When I preached through the book of Genesis at my church a few years ago, one nagging issue I wrestled with was the Old Testament’s seeming tolerance of polygamy.
One observation is that the polygamous marriages found in Scripture are practically all filled with contention and conflict. The Lord Himself reiterated that polygamy was not the original design.
The Bible may not explicitly condemn polygamy, but it does show the problems it causes. In almost every example in the Bible, there is fighting between wives and/or children. In the case of Jacob, some of his sons were so jealous they wanted to kill their half brother, but then through God's providence sold their brother into slavery. I think these examples were God's warning against polygamy.
I echo Jim's comment, the best explanation I have read.
Also, I read years ago of men in a polygamous culture. When they converted to Christianity and the missionaries required them to put away their other wives, they did so, and the women had nowhere to go. Their own families would not take them back and they were destitute. Their options were paupery or prostitution. So in the end the missionaries allowed converts to keep their other wives.
According to 1 Timothy 3:2 such converts would have been disqualified from later becoming bishops. This passage MIGHT also mean there were some polygamous marriages in the New Testament church, though of course there is no evidence for this. And the requirement of having one wife could be directed against bachelor bishops.
That doesn't make sense. If a man is married to multiple wives and can provide for them all, then after he becomes a Christian he should pick one of the women as his wife, and continue to provide for the others just as he did when they were all considered to be his wives. That should be possible, and it shouldn't be a problem.
It isn't that simple. What happens to the rejected wives?
They can't stay with the husband in his house or compound, because if he has access to them 24/7, then it will not be a meaningful separation. So to be truly separated they will have to live somewhere else.
What if their original families will not take them back? That may seem implausibly harsh, but there are significant parts of the world, where men are allowed to kill their wives, sisters, or daughters if they dishonor the family - or even if they are only perceived to have dishonored the family.
This practice is most common in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.
If some people are capable of killing a female relative, they are surely capable of just banning her and refusing to take her back.
So then, where do the expelled wives live? We are talking about poor countries where many of the opportunities we take for granted to do not exist. If the husband is obligated to provide for her he can rent her a poor single room in a crummy building where she can sit with no social life or meaningful job opportunities.
Anyway, even if my comments are dismissed, the article itself is valid and substantial.
Unfortunately, I read that years ago and cannot refer to the original source.
Do you object to the original article? I didn't see any comments from you on the article itself.
True, something can likely be worked out, but in the third world options are limited, especially with people living in undeveloped areas. Someone can be well-off by local standards yet still be very far from well-off by ours.
I do not read where the New Testament specifically forbids polygamy. A single pair is the ideal, yet men of God in the Old Testament were accepted and blessed by God with multiple marriages.
That does not mean polygamy is no big deal. Those families were riddled with hostility and problems, and God did create one wife for Adam. And it says a husband should love his wife (singular).
No serious Christians have ever advocated polygamy as a positive virtue (Mormons not being Christians). But in a non-Christian society where men with multiple wives convert as adults, I can think of no biblical warrant for commanding husbands to put away their wives.
Can you?
Christians with more than one wife would be disqualified from being bishops.
When Jesus discusses marriage, he refers back to the book of Genesis. One man, one woman. Together they form one flesh. That doesn’t seem to allow for multiple partners. Not for the husband, not for the wife.
That’s in Matthew 19.
In the cases you mention, one would hope that the missionaries would engage the entire Christian community to help with the extra wives that are now husbandless. Either in finding new hushands for them, or finding some role in the community where they could support themselves. Or do some fundraising back in America.
When I said in my previous comment that “A single pair is the ideal,” I was thinking of Genesis and the creation of Adam and Eve, and stated that “God did create one wife for Adam. And it says [in the New Testament] that a husband should love his wife (singular).”
So, the ideal Christian pattern is one husband and one wife.
You refer to Christ’s statement in Matthew 19 about a man and his wife forming one flesh. However, Paul also says in I Corinthians 6 that “What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.”
So if a totally immoral and godless union qualifies as “one flesh,” we could also say that Jacob was “one flesh” with Rachel and Leah, as well as Bilhah and Zilpah – and all of the children from those four women were equally counted as descendants of Jacob in the inheritance.
I googled the topic “missionaries allow converts to keep their wives,” and found Christian churches and missionary organizations have been discussing this problem for a long time. Some have followed your policy, and insisted that one wife should be chosen and the rest sent away.
Others have found that this can cause real hardship and suffering for the women sent away, especially if there are small children involved. So different people have adopted different policies.
I asked about your response to the main article. There it is argued that polygamy is not God’s ideal, but he permitted it, and gives divorce as an example of such accommodation on God’s part:
"We see a similar concept at work in Jesus’ discussion about divorce. Divorce was not part of God’s original design for marriage, but God did permit it and regulate it as a sad accommodation to human hard-heartedness. Jesus said, 'Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so' (Matt 19:8)."
You also ignored my point that “men of God in the Old Testament were accepted and blessed by God with multiple marriages.” Surely if it were inherently wicked God would never have condoned – let alone blessed – it. This is an unanswerable argument.
Of course, in the New Testament of Jesus Christ we have a higher and a better revelation than was available to the Jews in the Old Testament, and we should never use the Old to undermine or contradict the New. However, many of the moral laws and commandments of the Old Testament are carried over into and reaffirmed by the New (such as, “Honor your parents,” and many other commands).
Other Old Testament practices are explicitly set aside, like the entire sacrificial system. But the New Testament nowhere explicitly forbids polygamy, though it is obviously not the ideal, and people in areas where Christianity is being preached should be taught to have one wife only.
Everywhere Christianity has been established, polygamy has been abandoned and forbidden. The question is people in foreign cultures who have married multiple wives and then want to convert. I can see no biblical mandate for forcing them to abandon their wives, only they should not be allowed to occupy the position of a bishop.
As to your suggestions at the end, if it is the church and missionary policy that a new convert must put away his other wives, obviously the church has a strong obligation to take care of such women.
But finding new husbands for a castoff woman who has children already is not so easy. Even in our free and open culture, many men do not want to take on another man’s children. You can’t consistently find replacement husbands as a matter of policy.
Finding a role in the community where a woman could support herself – by doing what? Sewing? Washing clothes? Selling vegetables in the market? From whose farm? Setting up a small restaurant where maybe there is no real demand for restaurants to begin with?
More fundraising?
All of those things could be tried, though they are not as easy as some might think – maybe they could be done, maybe not. But what if there is no need for that?
I think people forget that just because they are iconic names in the Bible, doesn't mean they were perfect. (David, Solomon, Abraham, etc.) Remember that their sins were greatly punished, for Jesus has not saved us from the law yet.
Rape was looked in a much different light back then. In fact, what is in the image is not a bad way to keep single motherhood from skyrocketing out of control like it is today. It puts accountability on the man to be there for the woman and child instead of the liberty to walk away. It may also prevent men from doing such an act if they think of the consequences of responsibility.
I think your post covers the issue well. To those who disagree on the matter, do you have a better idea on how to deal with widowed women, the lack of men for women to marry, (for war was a significant cause to limited men), slaves to be made husbands and wives, and partiality played a big role as well.
Also, I'm quite shocked that the book of Ruth is not covered in the chart/image. If you do your research, do it well.
I appreciate the feedback, Maxine. By the way, Ruth's marriage to Boaz would be considered a levirate marriage, since he was the next kinsman redeemer. Levirate marriage is included in the chart.
I think forcing women to be shackled to their rapist forever is pretty freaking awful and traumatic. “It was thought of differently” doesn’t change the reality of assault.
If you look at the graphic through the lens of history, you can understand all of those situations as allowable because of God's mercy on many. For instance a girl who was raped could never be married in those times. She would be seen as unclean and no man would take her. A widow, if she didn't have family willing to care for her would die in the streets. Marrying your brothers widow was saving her life. When God told the Israelites to kill every man woman and child it was because those people's practiced abominable things like child sacrifice. The young virgins could be brought up in a different faith. I don't believe the Israelites took male children except as slaves because they couldn't marry into Judaism. I might be wrong, somebody enlighten me there.
My point is all these things are examples of God sparing those who were able to have some sort of life later on rather than starving to death.
If God told the Israelites to divorce all their extra wives, and get rid of all the concubines and slaves, those people would have probably all died. Or formed their own community of hatred towards the Jews.
Correct. However, notice how humane the story is. This isn't a story of Boaz being a dirty creep over Ruth. It's redemption. Ruth chose to die with her mother in law, never to marry again, but God has better plans for her.
Also by the same logic, those who divorce their spouse without an act of adultery made would also be considered polyamory. I'm not siding on this logic, but to those who make the point may need to wrestle with that.
This was so helpful. Thank you. I appreciate the anthropological and sociological lens you considered this issue through. It's easy to bring a host of modern assumptions to this topic, chief of which is the sentimental approach to marriage that dominates today. Rather than the layers of economic needs that would have been pressing on the minds of people living in different cultures and times.
I have contemplated this question too. What I found, is that there are no long term good outcomes from the polygamy in the Old Testament, sometimes that long term takes generations to see.
Appreciate this article. I think you've helped me realize that in the OT, and especially in Genesis, a son is a far more important relationship for a woman, than even a husband, and we see women throughout Genesis act accordingly.
One observation is that the polygamous marriages found in Scripture are practically all filled with contention and conflict. The Lord Himself reiterated that polygamy was not the original design.
For sure
The Bible teaches us that although polygamy is not a sin, it is a really, really, REALLY dumb idea.
The Bible may not explicitly condemn polygamy, but it does show the problems it causes. In almost every example in the Bible, there is fighting between wives and/or children. In the case of Jacob, some of his sons were so jealous they wanted to kill their half brother, but then through God's providence sold their brother into slavery. I think these examples were God's warning against polygamy.
The best explanation of this that I've read...
I echo Jim's comment, the best explanation I have read.
Also, I read years ago of men in a polygamous culture. When they converted to Christianity and the missionaries required them to put away their other wives, they did so, and the women had nowhere to go. Their own families would not take them back and they were destitute. Their options were paupery or prostitution. So in the end the missionaries allowed converts to keep their other wives.
According to 1 Timothy 3:2 such converts would have been disqualified from later becoming bishops. This passage MIGHT also mean there were some polygamous marriages in the New Testament church, though of course there is no evidence for this. And the requirement of having one wife could be directed against bachelor bishops.
I appreciate the kind words, Joe
That doesn't make sense. If a man is married to multiple wives and can provide for them all, then after he becomes a Christian he should pick one of the women as his wife, and continue to provide for the others just as he did when they were all considered to be his wives. That should be possible, and it shouldn't be a problem.
It isn't that simple. What happens to the rejected wives?
They can't stay with the husband in his house or compound, because if he has access to them 24/7, then it will not be a meaningful separation. So to be truly separated they will have to live somewhere else.
What if their original families will not take them back? That may seem implausibly harsh, but there are significant parts of the world, where men are allowed to kill their wives, sisters, or daughters if they dishonor the family - or even if they are only perceived to have dishonored the family.
This practice is most common in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.
If some people are capable of killing a female relative, they are surely capable of just banning her and refusing to take her back.
So then, where do the expelled wives live? We are talking about poor countries where many of the opportunities we take for granted to do not exist. If the husband is obligated to provide for her he can rent her a poor single room in a crummy building where she can sit with no social life or meaningful job opportunities.
Anyway, even if my comments are dismissed, the article itself is valid and substantial.
We are talking about a man with multiple wives. So he won't be dirt poor. Something can likely be worked out in most cases.
Unfortunately, I read that years ago and cannot refer to the original source.
Do you object to the original article? I didn't see any comments from you on the article itself.
True, something can likely be worked out, but in the third world options are limited, especially with people living in undeveloped areas. Someone can be well-off by local standards yet still be very far from well-off by ours.
I do not read where the New Testament specifically forbids polygamy. A single pair is the ideal, yet men of God in the Old Testament were accepted and blessed by God with multiple marriages.
That does not mean polygamy is no big deal. Those families were riddled with hostility and problems, and God did create one wife for Adam. And it says a husband should love his wife (singular).
No serious Christians have ever advocated polygamy as a positive virtue (Mormons not being Christians). But in a non-Christian society where men with multiple wives convert as adults, I can think of no biblical warrant for commanding husbands to put away their wives.
Can you?
Christians with more than one wife would be disqualified from being bishops.
When Jesus discusses marriage, he refers back to the book of Genesis. One man, one woman. Together they form one flesh. That doesn’t seem to allow for multiple partners. Not for the husband, not for the wife.
That’s in Matthew 19.
In the cases you mention, one would hope that the missionaries would engage the entire Christian community to help with the extra wives that are now husbandless. Either in finding new hushands for them, or finding some role in the community where they could support themselves. Or do some fundraising back in America.
When I said in my previous comment that “A single pair is the ideal,” I was thinking of Genesis and the creation of Adam and Eve, and stated that “God did create one wife for Adam. And it says [in the New Testament] that a husband should love his wife (singular).”
So, the ideal Christian pattern is one husband and one wife.
You refer to Christ’s statement in Matthew 19 about a man and his wife forming one flesh. However, Paul also says in I Corinthians 6 that “What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.”
So if a totally immoral and godless union qualifies as “one flesh,” we could also say that Jacob was “one flesh” with Rachel and Leah, as well as Bilhah and Zilpah – and all of the children from those four women were equally counted as descendants of Jacob in the inheritance.
I googled the topic “missionaries allow converts to keep their wives,” and found Christian churches and missionary organizations have been discussing this problem for a long time. Some have followed your policy, and insisted that one wife should be chosen and the rest sent away.
Others have found that this can cause real hardship and suffering for the women sent away, especially if there are small children involved. So different people have adopted different policies.
I asked about your response to the main article. There it is argued that polygamy is not God’s ideal, but he permitted it, and gives divorce as an example of such accommodation on God’s part:
"We see a similar concept at work in Jesus’ discussion about divorce. Divorce was not part of God’s original design for marriage, but God did permit it and regulate it as a sad accommodation to human hard-heartedness. Jesus said, 'Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so' (Matt 19:8)."
You also ignored my point that “men of God in the Old Testament were accepted and blessed by God with multiple marriages.” Surely if it were inherently wicked God would never have condoned – let alone blessed – it. This is an unanswerable argument.
Of course, in the New Testament of Jesus Christ we have a higher and a better revelation than was available to the Jews in the Old Testament, and we should never use the Old to undermine or contradict the New. However, many of the moral laws and commandments of the Old Testament are carried over into and reaffirmed by the New (such as, “Honor your parents,” and many other commands).
Other Old Testament practices are explicitly set aside, like the entire sacrificial system. But the New Testament nowhere explicitly forbids polygamy, though it is obviously not the ideal, and people in areas where Christianity is being preached should be taught to have one wife only.
Everywhere Christianity has been established, polygamy has been abandoned and forbidden. The question is people in foreign cultures who have married multiple wives and then want to convert. I can see no biblical mandate for forcing them to abandon their wives, only they should not be allowed to occupy the position of a bishop.
As to your suggestions at the end, if it is the church and missionary policy that a new convert must put away his other wives, obviously the church has a strong obligation to take care of such women.
But finding new husbands for a castoff woman who has children already is not so easy. Even in our free and open culture, many men do not want to take on another man’s children. You can’t consistently find replacement husbands as a matter of policy.
Finding a role in the community where a woman could support herself – by doing what? Sewing? Washing clothes? Selling vegetables in the market? From whose farm? Setting up a small restaurant where maybe there is no real demand for restaurants to begin with?
More fundraising?
All of those things could be tried, though they are not as easy as some might think – maybe they could be done, maybe not. But what if there is no need for that?
Thanks, Jim!
I think people forget that just because they are iconic names in the Bible, doesn't mean they were perfect. (David, Solomon, Abraham, etc.) Remember that their sins were greatly punished, for Jesus has not saved us from the law yet.
Rape was looked in a much different light back then. In fact, what is in the image is not a bad way to keep single motherhood from skyrocketing out of control like it is today. It puts accountability on the man to be there for the woman and child instead of the liberty to walk away. It may also prevent men from doing such an act if they think of the consequences of responsibility.
I think your post covers the issue well. To those who disagree on the matter, do you have a better idea on how to deal with widowed women, the lack of men for women to marry, (for war was a significant cause to limited men), slaves to be made husbands and wives, and partiality played a big role as well.
Also, I'm quite shocked that the book of Ruth is not covered in the chart/image. If you do your research, do it well.
I appreciate the feedback, Maxine. By the way, Ruth's marriage to Boaz would be considered a levirate marriage, since he was the next kinsman redeemer. Levirate marriage is included in the chart.
I think forcing women to be shackled to their rapist forever is pretty freaking awful and traumatic. “It was thought of differently” doesn’t change the reality of assault.
If you look at the graphic through the lens of history, you can understand all of those situations as allowable because of God's mercy on many. For instance a girl who was raped could never be married in those times. She would be seen as unclean and no man would take her. A widow, if she didn't have family willing to care for her would die in the streets. Marrying your brothers widow was saving her life. When God told the Israelites to kill every man woman and child it was because those people's practiced abominable things like child sacrifice. The young virgins could be brought up in a different faith. I don't believe the Israelites took male children except as slaves because they couldn't marry into Judaism. I might be wrong, somebody enlighten me there.
My point is all these things are examples of God sparing those who were able to have some sort of life later on rather than starving to death.
If God told the Israelites to divorce all their extra wives, and get rid of all the concubines and slaves, those people would have probably all died. Or formed their own community of hatred towards the Jews.
Mostly because the men died in battle and there was no government system to support the widows and orphans.
Correct. However, notice how humane the story is. This isn't a story of Boaz being a dirty creep over Ruth. It's redemption. Ruth chose to die with her mother in law, never to marry again, but God has better plans for her.
Also by the same logic, those who divorce their spouse without an act of adultery made would also be considered polyamory. I'm not siding on this logic, but to those who make the point may need to wrestle with that.
This was so helpful. Thank you. I appreciate the anthropological and sociological lens you considered this issue through. It's easy to bring a host of modern assumptions to this topic, chief of which is the sentimental approach to marriage that dominates today. Rather than the layers of economic needs that would have been pressing on the minds of people living in different cultures and times.
Outstanding explanation, super helpful and points us clearly toward a good, loving, fair God. Excellent overview.
I didn’t see a reference to the deacon requirements- a husband of one wife. Great job, thx!
Great article. Finally an explanation.
Well done!
Thank you!
Absolutely, that's what family does...
We should acknowledge the time, research, efforts and rightly dividing the Word of Truth, a rare jewel, in these days of deception.
At the very least, we ought to be encouraging and building up each other.
I have contemplated this question too. What I found, is that there are no long term good outcomes from the polygamy in the Old Testament, sometimes that long term takes generations to see.
Appreciate this article. I think you've helped me realize that in the OT, and especially in Genesis, a son is a far more important relationship for a woman, than even a husband, and we see women throughout Genesis act accordingly.