wife, and subject to the authority of the husband one level removed.
But to me, that was the small picture. The big picture is the real question.
Okay, bear with me... this is a little strange....
If the husband marries, then he is supposed to grant a ketuba to the wife according to Jewish law.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jso ... 04557.html
http://www.interfaithfamily.com/life_cy ... h%29.shtml
The levels of authority are, God, Jesus, Man, Wife, Concubine, Children.
It is said that divorce of a concubine is a different matter than divorce of a wife. They were sent away, dismissed. The authority is different. The concubine, as a woman under the headship of a wife, would not have the same contract as the wife.... no ketuba.
So, this is where it kind of blew my mind, and I think I few of you already get where I'm going...
If the head of the household is a judge, and the man's authority to marry comes from him, then does that not mean that a legal wife in the USA is really a concubine and not a true wife?
Thankyou for admitting that it is an assumption based on an example in scripture. I agree that in that case she was under the authority of the wife, but Hagar started out as Sara's servant.Gideon_70 said:
You do not get to define Jewish law by extrapolation from one story.
Where you really want to go is this:
Proper headship is YHWH, Yeshua, husband, wife (each individual one, concubine or not), children.
Putting the State in the structure above YHWH is.....well...putting YHWH subject to the State.
Making the wife a concubine by making the State the final authority would not exactly be the point.
Gideon_70, thankyou, this is a very interesting perspective. I agree with Steve that it is an assumption as we don't actually have this outlined clearly. However the idea that a concubine is the servant of a wife is completely consistent with every example that we have elaborated in enough detail to look at:
- Hagar remained Sarah's servant (Gen 16:9)
- Bilhah remained Rachel's servant, and Zilpah remained Leah's servant (Gen 30). Note that it was Rachel and Leah who named the children of the concubines (demonstrating their authority over them).
So this is a very plausible explanation, fits with the examples very well, and explains why they would have a different name to describe the relationship they had with the husband. It's not conclusive, but I must say it's the best explanation I've seen yet, unless anyone can find a scripture that counters it.
Remember that she still was considered a wife also, the term 'wife' is used interchangably with concubine to some degree, so by recognising this we are not reducing her value or anything like that. There does appear to be this additional level of authority in place in these particular examples, but that doesn't reduce the value of the woman, in the same way as a regular wife being under the authority of her husband does not detract from the fact that she is a human with equal value in God's sight to her husband. We're just talking about a matter of practical organisation.
I must stress for readers that Biblical Families would NOT recommend this! We strongly advocate equality among wives. This discussion is to understand the marriage situations that existed in the Bible, not to suggest that people copy them.
I can see no link between this and modern state marriage. According to the above logic a concubine is a wife who is under the authority of another wife who is under the authority of the husband. In a state marriage both husband and wife are under the 'authority' (if that authority is recognised) of the state. If the authority went husband -> state -> wife, then this would be a parallel situation, but since the husband does not control the state then this is irrelevant. So I don't agree that a wife in a state marriage is actually a concubine, I just don't recognise state marriage as meaning anything at all.
- Hagar remained Sarah's servant (Gen 16:9)
- Bilhah remained Rachel's servant, and Zilpah remained Leah's servant (Gen 30). Note that it was Rachel and Leah who named the children of the concubines (demonstrating their authority over them).
So this is a very plausible explanation, fits with the examples very well, and explains why they would have a different name to describe the relationship they had with the husband. It's not conclusive, but I must say it's the best explanation I've seen yet, unless anyone can find a scripture that counters it.
Remember that she still was considered a wife also, the term 'wife' is used interchangably with concubine to some degree, so by recognising this we are not reducing her value or anything like that. There does appear to be this additional level of authority in place in these particular examples, but that doesn't reduce the value of the woman, in the same way as a regular wife being under the authority of her husband does not detract from the fact that she is a human with equal value in God's sight to her husband. We're just talking about a matter of practical organisation.
I must stress for readers that Biblical Families would NOT recommend this! We strongly advocate equality among wives. This discussion is to understand the marriage situations that existed in the Bible, not to suggest that people copy them.
I can see no link between this and modern state marriage. According to the above logic a concubine is a wife who is under the authority of another wife who is under the authority of the husband. In a state marriage both husband and wife are under the 'authority' (if that authority is recognised) of the state. If the authority went husband -> state -> wife, then this would be a parallel situation, but since the husband does not control the state then this is irrelevant. So I don't agree that a wife in a state marriage is actually a concubine, I just don't recognise state marriage as meaning anything at all.
The biggest reason that I cannot accept the premise that concubines are the servants of the wives is that they are mentioned most often in relationship to kings. Mostly David and Solomon. With all of the many wives that each of them had, why on earth would they bed the servants/slaves of their wives? That would cause me to lose a great amount of respect for those men.
Remember that many of the king's marriages were political. I do not think that we have any way today to understand why there would be differences in standing, but the reality would be that not all of the queens would be equal.
Also, the maid taken in war and married was not held to the same standard "till death do us part" as a normal marriage. There was a difference for reasons that do not exist today. Methinks that it would be wise to accept it without needing to shoehorn it into our way of thinking.
Remember that many of the king's marriages were political. I do not think that we have any way today to understand why there would be differences in standing, but the reality would be that not all of the queens would be equal.
Also, the maid taken in war and married was not held to the same standard "till death do us part" as a normal marriage. There was a difference for reasons that do not exist today. Methinks that it would be wise to accept it without needing to shoehorn it into our way of thinking.
Steve, I think that you are rejecting this suggestion based on your own opinion about whether it sounds OK or not. I think your reasoning is itself trying to "shoehorn it into our way of thinking" - and then rejecting it because it doesn't fit so you "cannot accept" it.
We also read about David that he left ten concubines "to take care of the palace" (2 Sam 15:16). We know these were fully valid wives (2 Sam 12:11), but here they are called concubines. Why did he leave "concubines" to take care of the palace? I think this indicates that this was their normal job - they were domestic servants, who normally took care of the palace. Now if they were servants (which I admit I am just assuming), who were they subject to? If they were just under David's authority directly they would just have been called wives, because they would be no different to any other wife. To be servants they must have been under some additional authority - and being under the authority of one of his wives does make sense. Again, this passage does not prove this, but it is entirely compatible with it.
We can however recommend against it, in our culture, because of the many domestic problems it would most certainly bring.
We also read about David that he left ten concubines "to take care of the palace" (2 Sam 15:16). We know these were fully valid wives (2 Sam 12:11), but here they are called concubines. Why did he leave "concubines" to take care of the palace? I think this indicates that this was their normal job - they were domestic servants, who normally took care of the palace. Now if they were servants (which I admit I am just assuming), who were they subject to? If they were just under David's authority directly they would just have been called wives, because they would be no different to any other wife. To be servants they must have been under some additional authority - and being under the authority of one of his wives does make sense. Again, this passage does not prove this, but it is entirely compatible with it.
On the other hand, if Abraham and Jacob could "bed the servants of their wives", why not David and Solomon? Also, consider the position of the servants. We don't know what options they had in life. It may be that they were destined to be in the household for life, and marriage outside the household would not have been compatible with their role for either cultural or practical reasons. Becoming a concubine of the king may have been a major step up for them in life that they would actually have aspired to. It may have been their only opportunity to have children. Possibly they even felt that being the king's concubine was a greater honour than being the guard's wife. Who are we to judge? We may not understand it, but we cannot condemn it if God does not.Steve said:
We can however recommend against it, in our culture, because of the many domestic problems it would most certainly bring.
This is a bit of an aside, but I don't take Deut 21:10-14 that way. I read it as saying essentially "if you see a captive woman you want to marry, take her home, let her mourn her family for a month, and after then you can take her as your wife. But if at that point you actually realise she isn't suitable to be your wife, let her go free instead". I don't think this is allowing divorce, just ensuring the man doesn't mistreat her. Even today there is a lot of sexual abuse of woman in war, there was actually a UN summit on this specific issue this week. In the heat of the moment angry men can make bad choices. This law basically forces the men to have a month of cooling their emotions before they do anything about it, and it is quite likely that plenty of women who looked hot on the battlefield actually don't look so attractive after they've been living in your home for a month and you're considering them calmly and rationally. So verse 14 tells men how to honourably treat the woman they took rashly but actually don't intend to marry. It doesn't reduce these woman and give grounds for easy divorce, but actually upholds their rights to be treated fairly and not be sold as slaves.Steve said: