BellaOnline Forums News and Politics Women's Issues Coveting a Husband

I was posting in another thread about the final (or final two) commandments:

"You shall not covet your neighbor�s house; you shall not covet your neighbor�s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

How come it says WIFE but then goes on to say MALE OR FEMALE SLAVE??? Why is there no "husband" in there? Is this commandment set solely meant for female readers?

Or is it fair game for women to lust after their neighbor's husbands?

I mean, the parenting commandment did say mother AND father ... the adultery commandment was gender neutral ...

It may have been because Moses was addressing the men that he escaped Egypt with.

I don't know for sure but will research it if no one else knows why.

Well but these were inscribed on stone, the stone tablets given to Moses by God right?

Interestingly the Islamic version (which pretty much mirrors exactly the versions used by Christians and Jews) says:

"And do not covet what we bestowed upon any other people. Such are temporary ornaments of this life, whereby we put them to the test. What your Lord provides for you is far better, and everlasting."

So it is more generic and all encompassing.

I will have to do some research to find out more, Lisa. My gut feeling, however, is that the commandments were directed towards men since they were the master of their homes and family. The men were expected to learn the commandments and teach their families. Women were expected to follow their husband's wishes and rules back then and did not really have a voice in matters of much importance. I will learn more, or better, when I look into it. That is really an intriquing subject you have brought up. Guess you know what I will be reading for several nights now.

I would tend to agree with Phyllis' interpretation. I don't think God sent commandments to women, and I would imagine female slaves were singled out to specify that rape was not permissible. It would be assumed, perhaps, that women would not covet other men since women's sexuality carried such an expectation of purity and obligation, rather than desire.

I'm not sure they singled out female slaves - they included both male and female slaves. So they were a matched pair. But they didn't do a matched pair for husband and wife.

In the adultery commandment I always felt it clear that it applied to both husband and wife there, for example ...

And in the famous "who will throw the first stone" the woman in question had been brought in for adultery. So I think there are a lot of stories in the Bible about women who were lusting after other men

UPDATE: Ok after some searching I found the story of Homer. God tells Homer to go marry a wild-and-free woman, and Homer decides to marry Gomer. Gomer has a few kids with Homer but then runs off and lives the high life.

I should clarify my point. The reason I assumed the commandment pointed out male and female is because the abuse was different. Even until the end of slavery in the US, many slaveowners (and sympathizers) belived that raping female slaves did not constitute any kind of abuse.

As it turns out, though, at least according to traditional theology, I'm wrong! Imagine my horror!

I asked our minister this morning. Allow me to say for anyone of a different denomination that we are members of the Disciples of Christ, which is in my experience (having grown up Baptist) a much more intellectual (rather than emotional) strain of Christianity. We as Disciples tend to be more willing to accept cultural history over Divine intervention for Scriptural reasoning. (Okay, that was more explanation than I intended, but I think it's necessary.)

According to current theology in our denomination, the belief is that the commandment was a property-based commandment. Wives are pointed out because they are property, but husbands were not property. We (modern society) have grown to view this commandment as meaning lust, but that wasn't the original intent.

Incidentally, my minister also said that it opens up a lot of discussions in seminary about whether the commandments originally applied to women at all. Many people believe they did not and that only men had to follow them. (In this case, my life just got more fun.

Well in a way that makes sense because they already had a commandment against adultery which applied to both sexes. Nobody could engage in adultery. So there would be no reason for two separate commandments on the same issue. So the last one was about "possessions"

Cool, so women don't have to follow the 10 commandments??

Interestingly, in my research I also found many pages which said that back in those days adultery was ONLY about married women being violated. I.e. if a married man slept with a single woman, that was fine. He wasn't hurting anybody or violating any commandment. However if he slept with a MARRIED woman, he was infringing on another man's rights. So that was what the adultery one was supposed to be about.

I don't see what the problem is. The New Testament ascribes that there is no male/female, Jew/Greek, Slave/freeman. We are all the same, and the same ideals and expectations are assigned to both sexes.
It's not ideal for me covet my neighbor's husband, it's not ideal for me to covet anything at all! I don't know why you would want to limit yourself to OT Judaic law and look for loopholes or some reason to think they were female bashing. AT many points in OT history men had several wives, do you wish to be part of that as well? There are ideal behaviors for all of us, not fornicating OR committing adultery would be pretty high on that list.
You have to remember that most Bibles today are based on erroneus translation anyway. You know that whole 'submission theology' preached towards women, the one beat over their heads so much? It's based on the Greek word "houpotasso", which means supposedly to "come up under" your husband. You basically lose all human validity, and have no reason to exist other than to breed and service your dh's needs.
Surprise!! it's not even in the Greek Septuagint!!! The word for women created is "Boithos" which in Greek translated is "suitable helper" Like Adam, another of his species-not slave like the word [i]helpmeet [i] which is always used. That word phrase was invented from a typo around 1715 and has been used to bash women ever since.
Know your Greek, even before you know your Hebrew-because the whole point of the Christian faith is Christ who fulfilled OT law. I am not Greek, and I do not play one on tv-but I am Orthodox and worship in a Greek parish. Gives me all sorts of inroads to the actual Septuagint. If you were going to commit to the Christian faith, wouldn't you want it to be the closest to what Christ actually taught and left the apostles to spread? Or would you want some watered down diluted version invented in the 18th century and beyond? ( I was in one of those for 30 years so I know from whence I came)

Calligrapher, get a life!

I covet my neighbor's tomatoes. Her husband tends to them. Does that mean I covet him?

Lisa, it's a chattel issue. The "anything that belongs to your neighbor" includes everything listed between his "house" and his "donkey" and all not included specifically therein but which he owns. Slaves were valuable property and so could leave no question as to the um....'availability' of female slaves.

At least that's what they taught us in law school!! We used the Bible in a statutory interpretation class!!! How great is that????!!! Hope everyone has a great week! g