The gods of virtually all civilizations engaged in sexual relations. In the Near East, the Babylonian god Ishtar seduced a man, Gilgamesh, the Babylonian hero. In Egyptian religion, the god Osiris had sexual relations with his sister, the goddess Isis, and she conceived the god Horus. In Canaan, El, the chief god, had sex with Asherah. In Hindu belief, the god Krishna was sexually active, having had many wives and pursuing Radha; the god Samba, son of Krishna, seduced mortal women and men.
Because sexuality was the essence of god and worship ancient cultures, near and far, there was no special status given to the unique sexual relationship of one man and one woman. Prostitution and homosexuality were on an equal or superior status with any other form of sexuality. The only important difference lay in between "the one who was penetrated and the one who did the penetrating."
Then came Moses like a towering light in chaotic darkness. Alone in the midst of all of the cultures of the world he taught monogamous covenental marriage. Sexual energy was to be channeled through marriage, alone. Out of this direction came two consequences: 1) Women achieved equality with men in marriage. They became partners. No longer was a man to have a house maid who primary purpose was to fulfill his sexual gratifications. A woman is to be an equal marriage partner. 2) The ideal social unit became centered in the family. Life then becomes more directed by real and objective love. Not love as we wish it would be for "me" but love as it really needs to be--for the "benefit of the other." 
Further men and women, though equal, are not identical. Their very differences are important to the very nature of what love is to be. (The great English journalist G.K. Chesterton once marveled during his first long stay in America, that Americans can seek divorce “on the grounds of incompatibility.” “I would have thought,” he commented dryly, “that incompatibility is the reason for marriage.”)
Michael Novak sums up the importance of this Mosaic standard and difference...
Thus, the complementarity between a man and a woman in
covenantal marriage—a privileged image of God—is designed to increase the best of all forms of happiness among human beings: growth in the ennobling habits of the heart, in virtue, in honesty, and
in mutual caring, “until death do them part.” This complementarity is also designed to generate productive, creative, and ever-advancing societies, driven by dreams of perfection yet to come (and never
to be fully realized).
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