I had an interesting conversation today at lunch with Kashyap. His question was
1. Why should we marry?
2. Why should a girl leave the parents?
The first question has answer that was straight forward. God planned it. God ordained it. It was from God.
The second was quite obvious, but really? We looked at two examples from the Bible. Rebekah and Leah- Rachel.
Both left their father's family. But why?
Then he asked this question
3. Why did Abraham give gifts, or why did Jacob work for FOURTEEN years to get Rachel?
He then paralleled what Jews do in their wedding and said, question 3 has answer in the New testament. Baffled, we tried to relate.. and then he said, the Church -the bride has to leave the world, and then the puzzle fell into place. Christ paid the price. He bought the bride with his precious blood.
So that means
Christ paid the prize to get his Bride.The Bride leaves the worldly ways. Christ has full authority on the Bride.Bride is not treated as a servant, or object but as a partner. Body of Christ.
Husband pays to get his Wife. The wife leaves her family. Husband has full authority on the wife. Wife is a helpmate. They are one body.
What a sequel.
Christ loved the Church (Eph 5:25)
So the mantle, actually falls on the husbands. and thus submitting to the husband becomes easy peasy.
and the Bible, repeats this story, of husband paying the price to get his wife. [Hosea]
aah, but wait, where did the dowry system come from? Its time for the young men to wake up.. and for the married men, too, to pay back, if they had been bought! :P
