The theme of a wife’s fidelity to her husband in the Bible is not an abstract concept of righteousness, but a matter of socio-economic relations.
In fact, all of God’s dialogues with the biblical patriarchs in the Old Testament revolve around issues of property and the birth of offspring. Discussions of sexuality in the Old Testament invariably concern matters of inheritance.
Ransom
The husband paid the bride’s father a substantial sum (or worked for years, as Jacob did). From an economic perspective, the wife became part of the husband’s household, on a par with slaves, livestock and houses.
The Tenth Commandment states explicitly:
‘“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house… wife… or his ox or’ (Ex 20:17).
Here, the wife is included in the list of possessions. Fidelity is a guarantee of the preservation of the quality of these possessions.
Conversely, a Jewish man having sex with an unmarried woman or a prostitute was not considered a grave sin, because it did not infringe upon another man’s rights. A wife’s infidelity was always a crime, because it violated the ‘right of exclusive use’ belonging to the husband. Thus, the Law of Moses protected not the ‘sanctity of love’, but the property rights of the man.
The bride’s virginity
Losing one’s virginity before marriage was regarded not only as a personal sin, but also as causing economic and moral harm to her father. The man who had seduced the virgin was obliged to pay the full ransom for her and take her as his wife (Exodus 22:16–17).
The Law of Moses describes the procedure for verifying virginity after the wedding night:
“But if this charge is true, that the girl was not found a virgin, then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed an act of folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house; thus you shall purge the evil from among you” (Deut. 22:20-21).
Such cruel retribution reflects the reaction of the husband (and his father) even to the mere possibility of raising another man’s child. This is linked to the significant investment in offspring, which is why men in the ancient world were not prepared to raise children conceived by others.
Incidentally, the author of Deuteronomy was unaware that a young man could not verify his wife’s virginity on their wedding night. Many girls have an elastic hymen that does not tear even during sexual intercourse. Since the ‘virginity test’ is unreliable, many girls were subjected to the terrible punishment of stoning in vain.
A wife’s adultery called into question the heir’s rights. According to the Book of Leviticus (20:10), adultery was punishable by death for both parties.
For the ancient Israelites, land was not merely a resource, but a ‘divine inheritance’ that was to remain within a single clan for all time.
In ancient Israel, land was distributed according to the tribes and clans (Num. 26–27, 36; Lev. 25). If a wife committed adultery, there was a risk of a child being born to another man, which called into question the legitimacy and rights of his offspring.
The Ritual of Bitter Water
The Book of Numbers describes the ‘water of jealousy’ rite — a legal procedure for cases where a husband suspects his wife of infidelity but has no proof. A priest prepares a special ‘bitter water’ (holy water + dust from the tabernacle + written and washed-away curses) and gives it to the woman to drink before God.
It was believed that if the woman was innocent, nothing would happen, but if she was guilty, punishment would follow: illness, damage to the reproductive organs and infertility (including a possible miscarriage if she was pregnant).
This ritual protected the economic integrity of the household and the ancestral estate. Some modern interpreters refer to it as the ‘law ensuring the legitimacy of inheritance’, rather than merely a moral regulator (since the husband did not undergo a similar ritual if suspected of infidelity). In a context where land was the primary asset and children were both the workforce and the heirs, doubt regarding paternity posed a serious economic threat.
In the later rabbinic tradition, the rite was significantly softened and eventually abolished, reflecting the changes in socio-economic conditions following the destruction of the Temple.
Levirate marriage
In Old Testament times, a widow’s status prevented her from entering into a new marriage ‘for love’—she was required to marry her deceased husband’s brother. In both Ancient Israel and the Hittite kingdom, levirate marriage served to prevent the dispersal of an inheritance in the event of a man’s death before he had fathered an heir. The brother of the deceased man was expected to impregnate the widow so that his brother’s name (and share of the inheritance) might pass to the son born of this compulsory act:
‘to raise up the name of the deceased on his inheritance’ (Ruth 4:5).
It follows from the Sadducees’ conversation with Jesus that, hypothetically, a woman was required to enter into levirate marriage with her brothers up to seven times in succession (Matthew 22:23–30).
It is clear that no one was concerned with this woman’s feelings or desires, and she could not enter into a marriage ‘for love’.
It is interesting that Jesus did not attempt to criticise the law of levirate marriage, limiting himself merely to the statement that there would be no marital relations in the coming Kingdom of God.
A wife’s fidelity to her husband in the context of the New Testament
The Jesus of the Gospels goes beyond the letter of the Law:
‘everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart’ (Matthew 5:28).
Furthermore, Jesus emphasises:
‘What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate’ (Matthew 19:6)
Fidelity is a lifelong vow that does not depend on circumstances or feelings. This once again confirms the thesis that biblical marriage is not about love or feelings, but about socio-economic relations.
Let’s sum up
Biblical society was agrarian and patriarchal. In such a system, marital fidelity served as a ‘safety protocol’ for the transfer of land and resources from father to son. Without this protocol, the entire economic system of Ancient Israel could have collapsed.
Analysing the Bible from the perspective of socio-economic history is an excellent way to see, beyond the ‘lofty rhetoric’ of the prophecies, the harsh reality of survival in ancient society. Biblical marital fidelity appears as a complex system for protecting assets, investments and inheritance rights.
Whereas fidelity was once a matter of survival for the patriarchal clan, today it is a choice dictated by the personal relationship between two people.
In biblical times, fidelity protected land and inheritance. In the 21st century, the economic dependence of spouses on one another has fallen dramatically (in economically developed countries). It is declining even in the developing world, whilst in developed countries women have come close to economic equality with men.
In ancient times, women remained faithful in order to survive and maintain their status.
We live in circumstances that dictate entirely different forms of sexual morality.
Nowadays, fidelity is a voluntary gift. We remain faithful not because we have nowhere else to go, but because we value a particular person. For us, fidelity is linked to a sense of personal devotion to the one we love. If this feeling is absent, people are free to divorce at any time.
The biblical call for ‘oneness of the flesh’ is interpreted today as exceptional emotional intimacy, whereas the ancient Jew understood it through the prism of concern for property.
In biblical times, ‘faithfulness until death’ often meant 15–20 years of married life due to low life expectancy. Today, couples can live together for 50–60 years. Therefore, the idealisation of fidelity serves as a tool for controlling the private lives of modern believers.
P.S.
In ancient Israel, the physical union between husband and wife did not extend to the realm of personal intimacy. A woman was of great importance to a man in a sexual sense; she was the mother of his children, yet it was as though she could not fathom the depths of his soul, could not become his friend or his ‘other self’. The Law of Moses explicitly contrasts ‘the wife in the bedchamber’ with a friend ‘who is to you as your own soul’ (Deut. 13:6). A similar description of a true friend is also found in the Psalms:
‘But it was you, my other self, my comrade and friend (Ps. 55:14).
This observation is confirmed by the words of David, who, mourning his friend Jonathan, confessed that their relationship had reached the highest level, something that could not happen in his dealings with women:
‘More wondrous your love to me than the love of women’ (2 Sam 1:26).
Later, Ecclesiastes also expressed a similar dismissive attitude towards women:
‘One man out of a thousand have I found, but a woman among them all I have not found’ (Eccl. 7:28).
Thus, in Old Testament Judaism, women occupied an exclusively subordinate position, both within the family and in society. An Old Testament Jew did not expect his wife to be a true friend to him, nor did he expect to be able to discuss with her matters of state or the theological subtleties of doctrine.
