Bereishis on marriage

When Adam finds his mate in Chava, he exclaims, "zos hapa'am, etzem meatazamya ubasar mibesari, lazos yikare isha ki meish lukacha zos." He stresses that the woman is bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh and so should be called isha [woman] because she is taken from ish [man] (2: 23). This is followed by a narrator's comment that clearly does not apply to our first couple who were not born from other parents, "al ken ya'azov ish es aviv ve'es imo vedavak beishto vehayu lebasar echad. [Therefore, a man will leave his father and his mother and will cleave onto his wife, and they will be one flesh.] This verse is the source for forbidden marital relationships for b'nei Noah as recorded in Sanhedrin. So we go from the realization of the first couple to the prohibition of incest. It occurred to me that there is a logic to the juxtapositon. If Adam's stress is that he knows this is the right wife for him because he and she stem from the same stock, one may think that it follows that those of the same family should be ideally suited as husband and wife. Therefore, the Torah follows with a warning that a man should leave his family home when becoming a husband to cleave to a wife not of his immediate family. That is my observation on that verse in context.

On its own, though, the injunction, al ken ya'azov ish es aviv ve'es imo vedavak beishto vehayu lebasar echad can be read as marriage advice. After one marries, he must stick with his wife above all others. That would mean that he does not force her into the mold of his own mother, nor should he attempt to copy the pattern set by his father. He has to leave them behind and form his own household, a new creation made by his wife and himself. I would also think that the verse would make it clear how to prioritize conflicts that may arise between in-laws. I intend to do a post on in-laws shortly.