A Biblical Definition

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: "It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman." But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband (1 Cor 7:1-2)

With that Paul starts the 7th chapter in his first epistle to the church at Corinth where he lays down some rather startling commands surrounding marriage. There is the command that "The husband should give his wife her conjugal rights" (1 Cor 7:3) and "The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does" (1 Cor 7:4). There is the encouragement to remain single (in a world that thought it was stupid to do so) (1 Cor 7:7) and the famous "it is better to marry than to burn (with passion)" (1 Cor 7:9). There is that whole "Don't leave an unbelieving spouse" thing (1 Cor 7:12-14) and its subsequent, "But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so" (1 Cor 7:15). What is all that about "the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife" (1 Cor 7:14)? Paul takes a hard-line stance about remaining married and not divorcing and all that and it's all an interesting read.

Something in the middle of all of this struck me between the eyes, though. Right there at the beginning Paul says, "Each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband." At least, that's the translation we get. That's not what he wrote. What he actually wrote was that ἕκαστος should have his own γυνή and each γυνή should have her own ἀνήρ. "Wow, Stan, thanks! That's really something ... not!" Okay, that really was all Greek to you, so let me explain.

Paul said most literally (putting those Greek word translations in bold and italics) that each (he didn't say "man", but ...) should have his own woman (from which we infer "wife") and each woman (this time in context it just translates "woman") should have her own man (from which we infer "husband"). There, that should clear it up. No?

Okay, look, γυνή (phonetically gunē) means "woman" and, in context, can refer to anyone of the female sex. It might be a virgin (an unmarried woman), a wife, or a widow. It's any woman at all. And ἀνήρ (phonetically anēr) means "man". Any man -- single, married, or widowed. Any member of the male sex. Now, in our day we've managed to shift the meanings of "husband" and "wife" slightly to accommodate the latest redefinition of "marriage" so that two men can refer to one another as "husband" and "wife" or two women can refer to one another as "husband" and "wife", but this isn't possible in these biblical texts. The words mean "man" and "woman".

And Paul is saying here that marriage is solely the union of a man and a woman. It can be none other. In fact, every biblical instruction on marriage includes instructions to men ("husbands") and women ("wives"), the standard make-up of a married couple. Indeed, the two genders receive differing instructions based on their gender. Thus, the modern version of "marriage" collides head on with the biblical version and anyone trying to make any sense out of biblical instructions to the married would be at a loss to make heads or tails out of them with today's deviant¹ definition. Now, they will try to tell you that there have been lots of definitions. It's not true. Or they will try to tell you that there is no biblical definition. Again, not true. And you know that "not true" is a euphemism for "a lie". The only way to align today's popular definition of "marriage" is to discard the biblical version. I would think that discarding the biblical ... anything ... would have its own implications about the religious values of the one doing it.
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¹ I know, I know, "deviant" is a potentially inflammatory term, but just look at any dictionary. They will tell you the word simply means, "different from traditional norm". Even the California court that threw out the law defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman recognized that it was the "longstanding, traditional definition", so the new one by definition is a deviation from the traditional norm.