A History of the Wife
stretcheth out her hand to the poor. . . .
    Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.

    Such is the dutiful, hardworking, charitable woman who brings honor to her husband and children. Any man in any age might dream of such a wife.

    Husbands and wives as couples are, as I have mentioned, notably absent from the Gospels, except for the miraculous story of Mary and Joseph, briefly told in Matthew and Luke. Mary was probably twelve or thirteen when she and Joseph were committed to one another. Our term “engagement” does not carry the weight of their commitment: although they were not yet living together when Joseph discovered that Mary was pregnant, she was legally his wife. Fortunately for her, given the death sentence that could be inflicted on Jewish brides who were not virgins, “Joseph was a just man, and not willing to make her a pub- lic example.” Instead, “he was minded to put her away privately.” But before he did so, “the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream,” and convinced him that Mary had become impregnated by the Holy Ghost. Joseph and Mary did not consummate their marriage “till she had brought forth her firstborn son” (Matt. 1:18–25).
    Aside from Mary and Joseph, there are no New Testament couples of any significance. Instead, the accent in the Gospels is on the individual and personal salvation. How we behave on earth, as individuals respon- sible for our actions, will determine whether we inherit the Kingdom of Heaven or whether we shall spend eternity in Gehenna, the Hebrew
    equivalent of Hell. In any event, in the afterlife, there is no marriage, as Jesus makes explicit. “When they rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels” (Mark 12:25). The strong apocalyptic bent in Jesus’ message seems to have made mar- riage irrelevant.
    What did Jesus think about marriage on earth? His thoughts were expressed in a commentary on divorce, a practice he explicitly con- demned. Citing the creation story when God made both male and female and they became one flesh, Jesus declared: “What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mark 10:9). Then he went on to specify that “Whosoever shall put away his wife... and shall marry another, committeth adultery” (Mark 10:11). It is important to remember that the ancient Hebrew law proscribing adultery applied exclusively to married women, requiring them to limit their sexual activity to only one man. There was no such requirement for married men, who were allowed to have sex with unattached women, such as widows, concubines, and servants, as well as their wives. A convicted adulteress could be put to death by stoning, along with her illicit sexual partner. But Jesus, in opposition to Hebrew practice, equated the male prerogatives of divorce and remarriage with adultery. Whoever wanted to be a Christian and married—male or female—would have to be per- manently monogamous.
    Jesus also challenged the excessive punishment meted out to the adulteress. In a by now famous incident, he was asked whether a woman “taken in adultery, in the very act,” should be stoned, according to Mosaic law. His response has become proverbial: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” ( John 8:7). Jesus’ emphasis upon compassion rather than revenge, and upon the equality of all men and women in sin, struck a new chord in religious history. Nonetheless, Christian society continued to mete out strong punish- ment to adulterers for centuries to come. Both parties to the act were paraded through the streets nude in thirteenth-century France, and, worse yet, subject to being buried alive and impaled in fourteenth- century Germany. 6 The Kingdom of Sicily under the emperor Frederick II in 1231 adopted a series of laws intended to soften the penalty against adulterers; instead of the sword, confiscation of property was decreed for the
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