Early Exogamy Example

Matthew Huish
March 1, 2011

Have you ever heard of Ibzan? Do you know why he is significant? No, neither had I. But I recently discovered who he was, and I was quite amazed at his recorded achievements.

To let you in on the secret, you have to open your Bible and turn to the book of Judges. Judges 12:8-10 to be precise. It's so short, I might as well include it here:

Ibzan of Bethlehem led Israel. He had thirty sons and thirty daughters. He gave his daughters away in marriage to those outside his clan, and for his sons he brought in thirty young women as wives from outside his clan. Ibzan led Israel seven years. Then Ibzan died and was buried in Bethlehem.

Actually we know next to nothing about this judge called Ibzan, nothing except that he had a lot of children (I can't imagine him having only wife, can you?) and that they all married outside the clan. Is this an early Biblical example of cross-cultural exchange marriage blessing? Did a young Sun Myung Moon read this short passage of the Bible -- so short you might miss it if you read it too quickly -- and think to himself, "Hang on, this fellow's onto something here…"

During my A level English literature classes, I remember studying a play by Brian Friel called Translations. Towards the end of the play there is a rather reflective commentary referencing the Greek words endogamy, to marry within the group, and exogamy, to marry outside the group. (They have the same root as the words monogamy and polygamy.) As a young man preparing to marry outside my race/culture/nationality, I felt that this one word summed up quite nicely the Unificationist approach to marriage. We are exogamic. I wonder what the original Korean words are for "cross-cultural exchange marriage blessing"? What do you think about the word "exogamy"? Perhaps at the next marriage blessing ceremony you can tell your friends with pride, "They all look so wonderfully exogamic!"

Or perhaps not…