Is Male and Female Sexual Difference Necessary for Marriage?
The Bible talks a lot about marriage. Good marriages, bad marriages, and marriages that should never have happened—like Solomon’s herculean effort of leaving and cleaving with seven hundred women. But what relevance do biblical marriages have for our discussion of homosexuality? As expected, there are two very different views.
Many nonaffirming Christians consider the ubiquitous heterosexual marriages in the Bible to be clear evidence that homosexual marriages are ruled out. After all, “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” and that about settles it.
This is not only bad humor, but it’s also terrible logic. Yes, it’s true, God created a man and woman in the garden, and they got married and had kids. But it doesn’t logically follow that since the first human marriage was between man and woman that therefore all other marriages of all time must be between a man and woman. I like the Dodgers, but this doesn’t rule out the possibility that I also like the Giants, unless I explicitly say, “I don’t like the Giants.” (I actually can’t stand the Giants, but you know this because I just said it; you shouldn’t deduce it from the fact that I’m a Dodgers fan.) Likewise, if I said I was married to Christine, most of you would assume that she is my only wife. But saying that I’m married to Christine doesn’t in itself rule out the possibility that I’m also married to Bertha, Gertrude, and Hilda. Improbable, but not impossible.
The other view, held by affirming Christians, agrees that opposite-sex marriages in the Bible don’t in themselves rule out homosexual marriages. Some go on to argue that there was no such thing as homosexual marriages in the ancient world. The same-sex behavior that existed had to do with power rape, prostitution, or men who had sex with boys. Therefore, the reason the Bible only talks about heterosexual marriages is because homosexual marriages weren’t a live option back then. But since they are an option now, our situation is much different than what’s going on in the biblical world. Heterosexual marriages in the Bible, therefore, do not nullify the possibility of God-sanctioned consensual, monogamous, loving gay marriages today.
So here’s the question: Does the presence of opposite-sex marriages in the Bible contribute anything to the discussion of homosexuality?
I actually think they do, although I believe both views have misread certain passages. What we need to figure out is whether male and female sexual difference is necessary for marriage. That’s our leading question. It’s not enough just to identify positive statements about heterosexual marriages. What we need to see is if the Bible highlights sexual difference—male and female—as a universal requirement for marriage.1
We’ll begin by looking at Genesis 1–2, which is a foundational passage on marriage. Then we’ll look at other marriage passages in the New Testament that might carry relevance for our discussion.
MARRIAGE IN GENESIS 1–2
Genesis 1 doesn’t actually mention marriage. God creates humanity and stamps them both with the divine imprint: “In the image of God he created mankind, male and female he created them” (1:27). Single or married, widowed or divorced, fertile or infertile, every single person bears God’s image. Marriage is probably implied, however, when God then tells the man and woman to be fruitful and multiply and to have dominion over the earth. In other words, have lots of sex and rule the world. Whoever said God is a cosmic killjoy?
Genesis 2 is not primarily about marriage, but it does contain some important statements about marriage. Both Jesus and Paul, in fact, refer to Genesis 2 when they face questions about marriage or related issues.
The most relevant passage for marriage in Genesis 2 comes in verses 18–25. More specifically, two statements bear the most significance for our discussion. First, Eve is created to be Adam’s “suitable helper” (2:18, 20), which says something about why Eve was a good fit for Adam. Second, Adam and Eve’s marriage is given universal application in 2:24 where it is said: “a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”
This raises an important question for our topic: Do the phrases “suitable helper” and “become one flesh” require sexual distinctions in marriage? Let’s begin with the second one first: “become one flesh.”
ONE FLESH
I used to think that “one flesh” simply meant the joining of opposite sex people in sexual intercourse. After all, men and women exhibit “anatomical complementarity,” as some scholars call it.2 Or as my mother used to say, the different parts just fit together like a plug in a socket. The two become—quite explicitly—one flesh when they are plugged in.
I’m not sure if Genesis is thinking about how the parts fit together with the phrase “one flesh,” but some sexual connotation seems to be implied in the phrase. In fact, when Paul confronts the Corinthians for having sex with prostitutes, he points them back to Genesis 2:24: “Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, ‘The two will become one flesh’ ” (1 Cor. 6:16). Paul here refers to sex with a prostitute as becoming “one flesh” with her. Sexual union between two people does seem to capture at least one aspect of becoming “one flesh.”
I don’t think, however, that the phrase in itself necessitates sexual difference. For instance, if the people Paul confronted had sex with male prostitutes, would the “one flesh” statement not apply? Wouldn’t they have still violated Genesis 2:24 by having a sexual encounter with another person? I think they would have.
As I studied the phrase one flesh a bit more, I realized that the primary meaning of two becoming one flesh is not male-female sexual union, but two people forming a new family.3 This may include sexual union—yes, sex usually comes with marriage—but I don’t think the primary emphasis in the phrase one flesh has to do with sex. In fact, when you look at other uses of the word flesh in the Bible, it almost always refers to a kinship bond, not a male-female sexual encounter.
For instance, Laban declares that Jacob, his cousin, is “my bone and my flesh” (Gen. 29:14). Abimelek affirms his family ties with the people of Shechem by saying, “Remember, I am your flesh and blood” (Judg. 9:2). David tells the elders of Judah (David’s tribe), “You are my relatives, my own flesh and blood” (2 Sam. 19:12). In all of these passages, flesh refers to a family bond, not a male-female sexual act. When two people of different families become “one flesh,” this means that they are leaving their old families and forming a new one.
Becoming “one flesh” may include sexual union in Genesis 2:24, but “one flesh” does not mean sexual union, and it doesn’t seem to rule out same-sex unions.
The same is true of the word united (NIV) in 2:24: “a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife.” While the word united (Hebrew dabaq) here refers to two humans getting married, the word itself does not demand a male and female pairing. Like the word flesh, united is often used of a kinship bond or a close friendship, and rarely, if ever, is it used elsewhere of sexual union. Ruth, for instance, “clung” (dabaq) to Naomi, her mother-in-law (Ruth 1:14), and this doesn’t mean she had sex with her. Ruth and Naomi were forming a new kinship bond, and this seems to be the basic point of Genesis 2:24: the man shall leave his old kinship bond of mother and father and form his own family with his spouse.
In sum, I don’t think that the phrase one flesh (or united) in itself demands that marital partners must be opposite sexes. The only clear demand is that two people leave their former families and create their own new family. Genesis 2:24 doesn’t inherently rule out homosexual marriages.
But what about the phrase suitable helper?
SUITABLE HELPER
The importance of Genesis 2:18 far outweighs its brevity. Though only one verse, it gives us a quick peek into God’s motivation for creating the first woman:
The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
The phrase suitable helper certainly sounds sexist, as if women were created to serve men in all of their wants and needs. But the word translated “helper” (Hebrew ezer) is almost always used of military help and it’s most often applied to God’s actions toward Israel throughout the Old Testament.4 Since God is called Israel’s “helper,” the word certainly doesn’t imply inferiority or weakness.
With regard to homosexuality, some say that Eve was the perfect “helper” for Adam, not because she was a female, but because she was a human.5 If this were true, then sexual difference would not be relevant. As long as a human becomes a suitable helper to another human (and not an animal), then the two can become one flesh.
And there is some truth to this argument. Just look at the next three verses, where Adam seeks to find a suitable helper among the animals and comes up short:
Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. (Gen. 2:19–21)
Adam needed a helper, but when he looked around at all the animals, he must have thought: Umm … I don’t think these are going to work. So God created not just any helper, but a suitable helper. And this is why God created Eve. Eve was suitably helpful because she was human.
But is Eve’s humanness the only thing that qualified her as a suitable helper? I think her femaleness actually played a role as well.
The Hebrew word translated “suitable” by the NIV is kenegdo and it is only used here in the Old Testament (2:18 and 2:20). Kenegdo is somewhat difficult to translate into English, since it is a compound word made up of ke, which means “as” or “like,” and neged, which means “opposite,” “against,” or “in front of.”6 Together, the word means something like “as opposite him” or “like against him.” It’s a complex word that captures how it is that Eve can qualify as the perfect partner for Adam.
So here’s the relevant point. If it were simply Eve’s humanness that made her a helper, then the word ke (“like”) would have been just fine. The verse would then read: “I will make a helper like (ke) him.” But to make the point that Adam needed not just another human, but a different sort of human—a female—God used the word kenegdo. This word potentially conveys both similarity (ke) and dissimilarity (neged).7 Eve is a human and not an animal, which is why she is ke (“like”) Adam. But she’s also a female and not a male, which is why she is different than Adam, or neged (“opposite him”).
Now, every good interpreter knows that it’s dangerous to squeeze too much out of one word. So I don’t want to just end the book here and say, “Well, that settles it. Homosexual unions are prohibited by kenegdo.” That would be irresponsible. I am surprised, though, at how little attention is given to this word in the discussion.8 Some people say that Eve’s dissimilarity doesn’t refer to her femaleness, but to other differences like Eve’s personality. Quite frankly, I think this is a stretch. Certainly two people of the same sex will display differences. One may be shy, while the other is outgoing; one may be Type A, while the other may be Type B. But it seems clear from Genesis 1–2 that the otherness of Eve is precisely her sexual difference and not her different Strengths Finders evaluation (Gen. 1:27; 2:18).
It doesn’t seem convincing that Eve’s dissimilarity wrapped up in kenegdo is something other than her biological sex. At the very least, we would need to see a good argument from other marriage passages in Scripture to overturn the apparent significance that kenegdo seems to have in Genesis 2. And remember: Adam and Eve’s relationship in 2:18–23 becomes the foundation for marriage in 2:24: “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” No longer are we just talking about Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:24. We’re talking about God’s basic design for marriage, which is why this verse is quoted so often in the New Testament when the question of marriage comes up.9
Three things seem to be necessary for marriage according to Genesis 2: (1) both partners need to be human, (2) both partners come from different families (2:24), and—if I’m right about kenegdo—(3) both partners display sexual difference.
It’s striking too that the sexual difference of man and woman in Genesis 1–2 appears to reflect many other differing pairs embedded in creation. Notice that Genesis 1 ripples with a creative display of diversity that complements each other: God and creation, light and darkness, earth and sky, sun and moon, land and sea, humans and animals. And at the pinnacle of God’s creation stands the masterpiece of male and female: “God created mankind, male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27).
Creation is not uniform, but a beautiful display of differences interacting with each other.10 The coming together of male and female in marital and sexual union is the height of creation’s astonishing union of otherness.
In no way am I saying that this interaction of otherness settles the matter.11 What it does is situate the different male and female sexes in the larger creational design of God. Adam and Eve’s sexual difference seems to be a beautiful and intentional necessity for marriage. But we want to hold this observation with an open hand in case other passages and themes correct our tentative view.
So here’s what we’ve seen in Genesis 1–2 thus far. First, while it’s obvious that the first marriage was between a man and a woman, this does not in itself mean that all subsequent marriages must be heterosexual. Second, the idea of becoming “one flesh” does not demand an opposite-sex couple. It simply emphasizes two people forming a new kinship bond in marriage. Third, the repeated statement that Eve was created as a “suitable” or “like opposite” (kenegdo) “helper” for Adam seems to emphasize both similarity (human, not an animal) and dissimilarity (female, not a male). Such sexual difference appears to grow out of a larger fabric of unity within otherness in creation.
Genesis 1–2 does seem to suggest that sexual difference is necessary for marriage. But let’s not make a hasty conclusion just yet. We need to see if there are any other passages in Scripture where male-female pairing is necessary for marriage.
GOD CREATED THEM MALE AND FEMALE
Mark 10:2–9 might be such a passage (see the parallel in Matt. 19:3–11):
Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” “What did Moses command you?” he replied. They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.” “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
The context is about divorce and not homosexuality, which is important to keep in mind. It’s not as if the Pharisees were wondering if two men could get married and Jesus shuts them down with an argument from Genesis about Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve. We must honor the context when we look at this passage. It’s about divorce.
On that note, it would be freakishly hypocritical if straight Christians who divorced their spouses for reasons other than fornication used this passage to condemn gay marriages. How pretentious would that be—using a passage that’s directed at you to sling it at someone else? There are few things that stoke the fires of hell hotter than moral hypocrisy. So let’s be careful how we use God’s Word. Let’s make sure our eyes are log-free before we preach it at others.
For our study of same-sex marriages, notice that Jesus goes back to Genesis 1–2 to argue for the permanency of marriage. Jesus quotes Genesis 2:24 about becoming “one flesh” to argue that marriage is an indissoluble kinship bond that shouldn’t be torn apart by divorce. So far, Jesus’ words don’t rule out same-sex marriages.
But look at what else Jesus does. He actually starts in Genesis 1:27: “At the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female’ ” (Mark 10:6). Then, in the very next phrase, Jesus fast-forwards to Genesis 2:24: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” (Mark 10:7–8).
The significance of Genesis 1:27 here should not be missed.
Yes, of course, Jesus is talking about divorce. But think about it. He only needed to quote Genesis 2:24 to make his point about divorce—married people have become “one flesh” and therefore shouldn’t get divorced. Why, then, does Jesus start in Genesis 1:27—“God made them male and female”—which explicitly highlights sexual difference? Such difference is, in itself, irrelevant to the question of divorce. That is, it’s irrelevant if one’s sex makes no difference in marriage. If Jesus didn’t think that sexual difference is essential for marriage, then his quotation of Genesis 1:27, which talks about sexual difference, is unnecessary and superfluous. But Jesus does quote it, so it would seem that male-female pairing is part of what marriage is according to Jesus.
I’ve heard some people say that Jesus quoted Genesis 1:27 not to highlight sexual difference, but to underscore a female’s equal worth as a bearer of God’s image.12 This actually makes some sense in light of Jesus’ context. After all, the Jews who wanted to divorce their wives probably thought that they were superior to women. It would therefore make sense for Jesus to bring in a passage that highlights the equality of women (1:27) in order to show that divorce is a degrading way to treat one’s wife.
But one problem makes this view unlikely: Jesus leaves out the bit about women possessing the image of God.
Genesis 1:27 reads: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” But Jesus only quotes the last part about “male and female” and doesn’t mention the part about women possessing the image of God. If Jesus only wanted to show that women are equal to men, then why did he leave out the part about women being equal to men? Needless to say, this doesn’t seem to be a very convincing argument.
I really don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that Jesus cites the portion of Genesis 1:27 that highlights sexual difference because Jesus wanted to highlight sexual difference.
MAN, WOMAN, AND THE TRIUNE GOD
There are two other passages that might highlight sexual difference in marriage, although I don’t think they are as clear as Mark 10. The first passage is Ephesians 5:21–32, where Paul compares human marriage to Christ’s spiritual marriage to the church. Paul maps the roles of husband and wife onto Christ’s relationship with the church. The analogy should not be pressed too far, which is why I’m cautious about applying this passage to the homosexuality debate. After all, Christ is God and the church is human: Does this mean that husbands are the divine partner in marriage? I don’t think my wife would buy this. She knows me too well. And what about the singularity of Christ and the multiplicity of people in the church? Does the analogy support polygamy? And half of the members of the church are men. Could their marriage to Christ be taken as support for same-sex unions?
You can see why we need to think hard about how—if at all—this passage applies to sexual difference in marriage. In any case, if we see the church as a singular entity—a bride and not a harem—then there might be some relevance for our discussion. Clearly, Jesus’ love toward the church is mirrored in a husband’s love for his wife, and the wife’s submission to her husband is mirrored in the church’s submission to Christ. Since Paul roots marital role distinctions in sexual distinctions, I’m not sure what this would look like in same-sex marriages. The relationship between Christ and the church requires a fundamental difference; a man marrying a man would seem to reflect the church marrying the church or Christ marrying Christ.13 The analogy demands some sort of difference, and it appears that Paul has sexual difference in mind.
While Paul is not arguing against homosexual relations, I think such relations would have a hard time reflecting Paul’s words. The marriage between Christ and the church assumes unity among otherness and celebrates sexual difference.14
Some people say that this passage assumes a patriarchal “gender hierarchy,” where men are considered superior to women. Therefore, they say, we should move beyond such sexist assumptions and advocate for equality in marriage.15 But I don’t think this passage is as chauvinistic as some people think. Yes, Paul says that wives should submit to their husbands. But he also says that all Christians should submit to each other in Ephesians 5:21.16 If submission means inequality, then are we all unequal since we are to submit to one another? Plus, compared to other marriage manuals of Paul’s day, this passage is radically egalitarian.17 Paul never says that wives are inferior to their husbands, and the overwhelming emphasis in the passage is on the husband’s self-giving, self-sacrificial, unconditional service toward his wife. No one in Paul’s day would have read this passage and thought he was demeaning women. They would have been shocked, actually, at his excessive demands of the husband.
The Christian view of submission assumes equality, not hierarchy. That is, the one doing the submitting is not considered inferior.18 This is seen in other passages where Christ submits to the Father, which certainly doesn’t mean that Jesus is inferior to God the Father. This brings us to our second passage, 1 Corinthians 11:2–16, where Paul discusses the roles of men and women in the church.
If you read this passage, you’ll see that it’s filled with many interpretive questions: What’s with the head coverings, and do men really have to have short hair? But we don’t need to answer all of these questions in order to identify some relevance for our topic. We only need to notice that Paul roots the sexual difference between man and woman in divine difference within the Triune God. Look at 1 Corinthians 11:3:
But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. (1 Cor. 11:3)
Unlike Ephesians 5, this passage is not clearly talking about marriage, although some translations have “husband” and “wife” instead of “man” and “woman” (for instance, the NRSV). What is clear, and the only point I want to make, is that the equal-yet-different relationship between God the Father and God the Son parallels in some way the equal-yet-different relationship between men and women. Paul urges the Corinthians to celebrate and not erase the differences between male and female, since differences exist within the Trinity. It would make sense, therefore, that Paul believes that these same differences are necessary when he explores the male/female–Christ/church analogy in Ephesians 5.
Again, I don’t want to make Paul say more than he is saying, and we need always to keep in mind that he’s not directly addressing same-sex relations. Whatever relevance we think Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 11 have on our discussion of homosexuality, we need to hold it loosely.
I don’t think it’s sufficient, however, to say that Paul assumed that marriage was between a man and a woman simply because that’s what was common in his day. What Paul says about marriage transcends culture as it finds its shape and identity in the diversity of the Triune God. Sexual difference seems to be an essential ingredient in showcasing the unity and diversity of the Triune God in marriage. It doesn’t appear to be irrelevant.19
MARRIAGE: MALE AND FEMALE?
Does the Bible demand that marriage is only between a man and a woman? Let’s sum up what we’ve seen thus far.
Several statements in Genesis 1–2 do not appear to exclude same-sex marriages. Becoming one flesh, being united, or even the mere creation of Adam and Eve do not rule out the possibility of same-sex relations. However, the use of kenegdo (“suitable,” Gen. 2:18, 20) in light of the unity among diversity in Genesis 1–2, probably highlights sexual difference in marriage. This is reflected in several passages in the New Testament that pick up on sexual difference and consider it to be essential for marriage.
Again, I have no interest in simply defending some traditional view for the sake of maintaining tradition. This is why I want to keep challenging myself and trying to see things from both perspectives so that I fill in any gaps in my thinking.
When I look at the evidence, however, the weight seems to support the nonaffirming view thus far. The key biblical passages on marriage don’t just assume opposite-sex marriages because that’s what was known in the culture of the day. Rather, the authors go out of their way to ground sexual difference in something, or Someone, outside of culture. For Jesus, it was the creation of “male and female” oddly fronted to his argument about divorce (Mark 10:6–7). For Paul, diversity within the Trinity and the different roles of Christ and the church parallel sexual difference in marriage (Eph. 5:22–33; cf. 1 Cor. 11:3).
In any case, what would be the best affirming pushback to this tentative conclusion? We need to ask this question if we are going to interpret the text fairly.
I think the best counterargument is that none of the texts we’ve looked at were written to refute same-sex relationships. Gay marriages were probably not an issue when Genesis 1–2 was written. Jesus was faced with the question of divorce and not gay marriage in Mark 10. Paul’s statements on marriage did not arise out of a debate about same-sex relations.
Nonaffirming Christians need to keep this in mind. This is why I don’t think this chapter settles the debate. I do think it offers strong evidence for the nonaffirming view, but I don’t think the case is closed. We need to look not only at what the Bible says about sexual difference in marriage, but also what the Bible explicitly says about same-sex relations.
So let’s turn to Genesis 19 where a bunch of Sodomites try to gang rape a couple of angels.