“Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
In the same way that marriage is made up of 3 persons – the husband, the wife, & the Lord Jesus – marriage is also made up of three actions – leaving, joining, & becoming.
Monogamy & fidelity were intended with the words, “leave” and “be joined.” Leaving is key here because marriage involves vows in which one’s commitment to their parents is now directed toward their spouse. And since there now exists “one flesh,” a man is to love his wife as he would his own body as admonished by the apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:28.
John Stott wrote, “If headship means ‘power’ in any sense, then it is power to care, not to crush; power to serve, not to dominate; power to facilitate self-fulfillment, not to frustrate or destroy it. And the standard of the husband’s love is to be the cross of Christ, on which he surrendered himself even to death in his selfless love for his bride.”