Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!mit-eddie!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: arranged marriages Message-ID: Date: 14 Dec 90 08:34:26 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia Lines: 53 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , christian@cs.rutgers.edu writes: > I am an Indian student (i.e. from India). My girlfriend is from India > as well. Both of our families are Christians. Our parents are very > traditional in their thinking. As you may know, India has the arranged > marriage system. Darn it, some people have all the luck. (Half (:-), only half.) I'm going to quote from "Sketches of Jewish Social Life in the days of Christ" and Edersheim, which may clarify things. The admonition to marry "only in the Lord" recalls many similar Rabbinical warnings, from which we select the most striking. Men, we are told [Yalkut on Deut 21:15] are wont to marry for one of four reasons--for passion, wealth, honour, or the glory of God. As for the first-named class of marriages, their issue must be expected to be "stubborn and rebellious" sons, as we may gather from the section referring to such following upon that in Deut 21:11. In regard to marriages for wealth, we are to learn a lesson from the sons of Eli, who sought to enrich themselves in such manner, but of whose posterity it was said (1 Sam 2:26) that they should "crouch for a piece of silver and a morsel of bread". Of marriages for the sake of connection, honour, and influence, King Jehoram offered a warning, who became King Ahab's son-in-law, because that monarch had seventy sons, whereas upon his death his widfth Athaliah "arose and destroyed all the seed royal" (2 Kings 11:1). But far otherwise is it in case of marriage "in the name of heaven". The issue of such will be children who "preserve Israel". In fact, the Rabbinical references to marrying "in the name of heaven", or "for the name of God"--in God and for God--are so frequent that --> the expressions used by St Paul must have come familiarly to him. Again, much that is said in 1 Cor 7 about the married estate finds striking parallels in Talmudical writings. The marriage of Jacob and Rachel seems to have been a love match. The marriage of Joseph _may_ have been, there's an extra-biblical version of the story of "Joseph and Asenath" which I find beautiful, and used to be well known in Europe up to the time of Milton, I think. There is, of course, Deuteronomy 21:11 If you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. ... After she has ... mourned her father and mother ... This is clearly not an arranged marriage, the woman's parents being dead or inaccessible. I don't recall ever hearing of anything in the Bible that _requires_ arranged marriages or _forbids_ "love" marriages. -- The Marxists have merely _interpreted_ Marxism in various ways; the point, however, is to _change_ it. -- R. Hochhuth.