PICTURE: Patrick Roherty (iStockphoto.com) "You can't cleave until you leave. One relationship has to be put down so the next can be picked up. No matter how robust the husband is, he is not meant to carry his bride and his parents across the threshold."

25th August, 2004

LLOYD HARKNESS

Genesis 2:24: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."

This edition of The Word, while not ignoring women, is directed at men, as they are the ones given the above instruction.

What are we men being told to do when God says we are to 'cleave'? We tend to use the word cleave nowadays mostly in the sense of separating or slicing in two. When this verse is read at a wedding, we probably interpret it to mean we are to stick with or cling to our wife. That is a good starting point.

But perhaps we should back things up and look at the whole verse.

You can't cleave until you leave. One relationship has to be put down so the next can be picked up. No matter how robust the husband is, he is not meant to carry his bride and his parents across the threshold. (The idea does have potential for a comedy skit though.)

Parents are not to exert undue influence or interfere with their children's marriage. Advice might be sought, and closeness maintained, in the son-parent relationship, but the son must be independent. The health of the husband-wife relationship is to take priority over all other relationships. In this sense the son has left his parents emotionally as well as physically.

Now we come to the cleaving: being loyal to your wife; being devoted to your wife; being affectionate to your wife; being close to your wife. In fact, this idea of closeness really has to do with being in-sync with each other.

I wrote the first draft for this piece in pen. In the act of writing my hand and the pen became one in expressing my ponderings. Clearly, with my hand and the pen, there are two unique identities, in mutual interdependence, working at the task of writing. This is a key value that needs to be brought into marriage.

A man is to leave and cleave to fulfil his part of God's equation for marriage.

God says the leaving and cleaving is so husband and wife can become "one flesh". Being "one flesh" is not another goal to be strived for by task-oriented men; a romantic ideal, which seems to remain just beyond reach.

Becoming "one" has more to do with yesterday and today, than tomorrow. In respect to yesterday; along with all the encouragement the Bible gives us on love (1 Corinthians 13), we're told not to let the sun go down on our anger (Ephesians 4:26). The question then is: how much distance will I allow to develop between my wife and I over a disagreement or point of tension? Did yesterday finish with a cleave (embrace) or a cleave (division).

We live in the now. How healthy is our marriage today? Is our attitude, in the decisions we make today, expressive of cleaving?

When today is in order, tomorrow will take care of itself. Isn't this the more general philosophy Jesus encourages us to live by anyhow (Matthew 6:34)?

So men, let's cleave to our wife today.