Who did Cain Marry?

Introduction

The question ‘Whom did Cain marry?’ is a hoary old chestnut. When we look at Genesis 4-5 for an answer to this question, we are immediately struck by the fact that people read into these chapters a lot of assumptions. For example, some read the mention of Cain’s wife as ‘evidence’ that Adam and Eve were not the first humans and that their family was only one of many and it was one of the other families from which Cain secured his wife. It is further assumed that it was these other human beings of which Cain was afraid. These two reading assumptions are made by theistic evolutionists and it is these we shall examine.

What does the story say?

The first text to consider is Gen 5:3,

And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth (Gen 5:3 KJV)

This text tells us two things: First, there is no mention of Cain and Abel and Seth is ostensibly presented as Adam’s ‘first’ son. Clearly, the genealogy is not about presenting first sons but significant sons. The significance consists in the son being an ‘appointed’ seed (Gen 4:25). Second, Adam had Seth when he was 130 but the command given to him on Day Six was to be fruitful and multiply (straightaway). Clearly, many children can be born and then they themselves have children (and so on) in 130 years.

We do not know how old Adam was when Cain and Abel were born. We do not know the extent of their extended family. We can however calculate a range of sizes based on a number of hypothetical birth rates.

The second text to consider is Gen 4:16-17,

¹⁶ And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. ¹⁷ And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch. (Gen 4:16-17 KJV)

This text does not tell us when Cain married or how big his family was when he had Enoch. He might have been married before he was expelled and already have a big extended family (or not). We can however say that within the terms of the story of Genesis, he married within the extended family of Adam and Eve. This follows from the data we have in the text which is that Adam and Eve were given a command 130 years before the birth of Seth to be fruitful and multiply; other children (i.e. Cain and Abel) are noted as their children before the birth of Seth; and Adam did beget sons and daughters (Gen 5:4).

The third text to consider is Gen 3:20,

And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. (Gen 3:20 KJV)

It is often assumed that this naming is prospective, i.e. Eve is so-named because she would be the mother of all living. But, this is not how the narrator is telling the story. The narrator has already mentioned a man’s mother and father (Gen 2:24) from his own point in time, and this naming of Eve could equally be the narrator’s comment that Eve was so-named when she already was (Hebrew Perfect tense) a mother and a mother, moreover, of ‘all living’. The concept of ‘Eve’ in Gen 3:20 precludes there being more than one extended human family and the language of ‘all’ implies an extended family and a naming of her by Adam sometime well into the 130 years.

There is a further point. The concept of a ‘wife’ is used first in relation to Adam and second in relation to Cain. This use is by the narrator and not by Adam or Cain. Adam uses the expression ‘woman’ without a possessive pronominal suffix ‘my wife’ and instead says, “This is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2:23 KJV). It is the narrator who makes the deduction ‘Therefore…his wife’ (Gen 2:24). Likewise, the narrator uses the expression ‘his wife’ for Cain and thereby implies that she was “bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh”. This tells the reader that Cain’s wife is of the extended family of Adam and Eve.

The fourth text to consider is Gen 4:14,

Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the ground (adamah); and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the land (’erets); and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me. (Gen 4:14 KJV)

It is said that this implies that there are other humans, not of Adam and Eve, of whom Cain is afraid. It is not difficult to calculate a maximum and a minimum size for the extent of the population that has descended from Adam and Eve. We just have to set a frequency of births, infant mortality and age for Cain and Abel. For Cain to be afraid of his fellow-humans in the land requires the extended family of Adam and Eve to be spread abroad and to be interested in justice for one of their own family.

Conclusion

The story of Adam and Eve, and then Cain and Abel, is a family story. As such it falls under the radar of anthropology. When Christians try and use biblical data to inform the science of anthropology by offering a biblical ‘proof’ in Cain’s wife that there were other humans besides those descended from Adam and Eve they make a mistake with the interpretation of the Bible because the terms of its story is precisely the opposite: these characters are of the same extended family.

Rather, the definition of a ‘human’ in biblical terms is in terms of an ‘image and likeness of God’, a definition which is not used in anthropology. The emergence, migration and dominance of those descended from Adam and Eve in Mesopotamia is not discriminated in anthropology which instead works with concepts such as ‘anatomically modern human’ and ‘behaviourally modern human’ (Wikipedia) when tracking the Neolithic stage of evolution. The starting point for harmonizing the Bible and Science is not the misuse of the detail about Cain’s wife but the proper discrimination of God’s creation of his image and likeness and then the angelic supervision of the emergence, migration and dominance of that image and likeness.