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Quincy Standage

Dr. Schur

ENGL 345

9 March 2020

The Unwanted Bride: The Ethical Dilemmas of Leah in Genesis

Born to Laban and Adinah, sisters Leah and Rachel are essential to the continuation of

ideals of reproduction, fertility, and gender issues within Genesis. The story of their marriage to

Jacob places an importance on his ability to bear sons continuing the lineage of patriarchs in the

Bible including Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Their introduction into Genesis comes in chapter

twenty-nine with the story of their birth and the immediate separation of their worth based on

beauty standards. The arrival of Jacob in the lives of both Leah and Rachel further pushes the

agenda of defining the worth of both women. The Bible clearly asserts favor over Rachel

because of her comely features and Jacob’s professed burning love for her. As the eldest

daughter, Leah seeks the affection of Jacob but is eventually involved in a plot to, unknowing to

Jacob, marry him. Laban’s grand scheme demonstrates a struggle of ethical dilemmas, resulting

in Jacob’s servitude to Laban for fourteen years. Using the ideas of divine command theory and

virtue ethics, I will examine Leah’s ethical choices. The entanglement of love, marriage,

resentment, and gendered beauty standards effect Leah’s ethical decisions, through the pursuit of

Jacob’s love and adoration.

Leah’s story within Genesis can be understood and explained through two major ethical

theories, divine command theory and virtue ethics. The definition of divine command theory is

“morally right acts are those that God commands or requires” (Lecture). This implies that God is

in control of human destiny and deems actions righteous or immoral based on God’s
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preconceived notions of ethics. Divine command theory is open to critique through the

Euthyphro dilemma which poses the question “Is the ethical loved by the gods because it is

ethical or because it is loved by the gods?” (Lecture). This dilemma can be seen throughout

Genesis in God’s choices to bless certain individuals over others and by explicit statements such

as “and God saw that it was good” (Genesis). This theory also suggests that God enforces and

guides the moral laws and actions of humans.

Virtue ethics is an antithesis to divine command theory in that it implies that to achieve

virtue one must display moral excellence, which may be imposed outside of God’s divine

commands. This outward moral excellence can be achieved through looking at moral exemplars

as models, specific social roles, or cultivating habits that lead to virtuous action. An example of a

moral exemplar in Genesis is the story of Noah, who is described by first mention in Genesis as

righteous and said to have walked with God. This describes virtue ethics because his actions of

doing the right thing at the right time led him to be a moral exemplar propped up by Genesis. It

is important to note that virtue ethics happens outside of God’s commands versus the divine

command theory in which God’s actions directly command a specific action as virtuous. Leah’s

ethical decisions in Genesis mostly employ virtue ethics and is not primarily guided by divine

command theory.

The buildup to Leah’s ethical choices begins with her demotion as the unsightly sister to

Rachel. Genesis describes that “Leah’s eyes were tender, but Rachel was comely in features and

comely to look at, and Jacob loved Rachel” (Genesis 153-154). This phrase defined the

beginning of Leah’s subordinance to Rachel because of her looks. When Jacob fell in love with

Rachel’s hospitality and beauty, Laban seized the opportunity to trick Jacob into herding his

cattle for Rachel’s hand in marriage. This led Jacob to be in service to Laban for seven years,
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with a promise of marriage to Rachel at the end of his service. The trick involving Leah and

Laban came at the end of Jacob’s seven years of service when he offered a veiled “Rachel” for

marriage. After the ceremony, as Jacob goes to consummate the marriage, he lifts the veil and

finds his new wife to be Leah. Laban’s trickery led Jacob to go back to work as a herdsman for

seven more years to marry Rachel. After completing his work for Laban and marrying both

daughters, chaos surrounding fertility, retribution, comparison, and God’s will ensued.

The first ethical dilemma for Leah in Genesis is her trickery in marriage and the

subsequent consummation of it with Jacob. The ethical dilemma plaguing Leah includes her

decision to go through with the deceit her father planned and pursued. Leah’s role came when

she goes along with the plan to marry Jacob without his informed consent, in an attempt to

eventually win over his love and adoration by bearing children in wedlock. In Genesis, the deceit

of Jacob is recounted “And Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed in his eyes but

a few days in his love for her. And Jacob said to Laban, ‘Give me my wife, for my time is done,

and let me come to bed with her.’ […] And when evening came, he took Leah his daughter and

brought her to Jacob and he came to bed with her. […] And when morning came, look, she was

Leah” (Genesis 154). Key terms in this passage proving the deceit of Jacob includes Jacob’s

specific labor for the marriage of Rachel, Laban’s delivery of a veiled Leah to Jacob, and Leah’s

relative inaction to stop the wedding or consummating the marriage. This action is justified by

Laban as necessary because it is against customs to marry the youngest daughter before the

eldest. This justification for deceit demonstrates a gendered understanding of the succession of

the marriage of daughters within the Bible, further aiding Leah’s pursuit to be desirable in the

eyes of Jacob.
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Leah’s desire to be loved by Jacob and to bear children aided in her decision to deceive

Jacob into thinking she is Rachel during the wedding. This demonstrates virtue ethics through

her choice to not display excellence or do the right thing for the right reason. By choosing the

path of deceit, despite having sons, she is not blessed by God or aided in becoming more

favorable to Jacob. Her social roles as a woman are to marry and reproduce, which is supported

by God’s previous emphasis on Abraham and Isaac to make fertility and reproduction a priority.

A common biblical phrase “be fruitful and multiply across the Earth” gives an important window

into the necessity of women to be fertile and mothers capable of raising and providing the

essentials for children in the early stages of life (Lecture). Leah’s increasing bitterness stems

from Jacob’s favoritism of Rachel and disgust with his initial marriage to Leah. The eventual

marriage of Jacob to Rachel after seven more years of hard labor only furthered the discontent of

Jacob towards Leah. Themes of sexuality and fertility linked to desirability causes Leah to feel

bitter because of her undesirability in the eyes of Jacob.

The second ethical dilemma of Leah comes from the competition for reproduction versus

her sister Rachel. The marriage of Jacob to Rachel served as a kick-off to the jealousy and

competition between both wives. Genesis describes Jacob’s marriage to Rachel as, “And he

came to bed with Rachel, too, and, indeed, loved Rachel more than Leah, and he served him still

another seven years. And the Lord saw that Leah was despised and He opened her womb, but

Rachel was barren” (Genesis 155-156). Genesis explicitly states that Jacob found more

favorability in Rachel because of her “comely” looks which suggests that there is a preference in

the Bible as to how a woman presents herself. Despite this inequality, God chose not to bless

Leah but instead opened her womb in an attempt to increase her desirability over Rachel who is

barren. Despite Rachel being barren, she offered her slave girl to Jacob in the hopes that he
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would reproduce with her and Rachel could adopt the child. Leah sees this occurring and offers

her own slave girl to bear children, while Leah herself continues to bear children. This shows

Leah’s unvirtuous behavior again through her choice to compete with her sister for the affection

of Jacob. Perhaps divine command theory does come into the story at this point as in past

chapters God had promised Jacob that he would be fruitful and bear many children. This would

be an example of divine command theory mixed with virtue ethics because God is judging

success and morality based upon his notion of the value of reproduction and fertility.

Gender also contributes to Leah’s ethical dilemmas within Genesis and are deeply

intertwined with her life’s story. A gendered area of Genesis lies in the biblical perspective of the

necessity and morality of women exploring their sexuality. The Bible uses two main avenues to

explain sexual behaviors of women and other biblical figures which includes the reproductive

qualities of sex versus sex without the possibility of reproduction. The biblical focus on

reproduction demonstrates a keen interest in women, with women who complete sexual acts

outside of reproductive capabilities as prostitutes and undesirable versus women who complete

sexual acts in marriage for reproduction. The biblical narrative therefore confines women to

sexual acts only when they are committed for the purpose of reproduction. This narrative is

problematic as it is not equally enforced. For example, Zilpah, Leah’s slave girl is offered to

Jacob to increase his number of offspring, despite not being married to Jacob. This further

enforces that sexuality outside cultural norms are permitted if reproduction and the continuation

of a lineage are being pursued. Another example of sex being explored outside cultural norms is

when Lot’s two daughters have sex with him while he is incapacitated for the purpose of

reproduction because they had not been married. This story cuts deep at the Bible’s attempts to

place reproduction and fertility at the center of the woman’s role in Genesis, often regardless of
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morality and virtuous behavior. Genesis uses the reproductive capabilities of women as an

indication of worthiness exemplified by the competition between Leah and Rachel because of

Rachel’s desperation to bear children.

Displays of morality limiting the sexuality of women and acts of Sodom alike are

demonstrative of a larger theme in Leah’s story repressing her from seeking relationships or

intimacy outside her marriage to Jacob. Sodom is also tackled from the biblical perspective as a

sexual act with no end goal of reproduction. Instances of repression of women into roles

primarily for childbearing does not always fit the biblical narrative and creates a double standard

when looking at the number of important figures within Genesis who take mistresses or engage

with prostitutes. Genesis does not reprimand men such as Abraham or Jacob for keeping

mistresses or inviting the company of women outside of their wives. This gendered norm within

the biblical narrative adds to the frustration of Leah, because although she is producing many

sons for Jacob, she is still incapable of earning his love and favorability. Jacob cheating on his

wives is also demonstrative of a society permissive of male sexuality with other women versus

any form of female sexuality outside of marriage and reproduction.

The moral dilemmas within Leah’s choice to deceive Jacob and compete with her sister

in reproductive capabilities demonstrate the importance of fertility for women within the Bible.

This gender norm brings marriage and childbearing to the forefront of almost every conversation

that engages a woman within Genesis. The weight of moral righteousness placed on being an

obedient and fertile wife is ever-present in Genesis and denotes the way in which the biblical

period contended with populating the Earth under God’s word. Throughout plagues and family

rivalries, the reproductive capabilities of the women of Genesis are continually considered and
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shape the narrative. Leah’s choice to deceive Jacob comes from the moral necessity of bearing

children and a desire to be wanted in a community that values women for their fertility.
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Works Cited

Alter, Robert, translator. Genesis: Translation and Commentary. W. W. Norton & Company,

1997.