ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the Christian understanding of justice emerged within the mental patterns of the slaveholding household of the ancient Graeco-Roman world. It argues that the power relations of this society moulded the understanding of God and the righteousness of God in the texts of the New Testament. Early Christianity asserted the control of women's sexuality through the sanction of patriarchal marriage as the only acceptable sexual lifestyle and the accompanying condemnation of lesbian sexual relations. This ethic was intertwined with Christianity's view of Gods justice and its social context of slavery. The possibility of a critique of patriarchal society on the basis of the righteousness of God will be contrasted with feminist theory and praxis of justice. Love patriarchalism is not only the Christian arrangement of marriage, as in Ephesians, but also the underlying framework for Paul's understanding of the righteousness of God.
