In the Bible, family and marital disputes are almost identical to our own times. Even then, the patterns of marital behaviour in disputes were already very topical and well known. These patterns can be summarised according to the following types of behaviour of marriage partners:

 - 'shifting the blame onto the other spouse' ('it's not me, it's...')

- 'outbursts of jealousy' ('where were you?')

- 'children as a source of marital problems' ('never anything from him/her'')

- 'infertility of husband or wife' ('we're left on our own')

- 'macho man and good woman' ('wise woman and foolish husband').

We shall find all this, and more, in the marital stories of today. We have chosen several characteristic biblical stories of marital disputes which have left a deep mark on the biblical narrative and on history, that is, several biblical married couples together with a kind of 'motto' of the disputes that ran through their conflicts: Adam and Eve ('it wasn't me'); Sarah and Abraham ('we are left alone'); Isaac and Rebekah ('big children, big worries'); Rachel and Jacob ('I have had enough of everything'); Nabal and Abigail ('beauty and the fool').

Adam and Eve: 'It Wasn't Me, It Was Her/Him'

One of the most common causes of marital disputes is the mutual shifting of blame between spouses. It generally comes down to a common denominator of the pattern of responsibility: 'it wasn't me, it was her/him..'. In the biblical text, the first recorded marital quarrel is this one between Adam and Eve. Their brief marital idyll culminated in a very unusual mutual shifting of responsibility, and an even more unusual verdict handed down by the heavenly arbiter in that dispute.

At the centre of this dispute appears an important biblical motif, which in this case caused the marital quarrel. It is that perennial motif of desire or craving, at the centre of which there is always that which is 'a delight to the eyes' (Gen 3:6). In Gen 3 as in Gen 6, that which is 'a delight to the eyes' is desired, in order to be seized. As in all the narratives of craving, we find the verb לקח) laqah) (= to take, to seize), which very often occurs in the context of carnal, sexual desire or act. After the desire or craving that seethes in a person's mind, there follows action: the outstretched hand, the reaching out and the taking.

Indicative of this is the text of Gen 6:2, from the account of the so-called 'sons of God', whoever they may have been. The text shows and unites two inseparable components of craving. First, the act is preceded by: the desire of the eye, in colloquial terms as if they had 'cast a glance'. This is then followed by the act itself, the outstretched hand, and the taking of the object of desire — again, in ordinary terms, 'helping oneself'.

When the first married couple had to face the results and consequences of this act, contrary to God's command (Gen 2:16-17), disputes followed, along with a mutual shifting of blame between the first spouses and God the Creator.

The woman (Eve) excuses herself and shifts the blame onto the creature that 'was more subtle than any other wild creature': 'The serpent beguiled me, and I ate' (Gen 3:13). In this shifting of blame, after the manner of Pilate washing his 'innocent' hands, the husband (Adam) musters the courage to shift the blame onto the Creator himself, excusing his own (lack of) responsibility with the words: "The woman whom you gave to be with me – she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate" (Gen 3:12).

The result of this first marital dispute is described in the words of the heavenly arbiter: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed" (Gen 3:15). This story points to the lasting consequences and overall disharmony that took hold as a result of one marital quarrel, but also of a refusal to accept responsibility. The question arises, for another discussion altogether, whether that fateful 'tree of knowledge' should not have been fenced off with razor wire?

Sarah and Abraham: 'The Time for Laughter Has Passed'

Some idyllic marital stories begin with harmonious and relaxed relationships, which can easily become complicated by some incidental event or ill-considered decision. A rather cynical biblical writer says that there is a time for everything: "a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance" (Eccl 3:4). Abraham and Sarah perhaps did not dance so much, but they had their fair share of worries about offspring, given that Sarah was (a) barren and, moreover, (b) advanced in years (Gen 16:2). Yet heavenly intervention arrives, along with the promise that Sarah would conceive, which provokes her to a cynical, mocking laugh (Gen 18:12).

Following the account in Gen 16, Sarah, after all the frustrations of her barrenness, makes a decision, thereby also taking on responsibility. If we follow the biblical texts of their marital stories closely, Sarah was evidently the mater familias. By this decision she directs her husband, Abraham, to her maidservant Hagar: "Go in to my maid; it may be that I shall obtain children by her" (Gen 16:2). Without question, without any objection, remark or suggestion, Abraham obeys unreservedly (Gen 16:2c).

Already the very fact that Hagar had conceived (16:4b) became a cause of marital discord between Sarah and Abraham. Sarah turns on her husband with the words: "May the wrong done to me be on you!" (16:5) – but by what logic? The marital dispute heats up further when Sarah begins to invoke the name of God: "May the LORD judge between you and me!" (Gen 16:5c). In this situation, where Hagar looks on her with contempt, Sarah demands protection from her husband (cf. von Rad, 193). Abraham, seeing how far this family conflict had gone, distances himself from Hagar, with words addressed to his wife Sarah: "Your maid is in your power" (Gen 16:6), that is, do with her as you please. Although it should be noted that Abraham was by no means pleased that his wife drove out Hagar and their (?) son Ishmael (cf. Gen 21:11).

Isaac and Rebekah: 'Big Children, Big Worries'

One of the sources of marital and family tension is not infrequently children, following that folk saying: 'small children, small worries; big children, big worries'. In the challenges posed by 'big children', family stories in the Bible are evidently intriguing and instructive. They point to situations in which 'big children' are tolerated in all sorts of ways, and so become a source of many problems, not only for their parents but for the whole family. A great many biblical notables (Eli, Samuel, David) did not raise their sons wisely (cf. 1 Sam 3:13; 1 Kings 1:6). Some of them spoiled their sons so much that it later came back to haunt them, so that their sons even became a threat to national security. Of Adonijah, David's son, who determined to make himself king, the biblical text says this:

'Then Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, "I will be king!" And he prepared for himself chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him. His father had never at any time displeased him by asking, "Why have you done thus and so?" He was also a very handsome man, and he was born next after Absalom' (1 Kings 1:5-6)

As a result of such an upbringing, Adonijah then becomes the cause of a family dispute as well. And while his father lay on his deathbed (1 Kings 1:4-5), Adonijah narcissistically prepares himself to be the future king.

Children are not born in a vacuum; they come into the world innocent and pure, entering into the already-established context of their parents' and family's home. Even were both father and mother ideal parents, the family circle is wider than the parental home. An illustrative example is Isaac's marriage into the family of Rebekah and her brother Laban, which in fact proved to be a dysfunctional family. This would later be shown especially in the life of Rebekah's son Jacob, whom Laban, his mother's brother, would exploit and deceive without mercy.

In the example of the married couple Isaac and Rebekah, that maxim, 'big children, big worries', was fulfilled in every respect. Certain behaviours of their son Esau became a source of bitterness to both his mother and his father. If for a moment we set aside the aetiological-theological aspects of this biblical story and focus solely on the family atmosphere, marital and family tensions are evident. Already in the prenatal stage, amid the difficulties of the pregnancy, Rebekah senses future problems and cries out: "If it is thus, why do I live?" (Gen 25:22). Sensing even then that the relationship between her twin sons would be difficult, problematic and conflict-ridden, since the children "struggled together within her" (25:22) even then. So the relationship of these twin brothers would, in future, considerably affect relations within their parents' marriage as well.

The fact that the paths of their sons' lives, Jacob's and Esau's, took entirely different directions brought further tension into the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah. After a serious conflict between their sons, Esau resolved on blood vengeance against his brother Jacob (Gen 27:41). All this weighed upon the marital relationship of their parents. The vengeful Esau, further out of spite towards his parents, in his sense of having been cheated, married Hittite women: "When Esau was forty years old, he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite" (Gen 26:34). This, as the biblical text testifies, became a source of bitterness between Isaac and Rebekah (cf. Gen 26:35).

Rachel and Jacob: 'I Have Had Enough of Everything'

The narrative returns to Jacob, who grew up in the dysfunctional family of his father and mother (Isaac and Rebekah) and his mother's brother Laban.

The marital story of Rachel and Jacob is yet another of the classic stories from the book of Genesis, once again charged with the urgent need to secure an heir. Naturally, it had to be a son, since a daughter did not count as an heir. In this constellation, and in her frustration at being unable to conceive, Rachel reacts explosively towards her husband Jacob: "Give me children! Or I shall die! (אנכי מתה) "(Gen 30:1); in the most literal sense this could be translated as: 'Give me children! Otherwise I am dead.'

Jacob's reaction accords with the understanding, current at the time, that a woman's infertility was in fact a kind of divine retribution: 'Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said: Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?' (Gen 30:2). It is possible that Rachel had already, indirectly, been giving her husband Jacob hints and offering him her maidservant Bilhah as a concubine, which Jacob evidently did not immediately understand, so that Rachel had to spell it out further for him: "Here is my maid Bilhah: go in to her (אליה בא (that she may bear upon my knees, and even I may have children through her" (30:3).

This is, as with Sarah and Abraham, yet another of the most original and most primitive instances of surrogate motherhood. For Sarah, too, in directing her husband Abraham to 'go in' to her maidservant Hagar, concluded: 'perhaps I too shall (in this way) have children'. Almost identically, Rachel offers Jacob a similar solution in the form of surrogate motherhood, whereby Bilhah, her maidservant, would conceive by her husband Jacob, so that Bilhah, as Rachel puts it, would 'bear upon my knees' (30:3b).

Nabal and Abigail: 'Beauty and the Fool'

The marital story of Nabal and Abigail, and their marital discord, differs from all the previous marital narratives. The marital stories we have considered and analysed so far have chiefly focused on the mutual shifting of blame between spouses (Adam and Eve), the problem of marital infertility (Sarah and Abraham; Rachel and Jacob), or the problems caused by children in family life (Isaac and Rebekah).

With Nabal and Abigail, we are faced with a new challenge. This is a married couple for whom we could perhaps easily find counterparts in our own time. Here we have an extremely well-off but arrogant husband (Nabal) and a wise wife (Abigail). In our world, we would probably place Nabal among the macho men and tycoons, while Abigail would be found among attractive and wise women. Abigail is the wife of a wealthy Carmelite, Nabal. In the names of these spouses there is an unavoidable play on words; etymologically and onomastically, the name Nabal (= fool), while Abigail (= my father's joy).

As in many other situations, names are of course descriptive, though they sometimes fail to match the real situation. Indeed, in this case it is not entirely likely that parents would have given their child the name Nabal ('Fool' or 'Simpleton'), which would fit the name Nabal. Yet, at the same time, Nabal's wife, on meeting David, has not the slightest doubt about her husband's name and his nature:

"Let not my lord regard this ill-natured fellow, Nabal; for as his name is, so is he: Nabal is his name, and folly is with him" (1 Sam 25:25).

In his folly, Nabal is an arrogant and violent man. The arrogance of his character is inextricably linked to his wealth. In this narrative, David and his company, hungry, pass through the wilderness, and having heard of Nabal and his abundance, ask only for some morsel for the starving column ('Give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David', 1 Sam 25:8). Nabal resolutely refuses to give any help at all. David and part of his group (1 Sam 25:13) prepare to confront Nabal. The tense situation is saved by Nabal's wife Abigail who, without her husband's knowledge, prepares food for David and his group (1 Sam 25:18).

It is evident that the marital relations in the marriage of Nabal and Abigail were not loving, harmonious or romantic. Moreover, because of this unhappy marriage, it seems that in all these episodes which brought David and his company into the midst of this less-than-happy marriage, hints of a romantic connection between David and Abigail can be discerned (cf. 1 Sam 25:23-31). The story reaches its conclusion when the arrogant Nabal, after a bout of drinking, suffers a heart attack and dies. He had drunk himself so senseless - 'Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk' (1 Sam 25:36) - that it fell to Abigail, his wife, to explain to him the next morning everything that had happened during the night. For David, at that very feast, had already been preparing to take Nabal's life and destroy all his property; to which Abigail had answered him:

"As the LORD the God of Israel lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, if you had not hastened and come to meet me, truly by morning there had not been left to Nabal so much as one male!" (1 Sam 25:34).

When Nabal sobered up in the morning and heard from his wife the whole story of what had happened during the night, his heart failed him: "his heart died within him, and he became as a stone" (25:37). Nabal, after this heart attack, lived on a little while longer, 'and he died' (1 Sam 25:38). Immediately after his death, David sent for Abigail to become his wife (1 Sam 25:39). It seems that the romance between David and Abigail had already begun during the lifetime of her husband Nabal, who, for his part, had systematically undermined his own marriage and married life with his arrogant, macho manner.

Adapted for the website by: Luka Medić