Nor is it otherwise in New Testament times. The ministry of woman to our blessed Lord, and in the Church, has almost become proverbial. Her position there marks really not a progress upon, but the full carrying out of, the Old Testament idea; or, to put the matter in another light, we ask no better than that any one who is acquainted with classical antiquity should compare what he reads of a Dorcas, of the mother of Mark, of Lydia, Priscilla, Phoebe, Lois, or Eunice, with what he knows of the noble women of Greece and Rome at that period.
Of course, against all this may be set the permission of polygamy, which undoubtedly was in force at the time of our Lord, and the ease with which divorce might be obtained. In reference to both these, however, it must be remembered that they were temporary concessions to "the hardness" of the people's heart. For, not only must the circumstances of the times and the moral state of the Jewish and of neighbouring nations be taken into account, but there were progressive stages of spiritual development. If these had not been taken into account, the religion of the Old Testament would have been unnatural and an impossibility. Suffice it, that "from the beginning it was not so," nor yet intended to be so in the end--the intermediate period thus marking the gradual progress from the perfectness of the idea to the perfectness of its realisation. Moreover, it is impossible to read the Old, and still more the New Testament without gathering from it the conviction, that polygamy was not the rule but the rare exception, so far as the people generally were concerned. Although the practice in reference to divorce was certainly more lax, even the Rabbis surrounded it with so many safeguards that, in point of fact, it must in many cases have been difficult of accomplishment. In general, the whole tendency of the Mosaic legislation, and even more explicitly that of later Rabbinical ordinances, was in the direction of recognising the rights of woman, with a scrupulousness which reached down even to the Jewish slave, and a delicacy that guarded her most sensitive feelings. Indeed, we feel warranted in saying, that in cases of dispute the law generally lent to her side. Of divorce we shall have to speak in the sequel. But what the religious views and feelings both about it and monogamy were at the time of Malachi, appears from the pathetic description of the altar of God as covered with the tears of "the wife of youth," "the wife of thy covenant," "thy companion," who had been "put away" or "treacherously dealt" with (Mal 2:13 to end). The whole is so beautifully paraphrased by the Rabbis that we subjoin it:
"If death hath snatched from thee the wife of youth,
It is as if the sacred city were,
And e'en the Temple, in thy pilgrim days,
Defiled, laid low, and levelled with the dust.
The man who harshly sends from him
His first-woo'd wife, the loving wife of youth,
For him the very altar of the Lord
Sheds forth its tears of bitter agony."
Where the social intercourse between the sexes was nearly as unrestricted as among ourselves, so far as consistent with Eastern manners, it would, of course, be natural for a young man to make personal choice of his bride. Of this Scripture affords abundant evidence. But, at any rate, the woman had, in case of betrothal or marriage, to give her own free and expressed consent, without which a union was invalid. Minors--in the case of girls up to twelve years and one day--might be betrothed or given away by their father. In that case, however, they had afterwards the right of insisting upon divorce. Of course, it is not intended to convey that woman attained her full position till under the New Testament. But this is only to repeat what may be said of almost every social state and relationship. Yet it is most marked how deeply the spirit of the Old Testament, which is essentially that of the New also, had in this respect also penetrated the life of Israel. St. Paul's warning (2 Cor 6:14) against being "unequally yoked together," which is an allegorical application of Leviticus 19:19; Deuteronomy 22:10, finds to some extent a counterpart in mystical Rabbinical writings, where the last-mentioned passages is expressly applied to spiritually unequal marriages. The admonition of 1 Corinthians 7:39 to marry "only in the Lord," recalls many similar Rabbinical warnings, from which we select the most striking. Men, we are told (Yalkut on Deu 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 Deuteronomy 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 2:36) 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 widow 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 and so emphatic, that the expressions used by St. Paul must have come familiarly to him. Again, much that is said in 1 Corinthians 7 about the married estate, finds striking parallels in Talmudical writings. One may here be mentioned, as explaining the expression (v 14): "Else were your children unclean; but now are they holy." Precisely the same distinction was made by the Rabbis in regard to proselytes, whose children, if begotten before their conversion to Judaism, were said to be "unclean"; if after that event to have been born "in holiness," only that, among the Jews, both parents required to profess Judaism, while St. Paul argues in the contrary direction, and concerning a far different holiness than that which could be obtained through any mere outward ceremony.