The Betrothed
December 22nd 2007 05:43
Marriage according to Hayyim Schauss’s in the ancient Hebrew days, as with in today’s times as well his investigations on this most interesting topic, revealed that
“In ancient times was a negotiated match involving an agreement on conditions, payment of a bridal price, and the groom's "taking possession" of the bride.
And in biblical times, people were married in early youth, and marriages were usually contracted within the circumference of the clan and the family. It was biblically undesirable to marry a woman from a foreign clan, lest she introduce ungodly and foreign beliefs and practices into their homes and society. Accordingly, though and as a rule, the fathers normally arranged the match.
The daughter was consulted, as to whom she would prefer, but the "calling of the damsel and inquiring at her mouth" after the conclusion of all negotiations was merely a formality. For a father was more concerned about the marriage of his sons than about the marriage of his daughters. And no expense was involved in marrying off a daughter. The normal accounting was that the father received a dowry for his daughter, other wise, he had to give a dowry to the prospective father-in-law of his son when marrying him off. This price paid by the father of the groom to the father of the bride was called a Mohar. In the stories with in the book of Genesis, in the Bible, Shekhem [Dina's suitor] said to Dinah's father and her brothers: "Let me find favor in your eyes, and what ye shall say unto me I will give. Ask me never so much Mohar and Mattan, and I will give to ye according as ye shall say unto me; but give me the damsel to wife." Mattan was the Hebrew word for the gifts given by the groom to the bride in addition to the mohar.
Which was not always paid in cash. At times, it was paid in kind, or in certain services. Another account from the Bible in Genesis relates the story of the servant of Abraham, who, after his request for Rebekah [to marry Isaac] was granted, "brought forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, and gave them to Rebekah; he gave also to her brother and to her mother precious things."
The servant was instructed to give Mattan to Rebekah, and Mohar to her brother and mother. The newly married man usually did not found a new home for himself, but occupied a nook (an extension of extra rooms was added, which he built on himself or with help from his father), in his father's house. And at times a rich father sometimes gave his daughter a field or other landed property as well as female slaves.
The Betrothal
Until late in the Middle Ages, marriage consisted of two ceremonies which were marked by celebrations at two separate times, with at times a long interval between the two occasions. First came the betrothal [Erusin]; and later, the wedding [Nissuin]. At the betrothal ceremony the daughter was legally married, although she still remained in her father's house. And she could not belong to another man unless she was divorced from her betrothed (which was seldom heard of). The Betrothal Ceremony, meant only that the betrothed woman, accompanied by a colorful procession, was brought from her father's house to the house of her groom, and the binding tie with her betrothed. Consummation was not allowed till the husband could provide adequately for his betrothed wife. In marriage, the mohar was paid and a detailed agreement reached between the families of the bride and groom (which was centered around the Ten Commandments and the First Five books of the Bible or Torah).
In those days the betrothal was the more important of these two events and maintained its importance as long as marriage was actually based upon a purchase and the virginity of the bride being intact, or other wise allowed by both families if the bride to be had previously been with a man under the Biblical Law at that time.
A New Attitude Toward Women
Since the fall of mankind through the Seed (off spring) of Adam and Eve of biblical times, daughters and adult women were regarded as equals for a while; but it soon became apparent that this sinful condition with mankind turned an ugly eye and turned women and men into more like animals than godly moral human beings that god had created. This type of behaviour was rife through out the period leading from the fall of mankind out of the garden of Eden, and up to the great world flood, which God had caused to come upon all of the earth, to wipe out sinful man for their immoral and ungodly and beastial. And it began again some time after Noah and his family had began to replenish the world (after the flood had subsided by God’s Grace), with their off spring and up to the time before Babylon.
But it was God’s People from the beginning of time, and creation by God, who always brought the significance and equality of a daughter or a girl or a woman back into biblical pre-eminence in ones home and in ones society. But the men and women in the society of other nations always changed the eminence and posterity of womanhood into socially degraded states as their times and history marched on. Even as far back as early biblical times, we find traces of a new moral attitude towards women. For instance, although a man was legally allowed to marry more than one wife, barring kings and princes, very few used this right. As a rule, the ordinary Jew as a part of God’s people lived in monogamous marriages. And it was always God’s people who were ridiculed for the pre-eminence they had for their daughters and women folk generally by the other nations around them. This pre-eminence was carried through to our day, due to Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, of his chosen and effectually called people and the Word of God as his revelation of these things and much more.
However, as our totally fallen human nature and history reveals to us mankind and women kind in all nations were susceptible to many acts of polygamy and other acts of immorality against god’s Divine and Sovereign Laws and Commandments for the past six thousand years of man kinds existence. These mile stones record the constant rise and decline of every nation that walked away from God and His Divine authority, judgement, justice, love, mercy and charity. Yet it has always been that God and His Word and His people as well as all of mankind, make them selves accountable for their behaviour not only toward Him as their creator, but also towards each other and especially how they (and we) are to behave toward sexual morality, and justice toward our daughters and women (and men) folk from among every tribe and tongue and nation all over the world. For women folk were to be as equal in manner and behaviour as the man and not to be seen and used immorally at all. Yet there was that subtle difference between them where by a man had more reason and duty before God to take a more higher view of their daughters and women folk, than they had to take for them selves (the woman being the weaker person and under the man’s authority, duty and accountability).
For those who did not listen to His commandments on all of these issues, the result was the same. He visited them and poured out from heaven rains of fire till none was left alive for their sordid immoral lives and for how they had corrupted each other as well as their children and every thing else around them (see the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Bible as a prime example of this).
An Ancient Betrothal and Marriage Record
Around about the late eighteen hundreds to the early nineteen (1897-1915) hundreds an actual Jewish marriage record during the period of the return from the Babylonian exile was discovered (of the tenth century),became the oldest marriage contract in Jewish history (out side of the Bible). The marriage it self happened among the Jews of Elephantine and Assuan, at the southern border of Egypt rather than in Palestine or among the exiles in Babylon.
The betrothal and marriage contract of Mibtachiah [the bride] and As-Hor [the groom] began with a declaration of marriage by As-Hor to Mibtachiah's father. "I came to thy house for thee to give me thy daughter, Mibtachiah, to wife; she is my wife and I am her husband from this day and forever."
Following this declaration of betrothal, all terms of the marriage contract were written in detail such as:- As-Hor paid Machseiah, the father, five shekels, Persian standard, as a mohar for his daughter. Besides, Mibtachiah received a gift of 65 1/2 shekels from As-Hor. According to this betrothal and marriage contract, Mibtachiah the bride had equal rights with her husband. Which meant she had her own property which she could bequeath as she pleased, and she had the right to pronounce a sentence of divorce against As-Hor, even as he had the right to pronounce it against her (which was a very unusual action in deed, for those times). All she had to do was to appear before the court of the community and declare that she had developed an aversion to As-Hor (which was against God’s Commandments unless it was for infidelity on her part or his).
The Ketubah, or Marriage Contract
In many points of content and form, Mibtachiah's marriage contract resembles the version of the Ketubah still in vogue in modern Jewish life today. In references to marriage throughout the Bible, the Mohar was paid and gifts presented, but a written contract was seldom if ever mentioned, as it was normally recorded by the local priest and town clerk and the family register as having taken place on such and such a day and time and between the consenting families and bride and groom to be. However, the Book of Deuteronomy specifically states that if a man dislikes his wife, "he writes her a bill of divorcement and gives it in her hand" (24: 3). If a written document was employed at that period in dissolving a marriage, we have to assume that it was also employed in contracting the betrothal and subsequent marriage that followed some time later on (normally with in a month to two years, depending on the circumstances of the man (groom to be). In the Bible in the days of Jesus the Christ and Saviour of mankind, this was contested by the Pharisees, Scribes, Lawyers, and Sadducees who stated that “Moses said we could divorce our wife and give her a bill of divorcement if we found her to be adulterous; so any woman can be put away from the home under these conditions, or why did Moses say we could do so?” Jesus told them “they do err, because it was due to the hardness of the heart in them that caused a man to put away his wife rather than just for adultery only.” And he also told them “that but before that time and even at the beginning of time it was never so (reflecting back on the Genesis account, at the fall of mankind in Adam, and onwards to the World flood, and the saving of Noah and his family, and so on, and that of Hosea, and Ruth, and Ezra, and Malachi, and Proverbs and other parts of scripture, where Forgiveness and Justice and Mercy was the golden rule in all such matters.’
A Divorce Penalty
According to my research the Mohar payment at the time of the betrothal ceremony was entirely transformed during late-biblical and post-biblical times (between the end of the Old Testament Book of Malachi to the New Testament Book of Matthew which was a period of some three hundred and fifty years of absence from prophetical and Biblical leadership and practice). From a bridal price and endowment it finally became a lien to be paid by the husband in case of divorce, or by his heirs in case of his death: Thus the change in the Mohar ritual payment practice was a direct result of changes in the material conditions of life. In the simple conditions of early biblical days, all sons and daughters married young (from the age of fifteen onwards) - No one (especially a daughter where ever possible) above the age of sixteen stayed single.
The situation changes, however, in such conditions as the are reflected in the wisdom book of Ben-Sira, written not long before the uprising of the Maccabees. Apparently bachelorship, common among Jews in the Talmudic times, had its beginnings in pre-Maccabean days; Thus making it plain that the economic conditions of the day were such that most men above the age of eighteen hesitated to shoulder the responsibility of matrimony (there was always a war going on between the Jewish people and those who had once more conquered them again and in this instance it was by Roman occupation and domination). How ever it had become an unusual practice during those times, for women to support the men they married (as most of them were either rounded up to be roman soldiers, or slaves and most Jewish people were not allowed to have businesses of their own, except by those so stipulated by Roman Law and Rule either directly from Rome or by the Local Roman Governor in their area).
Yet the Mohar institution did not pass out of existence. It was revived again and again with long gaps between each period, and in the course of this period, adapting itself to the new circumstances. This new change in the first stage in this process was to make the bride's father a mere trustee of the Mohar. The money was then inherited ultimately either by the husband or by his children. This reform availed every one little because ones life expectancy for the menfolk was never sure from day to day; so the husband himself was made the trustee of the money, which was then re-used to buy the necessary household articles.
The last step in the reform of the Mohar institution was made by Simeon ben Shatach, head of the Pharisees, who were the ruling party in the state during the reign of the Maccabean Queen, Salome Alexandra (76-67 B.C.E.). In trying to appease certain rich noble families, of the day, he declared that the Mohar, which was ordinarily 200 silver dinars (50 shekels) for a daughter, and 100 for a widow, should merely be written in the Ketubah, the marriage deed, as a lien of the wife on the estate of her husband, to be paid to her only if he divorced her, or at his death! This reform served two humane purposes. It made every marriage easier, especially for the poorer folk and divorce more difficult for the richer folk. A man at that time did not need 200 dinars in cash in order to marry some ones daughter, how ever he did need it if he wanted to divorce her: Thus the new ketubah legislation protected the woman from being arbitrarily divorced by her husband (sneaky or what?).
What is it you want from Me.
In the year Two Thousand and Seven after the crucifixion, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ some two thousand and seven years ago, is we have a much more complicated situation facing us. For we have become as backward toward our daughters and womenfolk and God as they had done in olden biblical times of the Genesis account and onwards to Christian times and since then in to our times. What happens to day though? It was customary as part of a societies up bringing to keep with the betrothal ceremony as a pre-existing state of marriage between the man and woman prior to the actual final part of the marital custom. It was also very customary that such custom’s, were to be kept up at all times. And it was done so on and off depending on the society and nation’s biblical up bringing and on which nation was ruling which nation at that time. And it was kept up amongst such nations as Scotland and across the sea to Israel, to South East Asia and into which every country had taken up Christ Jesus and the Word of God. And it was still practiced in such places as the Philippine’s and Scotland, till the end of the eighteenth century to the early nineteen hundreds. It has since died out as a Godly moral religious practice since those days, all over the world.
What happens today though as normal, is that we (typically totally fallen human beings), have replaced the godly commandment of betrothal and marriage with engagements, and slowly to defacto marriages and from a betrothal and marriage between a man and woman (some ones son and some ones daughter), to living with some one (as if they are married), to same sex sexual customs and living practices (a son with some one else’s son and a daughter to some one else’s daughter – better known as Sodomy – Homosexualism and Lesbianism and Beastiality), to what ever goes, including Swingers (married couples - between a man and woman - using each other in consent with each other for wife and husband swapping orgies and parties).
The whole godly moral concept for Marriage between men and women, sons and daughters of a proper age and ability, has been constantly pushed aside by those who always want no control over their behaviour and attitudes and ways, where godly morality and marriage and mankind exists around them.
What usually happens today is there is so much evidence of how we, including them those and they who put in place certain attitudes and behaviour and try to infuse into our social and family godly values and principles and practices certain likes and dislikes as to how every one around them (us) ought to view A daughters Virginity and a Woman’s Virginity and Godly Moral up bringing, and attitudes as well as those of men. Yet the focus they push on us through the various information channels and governmental structures available to us today, is of how best to put those same moralistic likes and dislikes to concentrate on the age of consent for some ones son and some ones daughter; then on to how much authority a parent has over their children and how little the actually appear to have and how much say the government should have over our sons and daughters; and then on to which sexual behaviours are more godly than others, and how we are to keep those attitudes of theirs as our own; and then on to how the image of man and of a son, is to be seen to be most unreliable and not trust worthy for many things, most of the time; and then on to how most of our daughters and women folk are always ill treated and never seen to be as equal in any way, and that the whole Biblical concept of betrothal and marriage is out dated and definitely ungodly and never to be believed in nor practiced at any time, ever again.
Today there is even more bigger pushes by these ungodly people, to do away with godly marriages between men and women only and lives; into boys with boys, and sons with sons, and men with men, and men with boys and boys with men; to girls with girls, and daughters with daughters, and women to women, and women with girls, and girls with women and so on.
To such as they, they much prefer to see that there is no such thing as a godly life style nor type in evidence any where let alone practiced in Australia ever again, nor any where else in the world either. As they say in their dark and hidden souls “let any religion have its way in the world, especially theirs.” Which is a sad revelation for all of us to see, to be happening in our society today. In fact the opposite has to happen. We have to revive those Biblical virtues of betrothal between a man and a woman as soon as possible, to help revive our consciences and souls to Godly living all over again.
I know which type of society I want to be living in, and that is the one in which all of God’s Commandments and Living Statutes are practiced daily, freely and happily by every one. Because if they want to restrict any thing, then it has to be their ways and none of God’s ways: As it is God’s ways, and commandments and statutes and living practices that gives every one more freedom and happiness and peace of mind than any other, especially His betrothal and marriage vows and practices.
The End.
“In ancient times was a negotiated match involving an agreement on conditions, payment of a bridal price, and the groom's "taking possession" of the bride.
And in biblical times, people were married in early youth, and marriages were usually contracted within the circumference of the clan and the family. It was biblically undesirable to marry a woman from a foreign clan, lest she introduce ungodly and foreign beliefs and practices into their homes and society. Accordingly, though and as a rule, the fathers normally arranged the match.
The daughter was consulted, as to whom she would prefer, but the "calling of the damsel and inquiring at her mouth" after the conclusion of all negotiations was merely a formality. For a father was more concerned about the marriage of his sons than about the marriage of his daughters. And no expense was involved in marrying off a daughter. The normal accounting was that the father received a dowry for his daughter, other wise, he had to give a dowry to the prospective father-in-law of his son when marrying him off. This price paid by the father of the groom to the father of the bride was called a Mohar. In the stories with in the book of Genesis, in the Bible, Shekhem [Dina's suitor] said to Dinah's father and her brothers: "Let me find favor in your eyes, and what ye shall say unto me I will give. Ask me never so much Mohar and Mattan, and I will give to ye according as ye shall say unto me; but give me the damsel to wife." Mattan was the Hebrew word for the gifts given by the groom to the bride in addition to the mohar.
Which was not always paid in cash. At times, it was paid in kind, or in certain services. Another account from the Bible in Genesis relates the story of the servant of Abraham, who, after his request for Rebekah [to marry Isaac] was granted, "brought forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, and gave them to Rebekah; he gave also to her brother and to her mother precious things."
The servant was instructed to give Mattan to Rebekah, and Mohar to her brother and mother. The newly married man usually did not found a new home for himself, but occupied a nook (an extension of extra rooms was added, which he built on himself or with help from his father), in his father's house. And at times a rich father sometimes gave his daughter a field or other landed property as well as female slaves.
The Betrothal
Until late in the Middle Ages, marriage consisted of two ceremonies which were marked by celebrations at two separate times, with at times a long interval between the two occasions. First came the betrothal [Erusin]; and later, the wedding [Nissuin]. At the betrothal ceremony the daughter was legally married, although she still remained in her father's house. And she could not belong to another man unless she was divorced from her betrothed (which was seldom heard of). The Betrothal Ceremony, meant only that the betrothed woman, accompanied by a colorful procession, was brought from her father's house to the house of her groom, and the binding tie with her betrothed. Consummation was not allowed till the husband could provide adequately for his betrothed wife. In marriage, the mohar was paid and a detailed agreement reached between the families of the bride and groom (which was centered around the Ten Commandments and the First Five books of the Bible or Torah).
In those days the betrothal was the more important of these two events and maintained its importance as long as marriage was actually based upon a purchase and the virginity of the bride being intact, or other wise allowed by both families if the bride to be had previously been with a man under the Biblical Law at that time.
A New Attitude Toward Women
Since the fall of mankind through the Seed (off spring) of Adam and Eve of biblical times, daughters and adult women were regarded as equals for a while; but it soon became apparent that this sinful condition with mankind turned an ugly eye and turned women and men into more like animals than godly moral human beings that god had created. This type of behaviour was rife through out the period leading from the fall of mankind out of the garden of Eden, and up to the great world flood, which God had caused to come upon all of the earth, to wipe out sinful man for their immoral and ungodly and beastial. And it began again some time after Noah and his family had began to replenish the world (after the flood had subsided by God’s Grace), with their off spring and up to the time before Babylon.
But it was God’s People from the beginning of time, and creation by God, who always brought the significance and equality of a daughter or a girl or a woman back into biblical pre-eminence in ones home and in ones society. But the men and women in the society of other nations always changed the eminence and posterity of womanhood into socially degraded states as their times and history marched on. Even as far back as early biblical times, we find traces of a new moral attitude towards women. For instance, although a man was legally allowed to marry more than one wife, barring kings and princes, very few used this right. As a rule, the ordinary Jew as a part of God’s people lived in monogamous marriages. And it was always God’s people who were ridiculed for the pre-eminence they had for their daughters and women folk generally by the other nations around them. This pre-eminence was carried through to our day, due to Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, of his chosen and effectually called people and the Word of God as his revelation of these things and much more.
However, as our totally fallen human nature and history reveals to us mankind and women kind in all nations were susceptible to many acts of polygamy and other acts of immorality against god’s Divine and Sovereign Laws and Commandments for the past six thousand years of man kinds existence. These mile stones record the constant rise and decline of every nation that walked away from God and His Divine authority, judgement, justice, love, mercy and charity. Yet it has always been that God and His Word and His people as well as all of mankind, make them selves accountable for their behaviour not only toward Him as their creator, but also towards each other and especially how they (and we) are to behave toward sexual morality, and justice toward our daughters and women (and men) folk from among every tribe and tongue and nation all over the world. For women folk were to be as equal in manner and behaviour as the man and not to be seen and used immorally at all. Yet there was that subtle difference between them where by a man had more reason and duty before God to take a more higher view of their daughters and women folk, than they had to take for them selves (the woman being the weaker person and under the man’s authority, duty and accountability).
For those who did not listen to His commandments on all of these issues, the result was the same. He visited them and poured out from heaven rains of fire till none was left alive for their sordid immoral lives and for how they had corrupted each other as well as their children and every thing else around them (see the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Bible as a prime example of this).
An Ancient Betrothal and Marriage Record
Around about the late eighteen hundreds to the early nineteen (1897-1915) hundreds an actual Jewish marriage record during the period of the return from the Babylonian exile was discovered (of the tenth century),became the oldest marriage contract in Jewish history (out side of the Bible). The marriage it self happened among the Jews of Elephantine and Assuan, at the southern border of Egypt rather than in Palestine or among the exiles in Babylon.
The betrothal and marriage contract of Mibtachiah [the bride] and As-Hor [the groom] began with a declaration of marriage by As-Hor to Mibtachiah's father. "I came to thy house for thee to give me thy daughter, Mibtachiah, to wife; she is my wife and I am her husband from this day and forever."
Following this declaration of betrothal, all terms of the marriage contract were written in detail such as:- As-Hor paid Machseiah, the father, five shekels, Persian standard, as a mohar for his daughter. Besides, Mibtachiah received a gift of 65 1/2 shekels from As-Hor. According to this betrothal and marriage contract, Mibtachiah the bride had equal rights with her husband. Which meant she had her own property which she could bequeath as she pleased, and she had the right to pronounce a sentence of divorce against As-Hor, even as he had the right to pronounce it against her (which was a very unusual action in deed, for those times). All she had to do was to appear before the court of the community and declare that she had developed an aversion to As-Hor (which was against God’s Commandments unless it was for infidelity on her part or his).
The Ketubah, or Marriage Contract
In many points of content and form, Mibtachiah's marriage contract resembles the version of the Ketubah still in vogue in modern Jewish life today. In references to marriage throughout the Bible, the Mohar was paid and gifts presented, but a written contract was seldom if ever mentioned, as it was normally recorded by the local priest and town clerk and the family register as having taken place on such and such a day and time and between the consenting families and bride and groom to be. However, the Book of Deuteronomy specifically states that if a man dislikes his wife, "he writes her a bill of divorcement and gives it in her hand" (24: 3). If a written document was employed at that period in dissolving a marriage, we have to assume that it was also employed in contracting the betrothal and subsequent marriage that followed some time later on (normally with in a month to two years, depending on the circumstances of the man (groom to be). In the Bible in the days of Jesus the Christ and Saviour of mankind, this was contested by the Pharisees, Scribes, Lawyers, and Sadducees who stated that “Moses said we could divorce our wife and give her a bill of divorcement if we found her to be adulterous; so any woman can be put away from the home under these conditions, or why did Moses say we could do so?” Jesus told them “they do err, because it was due to the hardness of the heart in them that caused a man to put away his wife rather than just for adultery only.” And he also told them “that but before that time and even at the beginning of time it was never so (reflecting back on the Genesis account, at the fall of mankind in Adam, and onwards to the World flood, and the saving of Noah and his family, and so on, and that of Hosea, and Ruth, and Ezra, and Malachi, and Proverbs and other parts of scripture, where Forgiveness and Justice and Mercy was the golden rule in all such matters.’
A Divorce Penalty
According to my research the Mohar payment at the time of the betrothal ceremony was entirely transformed during late-biblical and post-biblical times (between the end of the Old Testament Book of Malachi to the New Testament Book of Matthew which was a period of some three hundred and fifty years of absence from prophetical and Biblical leadership and practice). From a bridal price and endowment it finally became a lien to be paid by the husband in case of divorce, or by his heirs in case of his death: Thus the change in the Mohar ritual payment practice was a direct result of changes in the material conditions of life. In the simple conditions of early biblical days, all sons and daughters married young (from the age of fifteen onwards) - No one (especially a daughter where ever possible) above the age of sixteen stayed single.
The situation changes, however, in such conditions as the are reflected in the wisdom book of Ben-Sira, written not long before the uprising of the Maccabees. Apparently bachelorship, common among Jews in the Talmudic times, had its beginnings in pre-Maccabean days; Thus making it plain that the economic conditions of the day were such that most men above the age of eighteen hesitated to shoulder the responsibility of matrimony (there was always a war going on between the Jewish people and those who had once more conquered them again and in this instance it was by Roman occupation and domination). How ever it had become an unusual practice during those times, for women to support the men they married (as most of them were either rounded up to be roman soldiers, or slaves and most Jewish people were not allowed to have businesses of their own, except by those so stipulated by Roman Law and Rule either directly from Rome or by the Local Roman Governor in their area).
Yet the Mohar institution did not pass out of existence. It was revived again and again with long gaps between each period, and in the course of this period, adapting itself to the new circumstances. This new change in the first stage in this process was to make the bride's father a mere trustee of the Mohar. The money was then inherited ultimately either by the husband or by his children. This reform availed every one little because ones life expectancy for the menfolk was never sure from day to day; so the husband himself was made the trustee of the money, which was then re-used to buy the necessary household articles.
The last step in the reform of the Mohar institution was made by Simeon ben Shatach, head of the Pharisees, who were the ruling party in the state during the reign of the Maccabean Queen, Salome Alexandra (76-67 B.C.E.). In trying to appease certain rich noble families, of the day, he declared that the Mohar, which was ordinarily 200 silver dinars (50 shekels) for a daughter, and 100 for a widow, should merely be written in the Ketubah, the marriage deed, as a lien of the wife on the estate of her husband, to be paid to her only if he divorced her, or at his death! This reform served two humane purposes. It made every marriage easier, especially for the poorer folk and divorce more difficult for the richer folk. A man at that time did not need 200 dinars in cash in order to marry some ones daughter, how ever he did need it if he wanted to divorce her: Thus the new ketubah legislation protected the woman from being arbitrarily divorced by her husband (sneaky or what?).
What is it you want from Me.
In the year Two Thousand and Seven after the crucifixion, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ some two thousand and seven years ago, is we have a much more complicated situation facing us. For we have become as backward toward our daughters and womenfolk and God as they had done in olden biblical times of the Genesis account and onwards to Christian times and since then in to our times. What happens to day though? It was customary as part of a societies up bringing to keep with the betrothal ceremony as a pre-existing state of marriage between the man and woman prior to the actual final part of the marital custom. It was also very customary that such custom’s, were to be kept up at all times. And it was done so on and off depending on the society and nation’s biblical up bringing and on which nation was ruling which nation at that time. And it was kept up amongst such nations as Scotland and across the sea to Israel, to South East Asia and into which every country had taken up Christ Jesus and the Word of God. And it was still practiced in such places as the Philippine’s and Scotland, till the end of the eighteenth century to the early nineteen hundreds. It has since died out as a Godly moral religious practice since those days, all over the world.
What happens today though as normal, is that we (typically totally fallen human beings), have replaced the godly commandment of betrothal and marriage with engagements, and slowly to defacto marriages and from a betrothal and marriage between a man and woman (some ones son and some ones daughter), to living with some one (as if they are married), to same sex sexual customs and living practices (a son with some one else’s son and a daughter to some one else’s daughter – better known as Sodomy – Homosexualism and Lesbianism and Beastiality), to what ever goes, including Swingers (married couples - between a man and woman - using each other in consent with each other for wife and husband swapping orgies and parties).
The whole godly moral concept for Marriage between men and women, sons and daughters of a proper age and ability, has been constantly pushed aside by those who always want no control over their behaviour and attitudes and ways, where godly morality and marriage and mankind exists around them.
What usually happens today is there is so much evidence of how we, including them those and they who put in place certain attitudes and behaviour and try to infuse into our social and family godly values and principles and practices certain likes and dislikes as to how every one around them (us) ought to view A daughters Virginity and a Woman’s Virginity and Godly Moral up bringing, and attitudes as well as those of men. Yet the focus they push on us through the various information channels and governmental structures available to us today, is of how best to put those same moralistic likes and dislikes to concentrate on the age of consent for some ones son and some ones daughter; then on to how much authority a parent has over their children and how little the actually appear to have and how much say the government should have over our sons and daughters; and then on to which sexual behaviours are more godly than others, and how we are to keep those attitudes of theirs as our own; and then on to how the image of man and of a son, is to be seen to be most unreliable and not trust worthy for many things, most of the time; and then on to how most of our daughters and women folk are always ill treated and never seen to be as equal in any way, and that the whole Biblical concept of betrothal and marriage is out dated and definitely ungodly and never to be believed in nor practiced at any time, ever again.
Today there is even more bigger pushes by these ungodly people, to do away with godly marriages between men and women only and lives; into boys with boys, and sons with sons, and men with men, and men with boys and boys with men; to girls with girls, and daughters with daughters, and women to women, and women with girls, and girls with women and so on.
To such as they, they much prefer to see that there is no such thing as a godly life style nor type in evidence any where let alone practiced in Australia ever again, nor any where else in the world either. As they say in their dark and hidden souls “let any religion have its way in the world, especially theirs.” Which is a sad revelation for all of us to see, to be happening in our society today. In fact the opposite has to happen. We have to revive those Biblical virtues of betrothal between a man and a woman as soon as possible, to help revive our consciences and souls to Godly living all over again.
I know which type of society I want to be living in, and that is the one in which all of God’s Commandments and Living Statutes are practiced daily, freely and happily by every one. Because if they want to restrict any thing, then it has to be their ways and none of God’s ways: As it is God’s ways, and commandments and statutes and living practices that gives every one more freedom and happiness and peace of mind than any other, especially His betrothal and marriage vows and practices.
The End.
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