Exodus 20:17 Is Not Sexist

To some readers, one of the Ten Commandments--more specifically, the commandment against coveting (Exodus 20:17)--seems to suggest that marriage is a sexist relationship, with husbands owning their wives in the same way that they own animals or houses.  This is because the verse condemns coveting a neighbor's wife or anything else that belongs to a neighbor.  Some forms of complementarianism embrace this misinterpretation of the passage, for not all complementarians are are delusional as others!  There are two facts which undermine this claim entirely.  First, nothing in the text actually excludes or denies the idea that husbands also belong to their wives.  Second, if the moral component of the command applies to both genders, then it follows by necessity that husbands belong to their wives in the same way that wives belong to their husbands.

As a brief examination of the text and concepts shows, the morality of the command certainly is not binding on just one gender, as the command prohibits coveting anything that belongs to one's neighbor.  Men and women have neighbors.  Women can have both male and female neighbors, and they are prohibited from coveting married men to the same extent that men are prohibited from coveting married women, since it is coveting itself that is wrong, not just coveting on the part of a male.  Nothing about the command against coveting is gender-specific.  Thus, it follows that women should not covet another woman's husband, just as men should not covet another man's wife.

If the command does not apply to one gender only--and a basic exercise of reason proves that it must apply to both--then Exodus 20:17 cannot teach that wives are unilaterally owned by their husbands, since everything it states extends in both directions.  Thus, the verse cannot be sexist.  Recognizing this is a simple matter of consistency.  From Genesis onward, men and women are identified in Scripture as beings of equal significance who share the same task of presiding over other aspects of creation.  Marriage changes nothing about this.

In another passage of the Bible, Paul states with explicit clarity that husbands and wives share a mutual "ownership" of each other's bodies (1 Corinthians 7:3-5), which amounts to an outright denial of the notion that only husbands "own" only wives.  If a husband's body belongs to both him and his wife and vice versa, there can be no such thing as wives being belongings of men alongside inanimate objects and mere animals.  Mutual belonging means not only that all members of a marital relationship are metaphysical equals, but that they are capable of achieving a far deeper level of connectedness and intimacy than would otherwise be possible.

No part of the Bible teaches that wives are the "property" of their husbands in a one-sided sense.  Mosaic Law and the writings of Paul make it clear that husbands and wives are not to treat each other as if one unilaterally owns the other, for they are partners of equal value.  Both partners in a marriage do belong to each other--but this belonging is founded on mutuality, commitment, and love.  It is not a degrading, unilateral ownership.