A minute examination of the story of Jacob and Rachel thus reveals world-wide differences between the ancient Hebrew and the modern Christian conceptions of love, corresponding, we have no reason to doubt, to differences in actual feeling.  And as we proceed, these differences become more and more striking: 

“And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her.  And Laban gathered together all the men of the place, and made a feast.  And it came to pass in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter, and brought her to him; and he went in unto her....  And it came to pass, in the morning that, behold, it was Leah:  and he said to Laban, What is this thou has done unto me?  Did not I serve with thee for Rachel?  Wherefore then hast thou beguiled me?  And Laban said, It is not so done in our place, to give the younger before the first-born.  Fulfil the week of this one, and we will give thee the other also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.  And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week; and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife.”

Surely it would be difficult to condense into so few lines more facts and conditions abhorrent to the Christian conception of the sanctity of love than is done in this passage.  Can anyone deny that in a modern Christian country Laban’s breach of contract with Jacob, his fraudulent substitution of the wrong daughter, and Jacob’s meek acceptance of two wives in eight days would not only arouse a storm of moral indignation, but would land both these men in a police court and in jail?  I say this not in a flippant spirit, but merely to bring out as vividly as possible the difference between the ancient Hebrew and modern Christian ideals of love.  Furthermore, what an utter ignorance or disregard of the rights of personal preference, sympathy, and all the higher ingredients of love, is revealed in Laban’s remark that it was not customary to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older had been disposed of!  And how utterly opposed to the modern conception of love is the sequel of the story, in which we are told that “because” Leah was hated by her husband “therefore” she was made fruitful, and she bore him four sons, while the beloved Rachel remained barren!  Was personal preference thus not only to be repressed by marrying off girls according to their age, but even punished?  No doubt it was, according to the Hebrew notion; in their patriarchal mode of life the father was the absolute tyrant in the household, who reserved the right to select spouses for both his sons and daughters, and felt aggrieved if his plans were interfered with.  The object of marriage was not to make a happy, sympathetic couple, but to raise sons; wherefore the hated Leah naturally exclaims, after she has borne Reuben, her first son, “Now my husband will love me.”  That is not the kind of love we look for in our marriages.  We expect a man to love his wife for her own sake.