What Does the Bible Say About Marriage?

When I lead a series of premarital sessions with a couple whose wedding I’m about to perform, we spend time looking at what the Bible teaches about love and marriage. Something funny happens when we do this: the Bible doesn’t say what we think it says, or what we’ve been told that it says. While there are many passages in Scripture that describe love (both within the context of marriage and in other relationships), the two most significant passages that deal with marriage are Genesis 2, where we learn about the creation of the marriage relationship, and Ephesians 5, which describes the Christian concept of marriage. It’s important to keep in mind that these passages describe the ideal marriage. As long as we’re on this side of glory nothing is ideal, including our marriages. These passages describe the goal that Christian husbands and wives should work toward, but everyone should treat their partner with the grace that we all need as we seek to conform our lives to God’s desire for us.

GENESIS 2:18-25: When God created humanity, he created us to be in relationships. The Lord knew that it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone in the Garden of Eden; he needed a companion. Notice that God decided to make “a helper.” The marriage relationship isn’t simply about companionship and satisfying desires; it’s a practical matter. Husband and wife are to help and support each other in the work and calling that God has given them.

There were lots of animals with Adam in the Garden of Eden, but none of them fulfilled his need for companionship. First, the “livestock” are animals that we own; no one “owns” their spouse. In the ages before industrialization, internal combustion engines, and electricity, livestock were used to fulfill what people lacked: horses travel fast, oxen pull heavy loads, and so on. If you look to your spouse to fulfill what is missing in your life (physically or emotionally), your marriage is headed in the wrong direction. Second, the “birds of the air” are beautiful and enjoyable, with their bright feathers and pretty songs. If your attraction to your spouse is based solely on the pleasure you receive from them, or the physical attributes you enjoy about them, you have once again missed the mark of what marriage was created to be. And third, the “beasts of the field” were the animals that humanity was given authority over (Genesis 1:28). They are to be dominated and controlled, whether that means hunting or conserving. Neither husbands nor wives have been given that kind of role over each other.

When God created the first woman out of the first man, he made her from a rib. When I ask couples what a rib can represent or symbolize, they tell me that the rib offers protection for vital organs. It’s near the heart, which represents what we cherish the most. And it’s connected to your spine: the “backbone” of your life. I also point out to them that the rib is at your side, which is where spouses should be with each other. If God had used one of Adam’s toes to create the woman, she would be “under” him. If he had used Adam’s ear, the woman would be “above” him. But because she was made from the rib, husband and wife are meant to walk through life side by side, as companions.

The story of the creation of marriage ends with the comment that “the man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” There’s more to this statement than the fact that no one had to do laundry in the Garden of Eden. We wear clothing to hide our intimate parts. There are things we don’t want everyone to see, to avoid embarrassment and even ridicule. This is true not only for on-the-body clothing, but also for our emotional and spiritual “clothing.” We wear “masks” to hide the real us from the world around us. There are things about us that we don’t want everyone to know. We put on different appearances based on the people that we’re with. Our friends see one side of us, our co-workers another, and so on. But, ideally, it’s completely different with our spouses. We don’t need to hide ourselves from them. We can “let it all hang out,” because we know that we’re safe with them. They won’t take advantage of our vulnerability or make us feel awkward about who we are. They will cherish and respect the most vulnerable parts of our being. The ideal marriage relationship is one of openness and trust; you don’t have to protect yourself from your spouse because they will do their best to care for and protect you.

EPHESIANS 5:21-33: This section of Paul’s letter to Ephesus begins a description of how Christians should relate to each other. It was common in that time to describe relationships as pairs between “superiors” and “inferiors:” husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and slaves. Paul borrowed this concept from his contemporaries and gave it a Christian twist. In so doing, he undermined the conventional understanding of power relationships. Instead of describing how some people have authority over others, he begins the section with a simple but challenging statement: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” None of us have, or should have, power over others. We are all called to submit, or to open up our lives, to each other as an expression of our devotion to Christ.

Many people focus upon verse 22 of this passage: “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” For centuries, this verse has been used to justify the domination and even abuse of husbands over wives. The wife is supposed to do whatever the husband requires of her. He has authority over her, and her job is to obey whatever he tells her to do. And the passage goes on to compare the relationship between husband and wife to our relationship with Christ. Just as we call Christ our Lord and submit our lives to his will, wives are to follow their husbands. If Paul’s description of the marriage relationship ended at verse 24, it would be a very one-sided relationship; husbands are in charge and wives must do whatever they tell them to do.

But Paul goes on to describe the husband’s obligation to his wife. The husband is to love his wife the same way that Christ loved the church. Christ lived out his love for us by dying for us. Therefore, husbands ought to lay their lives down for their wives. Giving up your life for your wife means more than doing heroic things like catching a bullet for he, or putting yourself in harm’s way to protect her. These are the easier ways to “give yourself up” for your wife, because they’re splashy, one-time events. It’s much harder, and much more important, for husbands to lay down their lives for their wives through the regular events of life. The husband gets up from the couch to answer the phone so that his wife can relax. The husband foregoes the piece of sports equipment he had his eye on so that there’s money for his wife to get what she wants. The husband wakes up in the middle of the night to change the baby’s diaper so his wife can sleep. These are a few examples of the everyday ways in which a husband is to “give himself up” for his wife.

When Paul compares the husband’s headship over his wife with Christ’s headship over the church, he encourages us to consider the kind of a leader Christ is for us. He is not a taskmaster, demanding that we diminish our own lives for his benefit. To the contrary: Christ emptied himself of his very life so that our lives will be blessed. Christ calls us to “servant leadership,” which is a very different model from what most leaders in our world follow. If the husband is the leader of his wife, he is a leader who sacrifices himself for her welfare.

To make sure that we understand his counter-cultural message, Paul evokes the image from Genesis 2 of how the woman was made from the man’s rib. The wife is part of the husband’s body. For a husband to mistreat or fail to care for his wife is tantamount to abusing and neglecting his own body. If we are emotionally healthy, we don’t take pleasure in bashing in our kneecaps and dislocating our fingers. We tend to our aches and pains, and make sure that we get enough to eat. The instinctual ways in which we care for our bodies is a model for how husbands should care for their wives.

Paul describes the ideal Christian marriage as a relationship in which each partner puts their spouses welfare above their own. It’s easy for a wife to submit to a husband whose chief goal in life is to do lay his life down for her. And it’s simple for a husband to lay down his life for a wife who respects and honors him. The mutual relationship of self-giving is summed up in Paul’s introduction to the topic: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” When your spouse’s top priority in the marriage is to do what’s best for you, you don’t need to stand up for your rights to get what you deserve: he or she is doing it for you already. And your spouse doesn’t need to advocate for his or her welfare, because you’re already doing it for him or her. In this way, a marriage is not a battleground between two wills, vying to get what they want. Instead, it becomes a place where spouses delight in taking care of each other.

Keep in mind, however, that this is the description of an ideal Christian marriage. No earthly marriage is made up of perfect people. Our own willfulness and selfishness is always present, undermining our attempts at trust and support. We will fail to place our spouse’s welfare ahead of our own. The goal is one that is always before us. And the ideal becomes a nightmare in one-sided marriages: when one spouse is “naked” and submits to the other, while the other spouse is guarded and selfish. Instead, as husband and wife strive to get closer to this ideal, and forgive each other when they fail, they share a marriage that honors God and blesses each of them.