footsie

Non-Monogamy: Sin By Any Other Name

Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig
By | July 30, 2014

The psychodrama of the Fall of man is played out in subtle shifts of language. In his essay “The Seduction of Eve and Feminist Readings of the Garden of Eden,” Professor and rabbi Reuven Kimelman writes:

Originally, Scripture says, “And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying, `Of every tree of the garden you (singular throughout) may eat, yea freely eat, but as for the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you must not eat of it, for on the day that you eat from it, you will die, yea surely die'” (Gen. 2:16-17). Correcting the serpent by emphasizing that God had not prohibited all of the trees of the garden, the woman says, “From the fruit of the other trees in the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, God has said: You (plural throughout) are not to eat from it and you are not to touch it lest you die” (3:2-3).

Eve’s report of God’s command features several differences that Kimelman finds remarkable for their concerted shift toward a disobedient mindset. He notes that Eve refuses to name the tree as the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and that she downplays the double emphasis on death presented by God. These modifications, Kimelman argues, aren’t the scattered mistakes one might make in reporting a long speech, but rather an intentional misrepresentation of a command:

The differences add up to a diminishment of divine authority, a shift from generosity in the direction of arbitrariness, a reduction of the import of the tree to a location, a tinkering with the extent of the prohibition, through addition or subtraction,and a belittling of its gravity. Such changes and omissions are too consequential and systematic to be accidental. They point to a tendentious reformulation. Through them, the narrative signals Eve’s suggestibility if not susceptibility to the snake’s argumentation by showing the movement she has already made in that direction.

In other words, Eve’s reformulation of God’s commands occur predictably, along calculated lines. She has an interest, for example, in the tree not being the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but in merely being one tree in the middle of the garden: it makes God’s commandment seem capricious, merely locational, and lessens the gravity of the sin she intends to commit. Similarly she has an interest in reducing the penalty associated with the sin, and in softening what was ‘commanded’ to what was merely ‘said.’

Whether or not you suppose that Kimelman’s exegesis reveals the shadow of sin already fallen over Eve as she hesitates in the shade of the tree, its premise is incisively sound: the way we manipulate language reflects more than our shifting interpretations of the world. Indeed, how we choose to formulate descriptions provides insight into the ethical premises we intend to impute into our behavior. Nowhere is this phenomenon clearer than in the rise of several ‘non-monogamies’ recently profiled in publications like The Atlantic and Salon.

Philandering has always existed. And, identical to the style of so many ‘polyamory’ think pieces, it has frequently reproduced itself in art and culture with a distinctively maudlin sentimentality, the kind of effusive navel-gazery that is literature’s own cheap grace. Yet advocates of sundry ‘non-monogamous’ marital lifestyles have a vested interest in making their project seem brand new: If they are pioneering something rather than recapitulating a very old error, then they have the privilege of creating the language by which their behavior will be known.

This is precisely why we see, concomitant with the rise of essays and meditations triumphantly shucking aside the old shackle of monogamy, dictionary and encyclopedia-esque articles laying out new language. Psychology Today recently featured the work of a psychologist who seeks to define “seven forms of non-monogamy,” from “polyamory” to “swinging” to “open relationships” and merely being “monogamish.” It is tempting even for those intent upon adhering to Christian sexual ethics to learn the lexicon in order to navigate the disintegrating landscape of pop-cultural sexual ethics. But the impulse should be resisted for the same reason Eve should have plainly reproduced God’s words rather than inventing her own version. That is, to assign ‘new’ language to an established phenomenon is often to consent to a shift in ethics, and the shift in this case mirrors the shift that Kimelman detects in Eden.

After all, if we accept that monogamy and non-monogamy exist as neutral alternatives, then God’s commandment to observe sexuality strictly on monogamous, marital terms seems an arbitrary choice among equal alternatives. We might still say, quite weakly, that we like or prefer monogamy, but we must acknowledge by consenting to the use of non-monogamy as an equal and opposite descriptive alternative that the demands of Christian marriage are merely some among many. The same is true of the many terms now proliferating to describe forms of sexuality that are contrary to the Christian sexual ethic: each of them brings bundled in its use the implicit claim of equally legitimate alternatives.

But these words replace a term Christian tradition has already assigned to them as a total category: adultery. Adultery is descriptively accurate, in the Christian frame, of what each of these terms represent, and it also collapses them into a single category, effectively destroying the delusion of a variety of neutral, equal alternatives. Adultery rightly names the error that would prefer to be called ‘non-monogamy’ or any other euphemism; it places such behaviors where they really exist: not as equally upright alternatives to monogamous marriage, but as disordered behaviors on the wrong side of both the Decalogue and Jesus’ teaching on marriage in Matthew 19. For these reasons, Christians should not adopt the language that is being sold to repackage as new errors that are old, and should not replace the language that scripture and tradition provide as lamps of truth with words that obscure and mislead.

None of this is to say that Christians should maltreat adulterers; it was an adulteress whom Christ himself rescued from harm, and the fact that women more often bear the brunt of sexual censure than their equally guilty male counterparts should also serve as a stern warning against gung-ho shaming.

The point is not to build up a habit of abusing those who commit the sin of adultery, but rather to ensure that within Christian discussions of a changing sexual culture, we do not allow our ethics to be subtly manipulated by strategic alterations made to language, as Kimelman imagines Eve to have been in Eden. It may have been uncomfortable for Eve to recite God’s precise command in the dark shade of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but then again her discomfort would have been absolutely appropriate, and potentially helpful. Likewise, we might wince at the prospect of hurting feelings when we call adultery by its name—and we should surely never set out with the intention of rubbing anyone’s nose in their error, lest we be subjected to the same—but it is still the case that the discomfort which the word arouses is the voice of God, calling us away from sin.

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  • Bill Maniotis

    Bravo, Elizabeth! It is so refreshing to see a fellow doctoral student boldly asserting Truth in the lands of the Academy, where such ideas as you present here are heretical, especially in many theology departments. I look forward to reading more of your essays!

  • Aaron Taylor

    And to what lengths should we take this linguistic policy of yours? I note, for example, that despite purporting to be about the use of hard-hitting language, your article tactfully excludes all mention of the most common form adultery takes these days: divorce and remarriage. Should I refuse to refer to my relations’ and friends’ second wives as “your wife” and insist on calling them “your concubine” on the basis that “to assign ‘new’ language to an established phenomenon” would be for me as a Christian “to consent to a shift in ethics”?

    Of course, I am not trying to defend “polyamory” and all that jazz. Frankly, its just childish nonsense and it mystifies me why so many social conservatives dignify it by bothering to respond. But I do want to challenge the underlying nominalist ideology I see in your argument. I think that Christian ethics, because it is true, can give a robust account — even in Socratic terms, if necessary — of why this is wrong, and not simply be reduced to a case of “our language is better than your language.”

  • Elizabeth Stoker

    We’re at a point where certain forms of sexual misconduct are in a position to gain widespread social tolerance — ‘polyamory’ is one of them. It’s important that Christian communities maintain our language here because it enforces a habit of mind that encourages virtue, and in turn prevents the manipulative language at hand from gaining ground. So the proper question would be: if we had never socially agreed to call second marriages ‘wives’ or ‘husbands’, but had rather used some other term that acknowledged the sacramental reality, would we see such widespread tolerance of divorce and remarriage in Christian communities? I guess that it’s possible, but I would predict at least a marginal decrease in tolerance had the language always been kept reflective of tradition. My hope is that by getting in on the ‘ground floor’ of this push and pointedly hanging onto our own language for the phenomenon, we can hold out a bit better than we have on other related issues.

  • JoshuaWise

    I wonder, should we apply this methodology to that other sin so widely and socially accepted, gluttony? We refer to it by a number of euphemisms, and we excuse it as far as the spiritual life goes. Shall we begin to speak of those who eat and drink too much (or too little, for the sin is essentially the same) as gluttons again? Perhaps this uncomfortable process is indeed what is needed.

    Or, is it possible to acknowledge the sins of adultery and gluttony in the context of the Christian discussion (which you indicate above) while acknowledging the “natural” terminology for these things as identified by the “natural” culture. (Here “natural” is opposed to “super-natural” as given by the revelation of God. The “natural” culture is that which is founded on human reason that is not in dialog with or underpinned by Divine Revelation.). Can Christians not communicate with both contexts and use the appropriate language for each context? Is there not some continuity with the practice of accommodation/quidquid recipitur to using the language of the culture to be able to communicate with it?

  • Kevin R. Hensler

    I love the piece, and I fully agree, although I’m not so sure about the exegesis (although exegesis, though I recognize its importance, is always a project I am less than comfortable with). There is a ton going on in this narrative and while I have no case against this reading, it doesn’t seem exactly right to me. My own translation of the relevant verses:

    2:9 And YHWH God made every pleasant-to-sight and good-for-food tree grow from the dirt; and the Tree of Life was in the midst of the garden and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

    2:16 And YHWH God laid a commandment upon the man saying: from every tree of the garden you may eat, yea surely eat.
    (I use Dr. Kimelman’s translation methodology here of infinitive absolute constructions, though I chose surely, rather than freely, to better show that it is the same construction we see in the next versesince that’s the word he used with death. Note that this is not how I would typically translate this verse, as I typically just use the infinitive absolute as an intensifier.)

    2:17 But from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil you must not eat from it, because on the day of your eating from it you will die, yea surely die. (At this point Eve does not even exist yet, and is not brought into being until 2:21-23, accounting for the singular you. When Eve actually talks one can assume she is paraphrasing Adam’s paraphrase of a command God gave to Adam before Eve even existed, albeit in direct speech form, not intentionally misquoting God. Additionally, they didn’t die on the day when they ate the fruit, so God seems not to have been telling the truth in the first place. I wrote a paper once where I considered all of this which, though unpublished, I would be glad to share with anyone who is willing not to steal my ideas without giving me credit.)

    3:1-3:3
    1 And the serpent was craftier than all the animals of the field which YHWH God had made, and he said to the woman: “did God really say you (pl.) may not eat from every tree of the garden?”
    2 And the woman said to the serpent: “From the fruit of the tree (sing. form) of the garden we may eat.
    3 But from the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said: ‘you must not eat from it, and you must not touch upon it, lest you die.'”

    It seems to me that she gets the gist pretty well. Maybe Adam even oversold it to her with the bit about not even touching. Though yes, dying is less emphatic here as a consequence. The point about “commanded” vs. “said” seems silly to me because the word “command” is never stated by YHWH God (always referred to as “YHWH God” by this narrator, but always simply as “God” by the characters in the story), it is just a word the narrator uses. It does not seem to me like Eve is trying to draw a distinction.

    I hope this is not too toolish of me. I just really wanted to respond.

  • Aaron Taylor

    “Polyamory” is never going to gain “widespread social acceptance” except perhaps in certain parts of America and in a few of the battier European countries. The rest of the world frankly just has too much common sense. Look at France, for example. They have hardly any morals whatsoever when it comes to sex but people don’t go around saying “I’m a polyamorist” or whatnot. Indeed, if you look at the parts of America where this kind of silliness is actually taken seriously, they are all areas with a history of Puritanism and guilt surrounding sex. People therefore feel the need to make up all of these “identities” and arguments to justify their behavior. You don’t find that in the more sexually relaxed (and more Catholic) atmosphere in Southern Europe, for example.

    To your point, though, language just evolves organically as people freely and naturally communicate with one another. Obviously since we share our language we all have some input into how that evolution occurs, but trying to control exactly what words people use for everything is an even more foolish idea than trying to control an economy through price-fixing, and would require even more dictatorial power over whatever moral community it is whose language you are seeking to control.

    In the case of divorce and remarriage, the change in language was subsequent to the change in practice. The former evolved to accommodate the lived reality of the latter.

    If we really want to lift the tone of the moral life of Christian communities, we should focus on the practices that inform the language instead of playing all of these word games.

  • Elizabeth Stoker

    Not sure I consider relying on the language tradition has given to us as a word game, or why it would be incompatible with maintaining orthopraxis rather than a complement to it. This isn’t something that requires dictatorial interference; one would hope people would prefer the language of tradition as opposed to language saddled with anti-Christian ethical content, but at any rate getting people to speak well is as difficult as getting them to do well. I wish I shared your optimism that this won’t ever be tolerated widely, but in my own lifetime I’ve seen such massive disintegration of sexual ethics that I’m no longer so sure.

  • Elizabeth Stoker

    I suppose it depends on what the Church is trying to say to natural culture about adultery! :) I can think of prudent situations where it would be wise to rely at least briefly on its own language, but if the Church is honest to its mission it can’t slip into cooperation with error, which would be the danger of getting too gung-ho about accommodation.

  • Aaron Taylor

    I don’t think that sticking to traditional language is a word game at all. I sometimes still refer to sodomy as … well … “sodomy,” which annoys even some of my traditionalist friends. But who cares — at least it sounds more interesting. As does “adultery.”

    What I think is a word game is not sticking to the wonted terms but mounting intellectual defenses of the terms, especially where the intellectual energy could be better spent on encouraging the practices and habits without which the terms you want to defend are meaningless.

  • Elizabeth Stoker

    These seem like compatible enterprises!

  • Geoff

    It’s pretty simple; have sex with someone if you’re married to them and they aren’t near of kin to you. Also, no in-laws. Other than that, the man can marry and then have sex with as many women as he can manage to marry. Nowhere in scripture, even once, is this mentioned as a sin. Monogamy is just a cultural trend that attached the ‘in love’ illusion to marriage. The truth is, there is no such thing as ‘in love’. Love is a pragmatic execution of tasks which require sacrifice. All this warm fuzzy feeling crap is useless and has nothing to do with God. Romance, sensuality, being ‘in love’ is all very human and on its way out. Polygamy is perfectly acceptable because it accomplishes many goals that a monogamous relationship cannot. Romance and feeling special to someone is not the purpose of marriage and most people want the ‘one spouse’ ideal because it makes them feel more secure. Well… your marriage has nothing to do with you being happy or secure. There is NO such thing as being ‘in love’. That is a feeling, it’s fleeting, it’s human and at its foundation is entirely corrupt. Marriage should be viewed as a means to an end and nothing else.