So lot married his daughters…
-
Biblical Families is not a dating website. It is a forum to discuss issues relating to marriage and the Bible, and to offer guidance and support, not to find a wife. Click here for more information.
Does a single woman always need her father’s approval to marry?
- Thread starter Aaron_D
- Start date
Your interpretation cancels out headship and father authority.
Jacob - after his daughter was raped - he did not assume they were married. They discussed the potential marriage or no marriage. Was Jacob’s understanding wrong? Was he sinning by considering to pull the breaks on that potential marriage?
Last edited:
Sorry; an argument from silence. We don't KNOW what part of His Instruction they knew, or didn't. Only that Moses hadn't Written what he later did. Noah knew about "clean" animals, and Judah knew about "Levirate marriage" - and other examples abound.
I suspect Lot may have even suspected that what was going on in Sodom (and not only 'sodomy') wasn't right...
From that union came Moab, and prohibitions that later lasted 10 generations. And a lot of other problems.
(I love the midrash on this one, BTW. They had to get their man 'drunk' - and he fell for it TWICE! Anybody smell even a hint of rat?)
Note, again: no "statues, judgments, or commandments." But lots of indications that point to something He was telling us about.
I wasn't intending it to be insulting. However, the understanding that you have is sufficient to understand the situations in your own life. It is not sufficient to comfortably explain other situations though.
Immediately following this there is a question about Lot's daughters, and your response is that it looks like marriage but "I don't think we should read too much into it though" - in other words, you yourself are uncomfortable with the conclusion that your own logic reaches. This should suggest there is an aspect you are neglecting, and it is in fact your subconscious acceptance of that very aspect that causes you to be uncomfortable enough to suggest this is "description versus prescription".
So you know this already on some level, you hint at it plenty of times when we are discussing such borderline situations, but you do not permit yourself to verbalise it. At least not yet. You are the very definition of stubborn, and I actually mean that as a compliment. You're a rock who sticks with what you believe whatever the world around you may say. Even if what you believe is wrong.
It sounds like it.
You’re following a familiar path, running to every story about the actions of flawed sinners and trying to treat them like direct commands from God. There are direct teachings about sex and one flesh. We don’t have to read the chicken guts of Jacob’s actions. Jacob is kind of famous for periodically being a jackass. His response to his daughter getting raped is not an expose on God’s views of marriage.
And headship and fatherly author are not in this verse. Headship is in Paul. Fatherly authority is a nebulous thing. It is not well defined or even explicitly advocated for.
You’re ignoring what Exodus 22:16-17 says. Your conclusion means that another man is allowed to rape another man’s virgin daughter, and they automatically become married. Even though in the Torah the man has a choice in marriage, and in the Torah the father (her covering) has the authority to stop the marriage from happening as well.
Your conclusion also means that almost every marriage today is adulterous - which is a sin that carries a promise of destruction. Your reasoning means that every day there are Christians marrying adulterous women. Because almost no one is marrying virgins.
It’s clearly not what the Torah says. The Torah says if a man seduces a virgin - he must marry her. It doesn’t say - he is now married to her:
Exodus 22:16
If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged to anyone and has sex with her, he must pay the customary bride price and marry her.
The man can choose not to obey this instruction - like the majority of men have chosen today.
I can’t help you here bud. You hang an entire theology on this one verse, a verse I’ve demonstrated was never designed to support the weight your hanging on it. The verse only applies to a father who can physically block possession. It has nothing to do with a father consenting. A father who refused consent but could not block possession has no recourse under this verse. It is not about the father’s consent.
Which is why it’s so important we adhere to God’s teachings on it and not the opinions of men.
Exactamundo. And now you see why Christianity is in such a crisis.
It clearly is, over and over again it’s all that the Bible teaches on the subject.
That’s one translation; even if that’s the right one isn’t a distinction without a difference? And you still haven’t found a biblically based way to accomplish said marriage.
It does. In multiple places. Explicitly.
What is the difference between must and is? And once again, how do you accomplish the marriage? If sex doesn’t do it then what does? And please tell us how the Bible says to accomplish said marriage. Your personal alteration of criminal trials doesn’t cut it. Remember, the his carries the death penalty. The teaching needs to be clear and explicit.
I have heard the case made that a woman who lives in a man's house is potentially his in the larger sense. Sometimes there's a ceremony to mark the occasion and to have witnesses who can attest that the relationship was consensual. Sometimes it can be the simple fact of a man deciding that a woman who lives in his house is also his woman.
I didn't ask my wife's father, I know some of his other daughters had their husbands ask but I didn't.
As a father to numerous adult daughters, I can tell you that it is an incredible kindness to the father.
Approval as in needing to rubber stamp something, or a quick nod of approval.
If the girl is under 18 then the father (actually both parents if memory serves) would need to actually approve the marriage.
Once over 18, then legally no, but marrying a girl against her families wishes would just lead to a lot of headaches. Likely not worth it. Now if the girls has no or little contact with her family then it becomes less of an issue.
If the girl is under 18 then the father (actually both parents if memory serves) would need to actually approve the marriage.
Once over 18, then legally no, but marrying a girl against her families wishes would just lead to a lot of headaches. Likely not worth it. Now if the girls has no or little contact with her family then it becomes less of an issue.
...it depends on the state.
Note to self...
Be bloody cautious which single friends you invite over to stay for a vacation or what not.
What I am curious about but don't recall seeing response to is the second part of the original proposition ie that a father could potentially dissolve the union.
Presuming that both the husband wife are against the notion, while I get that in previous epochs a father might have had a leg to stand on, I don't see it today.
I suspect a lot of the guys here would meet the notion of your father in law just deciding one day that your marriage is null on his say so with the same sort of hostility that I would feel.
Any thoughts to the contrary?
Presuming that both the husband wife are against the notion, while I get that in previous epochs a father might have had a leg to stand on, I don't see it today.
I suspect a lot of the guys here would meet the notion of your father in law just deciding one day that your marriage is null on his say so with the same sort of hostility that I would feel.
Any thoughts to the contrary?
You are overreacting.
You must make claim on her for her to be become yours. You can always call her roommate if you don't want new wifey.
You are not seeing the potential for humor.
What percentage of the nonsense I go on about doesn't have an element of whimsy?
Besides, I know both a South African girl and a Canadian girl who would each likely make a good potential wife. Both are good socially and politically, both want kids, both are loony enough to like me and both seem to have good morals/ethics. Most importantly both are sharp as tacks.
So if either wanted to visit and things went well, I would not have my feelings hurt even remotely.
The only thing that has prevented me from coming out and openly saying come on over for a couple weeks or the rest of the century is the whole immigration issue if one is from a visa waiver country.
Geographic mobility is better way to avoid societal collapse than homesteading.
If you do the what not, she's yours bro!
I don't know of any situation biblically where, once the union has been agreed upon by the father and the young man, and then consummated by the man and woman, a father of the now wife would have a leg to stand on in breaking up that union(?) If the father of the girl has given her to the man, that woman is no longer under the authority of her father but the man to whom the father gave her. That's why it is the husband who has the right to divorce the wife - because she is his wife. The father can't divorce the woman from her husband. Maybe I've missed your point somewhere, so help me out if this is totally off. Cheers