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An Insightful Look at Age-Gap Relationships in Scripture

An Insightful Look at Age-Gap Relationships in Scripture

Last updated on: October 21, 2026 at 12:00 pm by Lee Ann B. Marino

An Insightful Look at Age-Gap Relationships in Scripture 2026-08-29T20:47:00-04:00 Lee Ann B. Marino

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If you’ve paid any attention to social media over the past 20 or so years, you’ll notice a trend. That trend is toward age-gap relationships. Once hidden away or considered improper, age-gap relationships show diversity of interest and attraction. This is especially true when a female is older than a male, or the age-gap features a queer couple (whether same-sex or non-binary). Science can’t quite identify what causes one person to be attracted to another. Within the expanse of human experience, there are people who find themselves interested in individuals who might be younger (of legal age, of course), older, around the same age, or something in the middle.

A veiled woman before a man

By Horace Vernet – artrenewal.org, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10301634

We treat age-gap relationships as if they are new. Would you be surprised to learn such relationships are also found in Scripture? In Season 2, Episode 19 of the Kingdom Now podcast titled The Original Cougars, I explored age-gap relationships from an angle we often don’t consider: that of levirate marriage.

Marriage in Bible times

Marriage in the Bible wasn’t just one way or followed one trend. There are actually nine different forms of marriage found throughout the Old and New Testaments. Just as customs in general changed in the nearly 4,000 years the Bible covers, so did marriage practices. In Scripture, the types of marriage we find include:

Monogamy (man + woman in an arranged marriage)
Polygamy (man + woman + woman + woman…)
Property Marriage (man + woman + woman’s slave)
Concubinage (man + one or more wives + concubines)
Premarital Sex (man + unbetrothed female virgin)
Levirate Marriage (man + brother’s or close relative’s widow)
Soldiers and Prisoners of War (male soldier + female prisoner of war)
Slave Marriage (male slave + female slave)
Harem Marriage (man of status + harem of concubines + wife from harem)

While some today might muse the idea of a “Biblical definition of marriage,” there isn’t one. Marriage wasn’t defined in the Bible because it was associated with culture. The readers knew what marriage entailed according to custom. This doesn’t mean marriage never changed, nor does it mean marriage always followed form as we associate it today.

Age and ancient marriage

For most of the ancient world, marriage between older men and younger women wasn’t uncommon. It was understood men needed time to establish careers and create financial stability to care for a wife properly. Marriages were arranged between families, sometimes years before they happened. Long engagements gave young brides time to prepare for the idea of becoming wife and mother. The age of the groom could be anywhere from a few years difference to a large difference, depending on the financial situation of both the bride and groom.

The reality of ancient marriage is that many people lived together under a variety of circumstances. Marriage was primarily for survival and procreation, not love or purpose. The ancients believed love would develop from the intimacy of marriage, but we know that wasn’t always the case. Plenty of couples stayed together because family pressures, fears of survival, and lineage relied on it.

What’s more, not everyone had the money to afford bridal prices or dowries. People lived together without benefit of marriage ceremonies. Concubines often lived in forced arrangements due to lack of money. Age wasn’t always a consideration, but one thing was: virginity. The bridal price for virgin girls was much higher than other women. Virgin women ensured offspring were their husband’s, and afforded inheritance rights to children. As a result, younger women were sought for marriage, regardless of the age of the man.

Levirate marriage

Life for divorced women was often hopeless; life for widowed women was frequently difficult. In a culture where marriage was a survival tool, not having a spouse opened the door for all sorts of problems. The main issue was one of inheritance. If a man died with no male heir, that would often impact his wife’s inheritance, as well.

All was not lost for older women, however. The practice of levirate marriage offered an out in an ancient world. Regarded as a strange custom in modern times, levirate marriage offered the idea of property redemption in a male-dominated world.

Understanding the practice

If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her. The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel.

However, if a man does not want to marry his brother’s wife, she shall go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to carry on his brother’s name in Israel. He will not fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to me.” Then the elders of his town shall summon him and talk to him. If he persists in saying, “I do not want to marry her,” his brother’s widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, take off one of his sandals, spit in his face and say, “This is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother’s family line.” That man’s line shall be known in Israel as The Family of the Unsandaled. (Deuteronomy 25:5-10, NIV)

When a man died with no male heir, his brother (or later, the closest male relative) was to marry his brother’s widow. The sole purpose of the marriage was to produce children for the deceased brother. This would create a family lineage, one that would enable property to remain within the family.

We can see from Biblical records that many disliked the practice (Genesis 38, Ruth 4:5-6). It could disrupt the inheritances of their own offspring. As a duty, it didn’t consider whether the parties involved desired to marry – it simply required it. Understandably so, the practice has died out today.

Examples of levirate marriage

Perhaps the most famous example of levirate marriage in Scripture is found in the book of Ruth (Ruth 1-4). Ruth, a young widow, faced the choice to return to her own Moabite heritage and an arranged marriage among her people, or continue on with her mother-in-law, Naomi, to something greater. Ruth chose the latter, finding favor in the fields of Boaz, a distant relative of her late husband.

This is not the only example of levirate marriage, however. Way back in Genesis 38, we see the example of Er and Tamar.

Er, Tamar, Onan, and Shelah

Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death.

Then Judah said to Onan, “Sleep with your brother’s wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother.” But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death also.

Judah then said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Live as a widow in your father’s household until my son Shelah grows up.” For he thought, “He may die too, just like his brothers.” So Tamar went to live in her father’s household. (Genesis 38:6-11, NIV)

Another example of levirate marriage is likely found in a New Testament story:

The woman with seven husbands

“Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. Finally, the woman died. Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?” (Matthew 22:24-28, NIV)

Age-gap relationships in levirate marriage

The two stories mentioned above pose the reality of age-gap relationships in a way we often don’t consider. By its very nature, age-gap was likely part of the levirate system. In Ruth’s story, Boaz was considerably older; old enough that there was another relative closer in age to Ruth as the initial candidate (Ruth 3:12-13). When levirate marriage moved beyond immediate relatives, it would only make sense age-gap situations might follow a more standard route for that day and age.

Still, the stories of Judah, Er, Tamar, Onan, and Shelah – and the woman with seven husbands – reveals a very different reality. Tamar was married to the oldest brother, and then the brother next in line. Then, once he died, the third brother – the one who was next in order – was so young, he wasn’t of marrying age yet! Tamar was so much older than him, Judah expected her to live as a widow until he was of marrying age (Genesis 38:11). This would mean in this particular situation, the age-gap relationship would favor an older woman with a younger man.

The same is true with the story of the woman with seven husbands. Even if her initial relationship favored age-gap with an older husband, by the time you start running through each brother, she would have been older than one of the relatives she married.

Why would this be relevant?

We don’t have a record of every levirate marriage in history. Some probably went horribly awry, as did those in Genesis 38. Some maintained the sense of duty and fidelity, as in Ruth. Maybe in some situations, the couple did develop a sense of love and purpose as they came together through loss. The purpose of levirate marriage was procreation, which would have been more feasible with an older woman and a younger man than an older man and an older woman. Science has shown women over 40 have an easier time with conception with a younger man (and the same is true of older men and younger women, although older men carry a higher risk of genetic issues). While it is a misnomer to suggest that the woman’s reproductive system is able to cure defects with a younger man, it is more likely she will conceive.

What this tells us about age-gap relationships and our faith

When I was growing up, age-gap relationships (specifically those where the woman was older than the man) were seen as improper. Even now, the labels assigned to women who frequently date (or as in my case, married) younger men are associated with predatory behavior. Obviously, we don’t live in an age where levirate marriage is necessary anymore. The practice died out among Jewish communities centuries ago, and among other Middle Eastern tribal groups in the 20th century. But that doesn’t mean it can’t teach us anything about relationships, even in an unconventional way.

Relationships don’t just look different; they are different

Relationships were never meant to look like cookie-cutter copies of each other. In ancient times, the things that defined “stability” for a couple might have varied. The interests of a king seeking royalty for his daughter was quite different from a poor farmer who wanted to see his daughter live into old age. Today we choose our relationships based on our own criteria. Whether we seek stability, love, romance, companionship, or something else, we can’t measure relationship success or failure by any sort of standard, abstract concept. Relationships are made up of people; people can be complicated; and so can our relationships.

There are many reasons why people are together

To go on the assumption that an age-gap relationship signifies desperation or some sort of social impropriety is false. If levirate marriage offered the possibility of age-gap relationships, that means acknowledging age-gap relationships with proper respect was part of ancient law and custom. People of old weren’t any less married because they had an age-gap relationship. The same is true today. In the end, it’s not our business why someone is with someone else, even if it seems unusual, uncustomary, or hard-to-understand. As Christians, it’s our job to recognize and respect marriage, no matter how it comes.

It doesn’t matter which party in a relationship is older

Apparently it doesn’t matter who is older in a relationship.

Final thoughts

What did this look at levirate marriage show you? For more information on this topic, be sure to check out the Kingdom Now podcast episode, The Original Cougars.

General Christian

History and Religion

age gap relationships

bible marriage

levirate marriage

marriage in the bible

About Lee Ann B. Marino

Dr. Lee Ann B. Marino, Ph.D., D.Min., D.D. (”The Spitfire”) is “everyone’s favorite theologian” leading Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z as apostle of SAFE Ministries. Her work encompasses study and instruction on leadership training and development, typology, Pneumatology, conceptual theology, Ephesians 4:11 ministry, and apostolic theology. She is author of over thirty-five books, host of the top twenty percentile podcast Kingdom Now, and serves as founder and overseer of Sanctuary International Fellowship Tabernacle - SIFT and Chancellor of Apostolic Covenant Theological Seminary. Dr. Marino has over twenty-five years of experience in ministry, leadership, counseling, mentoring, education, and business. You can read more about the author here.

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