The World’s View of Marriage (2)

Last time we began our examination of marriage and the family in Ephesians 5:22-6:4 by asking, “What is marriage?” We began with the world’s view by first looking at the Jewish attitude. 

Second, the Greek attitude concerning marriage. The attitude of the Greeks was even worse than that of the Jews. There was no divorce among the Greeks, but then again there was no reason to have it. The wife was only for giving legitimate children, and most sex was outside of marriage. Female and male prostitution was unbelievably rampant. Men got most of their sexual gratification from mistresses and prostitutes. Women, often with encouragement from their husbands, found gratification with their slaves, male and female. The Greek word porneia, from which is derived our English word “pornography,” clearly explains the Greek attitude. The feminine word pornē literally means “harlot for hire,” and the masculine pornos literally means “male prostitute.” Porneia came to refer to any sexual perversion: 1. Fornication, sex before marriage; 2. Adultery, extra-marital sexual relations; 3. Homosexuality and lesbianism, sex among members of the same gender; 4. Paedophilia, the sexual abuse of children. All of that, and more, was the everyday reality in Greece.

Third, the Roman attitude concerning marriage. While it’s hard to imagine a scene worse than the above, it seems as if the Romans combined the worst from both the Jews and the Greeks. Divorce was common practice in the latter years of the Roman Empire and was easily accomplished. Jerome, the 4^th and 5^th Century Bible scholar, recorded that one woman married her twenty-third husband and that she was his twenty-first wife! 

Feminism (women’s liberation) also developed in the Empire. Women didn’t want children because it ruined their bodies. Women wanted equality with men, so they demanded “marriage contracts,” “open marriages,” and often even initiated divorce. The women also did masculine things such as wresting, sword throwing, and running bare-breasted while hunting. 

Many scholars speak of the “greatness of Rome,” while in truth its decadence was beyond belief. On the other hand, does all this really sound all that foreign to our ears?

Fourth, the modern attitude concerning marriage. Are not today’s views of marriage much like the ones we just traced historically? We see the same sexual promiscuity and perversion today that existed in the Greek world. Prostitution is rampant and is even legal in many places. Homosexuality and lesbianism are accepted as “alternate life-styles” even in some denominations of “Christianity.” Pre-marital and extra-marital sex are accepted norms. And paedophilia is a horrible and tragically common occurrence. Marriage and family are no longer sacred and central. People live together outside of marriage, some of whom are even professing Christians. Children are not wanted because it cuts down on people’s freedom, so babies are murdered in the womb and people are voluntarily sterilized. And, of course, the divorce rate is rampant in our society. 

So we say again, there truly is nothing on earth that has come under more direct assault, past and present, than has the institution of marriage. Let us now turn to the positive, God’s view of marriage, which we will examine next time.