One Flesh

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” [Genesis 2:24]

One of the strangest of God’s creations is the grotesque-looking deepsea anglerfish. It makes its home throughout the oceans of the world, living more than a mile deep, where pressure over 2,000 pounds per square inch is exerted on its body. Its round body resembles a basketball, and indeed, it looks like it could easily swallow one. It has a larger mouth compared to its body size than any creature in the sea. In addition, its mammoth mouth is filled with savage, fang-like teeth. Behind powerful jaws and teeth it has a stomach that is greatly expandable, allowing it to swallow prey larger than itself. The stomach of one small black devil anglerfish contained a lantern fish nearly twice the size of the angler!

Despite its ferocious appearance, the angler’s adult size is limited. Various sub-species range from about an inch to 3.3 feet. The angler name comes from the long, modified dorsal spine tipped with a lightproducing organ known as a photophore. Like many other deep-water fish, the angler uses this organ like a lure to attract prey. It flashes its light on and off while wiggling it back and forth like a fishing pole. When the prey fish gets close enough, the angler snaps it up with its powerful jaws. The darkness of the deep sea makes the angler nearly invisible to prey.

Among anglers, only females have the lure; the males survive in a different way. The male is much smaller and looks like a dark jellybean with fins. It has small hook teeth that it uses to attach itself to the female. In some species, once the male is attached its blood vessels join with that of the female and it will spend the rest of its life joined to her like a parasite, getting all of its nourishment from her body. Her blood flows through his veins, in return for fertilizing her eggs. The flesh of the two fish eventually fuses and they remain permanently connected “till death do they part.”

This adds a new meaning to the Scripture “…and they shall become one flesh.” Married couples don’t need to go as far as the angler, but Ephesians 5:28 does say that “husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies.” The key word in a Christian marriage is love.