Ephesians 5:25 — Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

Fourteen years ago this day, my beloved wife Myra and I were married. Anybody who knows us knows how lucky I am, and what a brute I would be if I did not love her. I do. And it doesn’t need Paul to tell me to!
As I considered our marriage this morning, I was reminded of this instruction to the Ephesians, and a question popped into my head. Why had Paul considered it necessary to tell Ephesians husbands — and by extension all Christians — that they should love their wives?
As I thought about my question, two things came to mind. The first is that the modern Western understanding of marriage based on romantic attraction and eventual intimate partnership, is far from the historical norm. In Paul’s day marriage was essentially transactional, economic, though the Jews, Greeks and Romans had different flavors.
The Jewish wedding was most formal, with three stages — contract, consummation and celebration. An offer of marriage was proposed. If the offer was accepted there was a contract of marriage and gifts and money were given both to the bride and her parents. The “bride” and “groom” could be young, and consummation and celebration might be years later. Jewish men were encouraged to love their wives — but it was not assumed.
It might be said that marriage for the Romans was even more cold-blooded. It was (at least in the case of first marriages) an agreement between families to marry a man in his mid-twenties two a woman in her early teens, with the families agreeing that their ties were a good financial and political match. The bride and groom were contracted to marry each other at the betrothal, a formal ceremony between the two families. Gifts would be exchanged and the dowry agreed. A written agreement would be signed and the deal sealed with a kiss. Marriage had no legal force of its own but was rather a personal agreement between the bride and groom. The “wedding” was effectively no more than a declaration that the couple intended to live together! As might be imagined, such agreements were often discarded if finance or politics made it seem like a good idea!
There is, perhaps, not room for me to describe fully the Greek marriage. This essence, however, is that a woman was under the Lordship of her father, and in marriage would be transferred — effectively as a possession — to the Lordship of her husband.
This quick review of the state of marriage in Paul’s time leads to the conclusion that it looked nothing like a picture of the relationship Jesus wanted with His church! Paul’s remedial words were certainly needed.
There is, though, another aspect. Paul’s emphasis on the need for men to love their wives, and wives to respect their husbands, showed a clear understanding of the values that are critical to a successful marriage — in any century. It’s interesting to me that modern research by authors such as Shaunti Feldhahn and teaching by marriage experts like Dr. Emerson Eggerichs make it clear that Paul was dead right.
Husbands, love your wives! I do …