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.
Seems exoteric enough – i.e. neither Gematria-like ‘Genesis B:X’ nor ‘leave’ and ‘cleave’ as baking processes or ingredients a la ‘leaven’. Yet interpreting such is full of deputies. [Maybe ‘semantics’ is more apt than ‘deputies’ but, hey, points for originality.] Here are my deputies bona fides:
‘Man’ is individual and male. ‘Father’ and ‘Mother’ are likewise standard English appellation. ‘Cleave’ begins to get iffy. Cleave could be synonymous with cling. Clinging suggests the wife might be superior and the husband dependent. Cleave might be better thought as ‘cohere’. Cohere lacks the rank, – however minor such rank may be – attendant with ‘cling’. Cleave also has meanings antipodean of togetherness. For example, split, divide, sunder are, likewise, synonyms of cleave. [Now I am not getting into why it is, a singular word has meanings which are essentially polar opposites. Just consider the fact as evidence of mankind’s fickleness.] ‘Wife’ and ‘one flesh’ I will take as something like synonymous. Wife is not wives, thus polygamy is irrelevant. ‘One flesh’ seems – from the standpoint of mankind – a figurative, representative, or metaphoric togetherness. To cut to the quick:
In this matter – my deputy informs me – ‘wife’ is not the commonly thought ‘wife’, i.e, female married human, even though I’ll easily admit such as the standard interpretation of ‘wife’. Instead, wife is any entity – thing or process – which preoccupies a “man’s” abilities and concerns. As husband, this man performs various functions, roles, labor etc. So the crux of the matter is the ‘wife’ as we generally accept wife, is, in fact, not a “man’s” wife; The adjudicated female as ‘wife’ is, in reality, more closely linked with paramour or concubine than ‘wife’. [I don’t mean anything disparaging towards women. The issue is neither interpersonal nor gendered. The issue is on a scale of the societal and linguistics.]
In modern Capitalist countries the manifest if not Divinely intended ‘wife’ is the ‘socio-economic’. A socio-economic duty which demands a “man’s” abilities and concerns. This socio-economic plays the role of ‘wife’ just as the married female human of antiquity used to play the role of ‘wife’. Works, caretaking, resolvings, etc. previously provided the female ‘wife’ of antiquity are currently provided the socio-economic of contemporaneity. The ‘man’ of contemporaneity addresses socio-economic concerns as quotidianly as the ‘man’ of antiquity addressed wifely concerns. Thus, ‘socio-economic’ and ‘wife’ are interchangeable.
Consequently, my deputy informs me, wouldn’t these socio-economic concerns fillip ‘cleaving to’ ? Thus, these socio-economic concerns are, potentially and contemporaneously, the wife of ‘cleave unto his wife’. Necessarily, the commonly thought wife, the adjudicated ‘wife’, would be more aptly ‘paramour’ or ‘concubine’. If so, haven’t modern capitalist societies adulterated antiquities and possibly Divinity’s – ‘man/wife’ relationship? Am I and my deputy to believe the contemporaneous nominal of ‘man and wife’ – no matter its professed modus operandi – is, undeniably, in keeping with the antediluvian ‘man and wife’?
Well, maybe this post will have value as food for thought.
Have a good weekend.
Mind Askew 