Biblical "Traditional" Marriage

Today, we look to the Bible regarding what it says about "traditional" and "Biblical" marriage. Since the New Testament is largely silent on the issue, and what New Testament verses are included are open to various interpretations, I will leave those scriptures to the spin doctors and seminarians to apply and debate. (For example church leaders should be the husband of one wife; and Paul's reference in Corinthians to sleeping with a prostitue constitutes "the two becoming one flesh.") 

Biblical marriage requires the women to be a virgin, otherwise, if the man "dislikes her" she shall be killed.


Deuteronomy 22:13 - 21 ¹³ If a man takes a wife and, after sleeping with her, dislikes her ¹⁴ and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,” ¹⁵ then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring to the town elders at the gate proof that she was a virgin. If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, 21 she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.

There are numerous examples of polygamy in the Old Testament

Exodus 21:10 If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights.

Deuteronomy 21:15 - 16 If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other, and both bear him sons but the firstborn is the son of the wife he does not love, 16 when he wills his property to his sons, he must not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the wife he loves in preference to his actual firstborn, the son of the wife he does not love.

Many important figures had more than one wife

Esau - Genesis 26:34  When Esau was forty years old, he married Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and also Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite.
Genesis 28:9 so he (Esau) went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had.

Moses - Exodus 2:21  Moses agreed to stay with the man (a Midianite), who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. 
Numbers 12:1 - Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife,for he had married a Cushite.

Jacob - Genesis 29:15-28 Laban replied, “It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. 27 Finish this daughter’s bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work.”28 And Jacob did so. He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife.

David - 1 Samuel 25:42-43   Abigail quickly got on a donkey and, attended by her five female servants, went with David’s messengers and became his wife. 43 David had also married Ahinoam of Jezreel, and they both were his wives.  
2 Samuel 5:13 After he left Hebron, David took more concubines and wives in Jerusalem, and more sons and daughters were born to him.

Solomon - 1 Kings 11:3 - He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.

Men were obligated to marry their brother's widow

Deutoronomy 25:5 If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her. 

Any and all divorced men who remarry are adulterers and are going to hell (except one excuse.)

Matthew 19:9 - I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
1 Corinthians 6:9 -  Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind..."