Marriage in the Old Testament

Marriage customs in the Old Testament come to the fore mainly in stories. Laws relating to marriage are few in number.

In the Old Testament, marriage came via the husband. So it was patriarchal in nature.
Often a marriage was arranged by parents or family. But there are also occasions when men chose their own wives, for instance in Genesis 28:1-5 and Judges 14:1-2.

The average age at which people married is not known.
In Egypt young women were between 12 and 14 years old when they married, and young men between 14 and 20. But according to Genesis 25:20 Isaac, for instance, marries when he is as old as 40.

A man could be married to several women simultaneously, but the converse never occurred. It is known particularly of kings that they had many different wives. Solomon shares the throne with seven hundred main wives and three hundred concubines.
But it was probably unusual for an ordinary man to have more than two wives at once. There were not many men who had the financial means to be able to afford a second or third wife.

Marriages were sometimes concluded within the family, so that cousins might marry each other. And people frequently married within a clan, as we read in stories about the patriarchs. In other stories this custom is less common. It was not compulsory to marry within the clan or family.

Marriages with foreign wives also occurred, but often they were forbidden. In the books of Ezra and Nehemiah the foreign spouses were even sent away (Ezra 10; Nehemiah 13:23-28).
Foreign wives were seen as a danger because as a rule they worshipped other gods. In a marriage the whole family might start to worship other gods.

Marriage is often used as a metaphor, especially for the covenant between God and his people. We see this in the book of Hosea, for instance.
And the love relationship in the biblical book of the Song of Songs is often interpreted as an allegory of the relationship between God and the people of Israel.