5. Ὁ. F. SALMOND.
MARKET-PLACE is in RV the fuller and better rendering for the Gr. ἀγορά, oftener represented in
and comprehensive sense is that of a place of assembly, which may as such be associated with various uses. We find it mentioned accordingly in connexion with the holding of trials (at Philippi, Ac 16), with public resort and discussion (at Athens, Ac 17"), with business dealings and tratflic, such as the hiring of labourers (Mt 20%) or the buying and selling of goods, which implies risk of pollution (Mk 74), with the sports of children in its open space (Mt 11, Lk 78), and with the passing exchange of formal greetings in its thoroughfare (Mt 237, Lk 11%). It always conveys the suggestion of openness and publicity, and forms a contrast to what takes place in private or within doors. ‘The like associa- tions of a place of counsel, of traffic, and of idling gathered round the Latin word forum (see APPIUS, MARKET OF). ‘The ἀγορά was probably at first sim- ply an open space ; but it subsequently in the more important towns became marked off by colonnades, embellished by statues, and surrounded by public buildings for judicial and other business. WILLIAM P. DICKSON.
MARMOTH (B Μαρμωθί, A Mapyadi), 1 Es 8° (51 LXX)=MEREMOTH, Ezr 888,
MAROTH (">).—A town named only in Mie 113, There is a play upon the name of this town, which means ‘ bitternesses’ (LXX tr. 72 92% by κατοι- κοῦσα ὀδύνας), but there is much that is obscure both in this and in the preceding verse (see Well- hausen, Nowack, and esp. Ryssel, 32 f.). ‘The site is unknown ; but as Maroth is noticed with Saphir and other places in Philistia, as attacked by the Hebrews, it is probably to be sought in the plain between Lachish and Joppa. C. R. CONDER.
MARRIAGE.—
i. Form and Duties of Marriage. ii. The Sphere of Lawful Marriage. 1. Conditions and Bars of Marriage. 2. The Levirate Custom, Marriage Procedure. 1. Betrothal. 2. Nuptial Rites and Customs. iv. The Moral Subversion of Marriage (Adultery). vy. The Legal Dissolution of Marriage (Divorce).
vi. Marriage as a Symbol of Spiritual Truths.
iii.
Marriage (with Fr. mariage, Ital. maritaggio, and transitional forms maridatge, mariatge, from Low Lat. maritaticum) is used to describe — (1) the legal relationship of husband and wife ; (2) the act, ceremony, or process by which this relationship is constituted. In the former case it is equivalent to wedlock or the estate of matri- mony (Hhestand, οἷ. Old Eng. aéw or αὖ, custom, marriage); in the latter it corresponds to the marriage ceremony (Germ. Hheschliessung), or, by an easy transition, to the whole of the proceed- ings of which that ceremony is the essential part (wedding, Hochzeit). Forthe estate of matrimony the OT has no name: where ‘marriage’ appears in our versions the translation is a circumlocution (Gn 34°, Ex 21, Ps 788), and the want was only supplied at a late date by the Talmudic mz» and am. The function by which a union was consti- tuted is also indirectly referred to by some verb indicating that one takes, or gives, or becomes a wife (see Note on Nuptial Rites). The idea of the rite is apparently conveyed by the word ‘espousals,’ but in Jer 2? mids which is so trans- lated really refers to the period of betrothal, while in Ca 3" 9290 includes the whole marriage proceedings or wedding. The later word for the ceremony is pw: or 757. In NT ‘marriage’ translates γάμος, which, like the Eng. word, means both the estate of marriage (He 13+) and the cere- mony with its attendant proceedings (Jn 21), and also stands for the marriage feast (RV of Mt 22°).
MARRIAGE
MARRIAGE 263
i. THE ForM AND DuTIEs OF MARRIAGE AS DEVELOPED UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF REVELA- TION.—The history of marriage, in the extent which here concerns us, is the history of a Semitic institution which by natural development had reached a comparatively excellent form, and which, under the successive influences of Juda- ism and Christianity, was gradually improved and perfected. The fresher problem relates to the evolution of Hebrew marriage anterior to its con- tact with OT revelation; and the difficulty is to do justice, neither more nor less, to the theories which have been propounded as to the early his- tory of marriage, and which at certain points claim biblical support.
1. OT VESTIGES OF PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE.— The scriptural account of the origin and history of marriage cannot satisfy the thorough evolutionist. According to the biblical representation, its per- fect type was exhibited in the union of the first pair, upon this followed a declension to im- are forms and sexual licence, and_ finally
hristianity summoned mankind to realize the ideal by reverting to the divinely instituted original. But on evolutionary principles the ideal is to be found, not at the be nning but at the end —if anywhere ; and the problem is to show from what base beginnings, under what impulses, and by what stages, marriage as we understand it came to be, and to Le entrenched behind the laws. The theory which has served as the basis of the discussion (M‘Lennan, Prim. Mar.) distinguishes four stages in the development—(1) a state in which the unions of the sexes were ‘loose, transi- tory, and in some degree promiscuous’; (2) the system of polyandry, of which the lowest form is a kind of communal marriage, the highest the union of a woman with a band of brothers; (3) the re- versal of polyandry in the system of polygyny ; and (4) as the result of prolonged experience, and also of changed conditions, an exclusive monogamy. For a time this scheme was generally accepted as an assured result of anthropological science, but during the last decade it has {πῇ eae to searching criticism, esp. by Starecke and Westermarck, aid has been discredited in various important points. In particular, there is growing incredulity as to the alleged original promiscuity. Though the poverty of primitive languages in words expressive of relationships lends it some support, the counter- argument is stronger: human nature was suffi- ciently armed with jealousy, if not otherwise, to fight for and secure a better order from the first. As regards polyandry, it is not open to doubt that this form of union has played a part in human history of an importance which was till lately not even suspected. Still met with in widely remote parts of the globe, the custom of polyandrous marriage was yet more extensively prevalent in antiquity. The recollection of it is preserved in traditions and usages of the progressive nations of the old world, as well as in their notices of the manners of barbarians. It was doubtless at least one of the roots of the remarkable system of the Matriarchate, of which there are so many traces in ancient law, and which is still maintained by ‘some score of pone representative of all the great regions of the barbaric world.’ But, im- portant as this discovery is, there is a growing conviction that M‘Lennan exaggerated. Even if it be admitted (and it is not aitmitted by all com- petent authorities) that the matriarchal system was exclusively the outgrowth of polyandrous marriage, the proof would still be far from com- plete that polyandry had been a universal and necessary phase in the evolution of the institution of marriage.