Virginal Blood of the Marriage Covenant

Abstract

Schroeder argues certain evangelical authors took out of context a single nine-verse biblical passage, Deuteronomy 22:13–21 about a bride’s family preserving their daughter’s nuptial bedsheets or garments, imported the concept of “covenant” into that passage, and misrepresented biblical and Jewish wedding customs to create a theology of blood-covenant marriage that requires a virgin’s sacrificial blood. These evangelicals claim the holy covenant of marriage is ratified by the virgin’s shedding of hymeneal blood, spilled on her husband’s genitals, during intercourse on her wedding night, and they compare this to the blood of circumcision, animal offerings, and Christ’s crucifixion. Schroeder argues this modern teaching is a concept found nowhere in Scripture. Its timing corresponded to the rise, beginning in the 1990s, of evangelical purity culture, an ideology and set of practices emphasizing abstinence and sexual purity, especially for female teenagers. The interpretation has created anxiety and distress for twentieth- and twenty-first century Christian women and girls, even causing psychological harm, particularly in those who have had sexual experiences prior to marriage.