When Two Become One Flesh

AI schlock says:

Biblical Meaning

In a biblical context, "two become one" refers to the union of a husband and wife as described in Genesis 2:24 and reiterated by Jesus in Mark 10:8 and Matthew 19:5.

This phrase signifies that a man and woman leave their parents, unite in marriage, and become one flesh, forming a permanent, exclusive, and inseparable bond.

The concept encompasses emotional, spiritual, and physical unity, including sexual intimacy, and reflects God’s original design for marriage as a lifelong partnership.

Children born from this union are considered a literal manifestation of this "one flesh" connection.

As a biblical principle: A spiritual and physical union in marriage, emphasizing lifelong commitment, exclusivity, and the creation of a new, shared life.

In the New International Version (NIV), Matthew 19:5 reads: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh”. 

I've also looked up the other biblical passages cited above and AI drones on and on and on about how this is a METAPHOR for spiritual and emotional bonding and the importance of commitment blah blah blah blah blah.

I find that highly unlikely.

Our oldest art works are almost universally drawings of actual animals these people saw. 

There are articles that say American Abstract Expressionism was promoted by the CIA as part of the Cold War. It's not clear to me how much they merely promoted it and how much they helped invent this nonsense that most people look at and go "I don't get it."

One artist whose signature style included huge women with tiny heads likely had that mental image from giving his mother backrubs as a small child.

One mom criticized her child's art for drawing two black holes in place of a nose on adult faces and eventually realized that is exactly what her young child actually saw while looking up at adult faces around them.

Most art depicts reality and a lot of seeming quirks can ultimately be traced back to understanding the literal perspective of the artist and how they experienced or saw something in life.

The Latin word from which we get the word real just meant thing. It acquired additional metaphorical nuance over hundreds of years of usage.

More AI schlock that appears to be accurate from my long study of both history and language:

The word "real" originates from Latin res meaning "thing" or "matter," passing through Medieval Latin realis and Old French reel before entering Middle English.

Historical Origins

The term "real" first appeared in English in the early 14th century, meaning "actually existing" or "having physical existence" (not imaginary) and later extended to "relating to things," especially property.

It derives from Old French reel, which itself comes from Late Latin realis, meaning "actual" or "pertaining to a thing".

The Latin root res signifies "thing, matter, property, or affair," and is connected to the Proto-Indo-European root Hreh-i- or reh₁ís, meaning "wealth" or "goods".

Semantic Development

14th–15th centuries: "Real" was used in law to refer to immovable property, distinguishing it from personal property.

1550s: The meaning "genuine" emerged.

19th century: The sense of "unaffected" or "no-nonsense" appeared, and phrases like "real thing" and "the real" (that which actually exists) became common.

20th century: Modern usages include "real time" in computing and "get real" as slang.

Linguistic Connections

Latin: res → "thing, matter"

Medieval Latin: realis → "pertaining to a thing"

Old French: reel → "real, actual"

Middle English: real → "actually existing, relating to things".

The word is also related to Sanskrit rayim or rayah and Avestan raii-i-, both meaning "property" or "wealth," reflecting its Indo-European roots.

Summary

In essence, "real" has consistently conveyed the idea of actual existence or tangible reality, evolving from legal and property contexts to broader philosophical, everyday, and idiomatic uses. Its journey from Latin through French into English illustrates the interplay of law, property, and general meaning in shaping modern vocabulary.

That is the typical path by which we get words for non-physical concepts as they emerge.

Primitive people almost certainly first observed firsthand that once you two fools have a child together, you two are as a practical matter "practically inseparable."

The child is like each of you to some degree. Things about the child that are like the other parent may not make sense to the parent that doesn't do that weird thing. It takes both of you to understand this weird little creature that has some some traits like each of you.

It takes two parents to provide adequately for a child. Dad goes hunting or whatever to put food on the table. Mom goes berry picking or whatever with the child strapped to her to also put food on the table without leaving the child unattended or otherwise endangering it.

Most modern American school systems still have a school year schedule designed to accommodate the reality that not that many generations ago, ALL people over the age of four were needed to do essential work of planting (Spring Break) and harvesting (Summer Break) so the entire community could eat.

Historically, most labor of most people went into literally putting food on the table hunted, gathered or grown and otherwise processed primarily by mom and dad with the help of any children age four or older who could in any way help with those tasks.

School, sewing clothes and all other work not directly involved in literally putting food on the table happened evenings, weekends and during the winter when acquiring adequate food and feeding ourselves to have the strength to work at that wasn't taking every minute.

In a more primitive world, when two people "become one flesh" by bumping uglies, joining their genes and birthing a baby nine months later, they are thereafter metaphorically "joined at the hip" because just keeping body and soul together for themselves and that child takes most of their time and more or less forces them to spend every minute together that dad is not hunting or plowing.

All this not physical meaning almost certainly followed the observation that "Once you two have a baby together, you are effectively joined for life."

People who often had children starting in their teens, had about one baby a year after that because they lacked birth control and frequently died before the youngest child was grown, in most cases their fate was sealed the very first time they conceived a child together.

That is most likely the origin story for the concept of marriage and the near universal cultural value placed on monogamy.

Men sleeping around and having a different wife in three different cities etc etc. is largely a modern first world problem.

In a subsistence culture where everyone is struggling to just get enough to eat, most women are not going to be hot to have an affair with a married man struggling to feed the wife and kids he already has knowing that's likely to condemn her to a terrible life.

The word bastard is an insult because historically bastardy -- being born out of wedlock to a single mom -- was a very hard life and produced not nice people with poor prospects in most cases.

Historically, we had sayings from hundreds of years ago like "No one gets raped in the city." or "No one gets raped in a top bunk." to capture practical details like buildings were small, streets were narrow, walls were thin and if you screamed someone was in ear shot or some circumstances are otherwise impractical for forcing yourself on someone genuinely physically resisting.

Those sayings likely originated with someone getting caught in an illicit affair and crying rape and people going "That's a NO from me. I'm not buying it."

Illicit affairs have long existed. For upper classes obligated to provide an heir to inherit their job of running the barony or country, they were openly tolerated because those children were likely to be fed and were potentially useful to a king with a barren wife.

But it tended to be strongly frowned upon for most people who could barely feed themselves and the legal children they had within their legal marriage. Because it was almost always a terrible fate for both the woman in question and any resulting children.

And that's not a loving thing to do to them and it harms the larger community who has to deal with these poor people unlikely to ever be anything but horribly poor because they are defacto cut off from most paths of remedy.