The profound and complicated marriage symbolism pervading the medieval West has its roots in the Bible, and particularly in a set of images in the New Testament. In Ephesians 5 the writer says that ‘the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church’ (Eph 5:23). Moreover, the gospels and Revelation metaphorically describe Christ as a bridegroom in his return at the end of times (see e.g. Matt 22:2–14; Luke 12:36–38; Rev 19:7–9). This article seeks to disentangle these two rather distinct images of (1) patriarchal marriage mapped onto the organizational structure of early Christ-believing communities and (2) bridegroom at the wedding feast mapped onto the second coming of Christ. These two images mix and merge in some of the New Testament texts, while other texts treat them separately. I will present the most relevant passages in the New Testament where these images occur in order to create a clearer picture of how this imagery is used and for what purpose. I am particularly interested in the interchange between metaphor and the social reality of this marriage discourse.

I use intersectionality as a theoretical framework to structure and make sense of the marriage metaphors in the New Testament.