Brennan Breed, “Bringing the Case before the LORD” VI. FAMILY STRUCTURE

VI. FAMILY STRUCTURE

Fifth, and finally, within the general concept of sexuality one may distinguish the aspect of family structure. In the United States, at least, the conversation about human sexuality has at times focused on the potential changes to the family structure. One might ask: what does a family look like? What is considered normal marital arrangements, normal living situations, and where does one draw borderlines between those inside and outside of a particular family? And what gradations of familial relations does one find within a single family? Among those of European descent living in the United States, generally speaking, a family is understood primarily in terms of a central, ―nuclear‖ core comprised of parents and their children, and perhaps animals kept as pets. One distinguishes between these ―immediate‖ family members and other ―extended‖ family members such as aunts and uncles, grandparents, and cousins of the children. Perhaps it seems unusual to many around the globe that dogs, cats and other pets are considered more central members of the nuclear family than cousins and grandparents. Usually, only immediate family members live in a contiguous living space, and the children only reside with the parents until they are considered adults, at which point they move out, whether or not they have formed another core family unit.

This is radically different from the construction of families one finds in the ancient Near East. In general, ancient Near Easterners understood the family in light of the controlling metaphor of the bet-‘ab, the ―house of the father.‖ This was not a literal house; rather, it expressed the concept of the extended family,―comprising all the descendants of a single living ancestor… Thus, the bet-ab included the head of the house and his wife (or wives), his sons and their wives, his grandsons and their wives, plus any unmarried sons or daughters in the generations below him, along with all the nonrelated dependents.‖

This familial unit was the basis of the land tenure system, and thus it dominated ancient Near Eastern economic and political thought.

International treaties were often framed as one vassal nation becoming part of the bet-ab of the suzerain nation, and even the relationship of the gods to one another, and of humanity to the gods, was expressed in these terms.

Groups of ―houses of fathers‖ would join together as a clan ( mišpa ḥ â), and would work for their mutual protection and economic betterment, something completely foreign to the modern North American context. Also dissimilar is the ethical and religious acceptability of polygyny, the practice of a man marrying multiple wives, and also the practice of concubinage. There is no condemnation of either in the Bible, and neither is there any concrete explanation of the rules and bases of these institutions. They are simply accepted as part of the culture, as is the practice of Levirate marriage (Deut 25:5-6), which would be considered inappropriate in a modern North American context.

One thing that modern North Americans and ancient Israelites share, however, is this: our lived experience rarely reflects the cultural ideal.

While the prevailing idea of a family in ancient Israel, at least according to the texts and artifacts remaining, is hierarchical, patriarchal, and centered on the male head of the household, what we actually find is an incredible diversity of family forms in the Old Testament. We find families like Ruth and Naomi, two women struggling at the margins with no men present, and oddly integrative structures such as the

―Sons of the prophets‖ in the books of Samuel and Kings, who were related by charism not blood, but who also had wives and apparently children as well (2 Kgs 4). Also, from economic records and archaeological remains, we know that most families actually functioned in much more egalitarian ways than the patriarchal idea suggests, with women controlling much of the economic productivity of the household.

A question to consider at this point: what is the ethical and religious value of these non-normative family structures? Are they inherently immoral because they do not conform to the majority practices of the day? The Bible offers no condemnation of Ruth and Naomi‘s man -free family, and neither does it pass judgment on the oddly shaped clan of the Sons of the Prophets. Abraham and Sarah are not considered immoral for having been childless for so long. This brings up an important question for those attempting to use Genesis 1-3 as a normative model for human sexuality, in particular its family structure: what is the status of families that look different than the cultural norm? Are they necessarily ethically or religiously deficient? What about single parents? Or widowers? Surely not all families who look different than the ancient Israelite ideal should be condemned for this deviation. But Genesis 1-3 is silent on this question. What about families that look different? I believe that there is not necessarily an ethical hierarchy tied to cultural normativity that is, if a thing deviates from a norm, it is not necessarily an immoral thing. Perhaps it is, and perhaps it is not –but the mere fact of being different does not particularly matter. It should also be said that the ―orders of creation‖ theology that derives from Genesis 1-3 often tends toward a particular form of idolatry: namely, speaking on behalf of God without clear authorization. The use of the ―orders of creation‖ theology in the 20 th century to support racist and Nazi ideologies should lead us to use extreme caution before attaching hierarchies of value to cultural norms.

Modern North American and ancient Near Eastern cultures diverge in all of these five facets of human sexuality—sexual orientation, gender identification, gender roles, sexual practice and family structure. How, then, should we adjudicate our own sexual ethics today?