Marriage in Christianity

Marriage

Don't forget that the leaders of the early Christian church were fighting an ongoing, heavily persecuted*, non violent, communitarian revolution against the Roman Empire. 

They were focused on getting the message out there, feeding the hungry, working to support the poor financially, visiting those unjustly imprisoned, tending to the sick, rescuing children trafficked into slavery, or preventing children being trafficked into slavery or servitude in the first place, rescuing children left to die of exposure, rescuing and redeeming women stuck in the sex industry.

And they won. They defeated Rome.

By my reckoning, they conquered it in 312 AD when Constantine had his soldier paint his shields with the symbol of Christianity, the chi-rho at the battle of the Milvian Bridge. People often tell the story wrong when they say that he painted the cross on the shield, it was the Chi Rho. But it's close enough.

They oversaw one of the biggest improvements in the status of women in all of human history. Women went from being mere property to being coequals, co-heirs of the kingdom of heaven. Before that, they were appliances that had sex. Or prostitutes. It's a little complicated. Class has a lot to do with it. But a lot of women basically just had to have sex with their master and his servants. A female servant or slave was often a sex worker on the side.

And so it was into this context that the apostles (which just means messengers) taught the people all about how Christian marriage should work. And their advice was... stay single and don't have sex! Just like us! (The leaders were largely celibate). So we can serve the poor better!!! It saves on so much hassle. The active mission, the biggest task was to minister to the poor, because under the class structure of Rome, and with the way the rich owned all of the land... the poor were really poor! And not all of the poor were Roman citizens! Don't forget, there were many people less well off than Roman pleb citizens. They needed to serve the poor, and so why not skip marriage. But then, the leaders said.. if you can't handle being single like us, because you would "burn with lust" (aka the guys are too cute, or the girls are too hot). Then just get married and be faithful. And the men must always love and care for their wives. There are rules: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." It was a call to engage in sacrificial, selfless, and unconditional love towards your spouse. The love was to be charitable, an act of charity from husband to wife.

And all of this was during an active, ongoing, non-violent revolution to take down the Roman system and the Roman way of life. 

*The Christians were getting killed, left, right and centre. Martyrdom was a fact of life. 

[And a huge amount of the situation had to do with things like class, money, access to food and resources. The social status and class thing was massive. Don't ignore the class issues!]

Note: I wrote this while sleep deprived and pretty fried. So it isn't perfect.