Wife

The institution of marriage and the role of wife is established at creation: after God created Eve from Adam's rib, he presented her to the man, and "therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh" (Genesis 2:24). Jesus cites this text in his teaching on divorce (Matthew 19:4–6; Mark 10:6–9), grounding marriage in the one-flesh union of creation and opposing easy divorce. The Old Testament ideal of a faithful wife is celebrated in Proverbs 31:10–31 (the eshet chayil, woman of valour) and in the Song of Solomon's poetry of mutual love. The New Testament develops the husband-wife relationship as an analogy of Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:22–33), with the wife's submission to her husband paralleled by the church's submission to Christ, and the husband's love for his wife paralleled by Christ's self-giving love for the church. Polygamy, practiced by the patriarchs and Israelite kings, is never explicitly commanded in Scripture and is implicitly critiqued by the creation pattern of one man and one woman.