Monogamy, Polygamy, Celibacy & Polyamory

[BroRoyVa79]

Hello Hidden In Him,

This is all likely too much, but...

A thread was started on the rise of polyamory in modern society in a non-debate forum, so I'm going to transfer posts to here to start an actual discussion on it.

I think what you're going to get moving it under the "Theology" umbrella is just that, a talk about whether it's theologically allowable versus whether it's politically or ethically ok in the "Current Events & Politics" section.

Polyamory, btw, is the joining of multiple people in uncommitted sexual relationship, as opposed to both Monogamy and Polygamy, which involved marriage and commitment.

Polyamory is a new umbrella termed coined in the 90s in an article written by Diana Moore, who also called herself Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart. Since then, individuals have been lumping already existing marriage practices like polygamy under its umbrella when the two are not the same although one, polygamy, can be lumped under the other, polyamory, based on its broad application. Polygamy in history was the custom of having more than one wife (polygany) or husband (polygyny) at the same time whereas polyamory is not restricted by sex, multiple men and women can be in a collective relationship together, sharing one another, etc. in polyamory.

It's just a nitpick I have whenever this subject comes up these days.

The original OP, together with the link he provided:
"Polyamory on the rise." Like there isnt enough of an attack on marriage already. If this idea changes governments laws on marriage then whats next? Kids of any age can marry and take on multiple partners? Only thing left really.

Honestly when women came into the work force america became a dual income society. If we could take on multiple marriages how many people do I need to live at that point? Seems crazy to me.

Polyamory Is On The Rise And Society Should Be More Accommodating, Research Argues

A new book argues that more needs to be done to support consensual non-monogamous relationships.

www.iflscience.com

I find that one of the problems us Westerners have when dealing with this topic is gross ignorance that the practice has gone on for centuries in the East. We see it coming to the West and we're suddenly alarmed when polgamy, mostly NOT polyamory, has been practiced in Africa, Middle East, and some Asian countries for thousands of years. I've read personal accounts of some women coming from those countries, having married a Westerner, and are a bit appalled that we practice monogamy and still feel that polygamy would benefit our society.

Russell Moul's handling of the issue in the article linked is pretty weak to me. Mostly because he leans on Justin Clardy's work who, according to what Moul provided, seems to be leaning on the LGBTQ+ playbook. With things such as everyone's not religious, so why should irreligious people be restricted to monogamy based on religion or everyone else has marriage right, so why can't polyamorists have marriage rights. Pretty much right out of LGBTQ+ primarily the L's and G's playbook.

Still, one of the things I usually bring up in these debates to show the problems the practice can bring are as so, and keep in mind this is before getting into anything theological, this is just talking about the manifest problems in the aforementioned cultures where this way of marriage is already practiced:

1) Economic & Poverty: One of the major problems I've found in some regions where polygamy is practiced is that it puts a strain on resources in some of the families that practice it. For example, in Kenya, many politicians and religious leaders point this out and are trying to do away with the practice all together or limit it to help with the poverty it causes. See: Reuters - 'Put up and shut up': polygamy breeds poverty for Kenyan women and children and BBC News - Why a Nigerian Muslim leader want to restrict polygamy?

Here's are some quotes from Reuter's article:
"But campaigners say most polygamous marriages in Kenya, and other African nations, are fuelling poverty - with husbands neglecting one family over another - leaving thousands of women and children impoverished and easy prey for exploitation."

"Almost 43 percent of households where the man is in a polygamous union are poor compared to 27 percent of those in monogamous unions, says the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics."

Here's a quote from the BBC article:
""Those of us in the north have all seen the economic consequences of men who are not capable of maintaining one wife, marrying four," the Emir said over the weekend.

"They end up producing 20 children, not educating them, leaving them on the streets, and they end up as thugs and terrorists."

It was a brave statement that anyone who has visited the north will find hard to deny.
In many northern towns and cities groups of small children, known as "almajiris", crowd around cars stuck in traffic, begging for small change.""

You'll find pro-polyamorists and pro-polygamists will argue for the economic advantages of the practices. Which in some ways can be true depending on the situation and if

2) Creates a lower class of men: Since many of these systems have to focus on men who have education and enough disposable income to support multiple wives and families, it creates and sustains a class of unmarried and uneducated men. Roughly half the men in these cultures leave the population before adulthood.

3) Creates a sort of oligarchy class: Since a small number of men are collecting the majority of women and influencing the culture, they become sort of a small unique elite group of men (and families) with powerful influence over everything.

4) Incentivizes families to send off their daughters at the earliest opportunity to be married given a shortage of qualified males and raises the bride price (in those areas where this is still a thing) which attributes to #1 & #2, creating a circular manifestation of the problems if this isn't regulated. For those in the West that favor Women's Rights, this starts to limit the options of the young women, etc. In certain countries since gang leaders and warlords are the affluent, they are able to attract new recruits by promising to cover their bride price/dowry.

5) Brings disadvantages to the children. Even in a monogamous society where, yes, we live in a economy that expects both parents to likely work to make ends meet and attention is stolen away from the children, in a polygamous society the advocates will argue that attention will be given back to the children by the multiple wives (or husbands, which wouldn't happen as the multiple husbands would likely be out working). But as said in #4, the mothers in these countries tend to be less educated, thus they can't provide an education for their children, and the children received a divided share of the father's or mother's attention between their multiple siblings and the multiple spouses.

6) Genetic Bottleneck Issues: Given #2, and that many men leave the area, you end up with people related to each other marrying and producing children. BBC wrote an article on this covering a few towns in America (surprise, surprise! it's in Utah) where they point out that many of Brigham Young's descendants are all over the place and point out that it's the same with guys like Genghis Khan and this is still influencing these areas today.

This isn't even everything. Nor does any of the above have even gotten into the jealousy, politics, drama, etc. of the polyamorous relationships. Especially when Westerners who aren't restricted morally by religion try it and jealously springs up and violence erupts.

To be continued...

 

[BroRoyVa79]

Now, getting into theology

My response:
Though it was never God's original intention, a Biblical case could be made for polygamy if it were at least between truly committed partners, and not just some cult exploiting its women. Polyamory, however, despite how wonderfully it may be portrayed, is just unprincipled people slopping around together in yet another cesspool of noncommittal, as if sex means nothing more than eating together or going to the bathroom in unison.

There were cases of polygamy in the Old Testament, and indirect references to it occurring the New. Both Abraham and Jacob had two wives, and David and Solomon had dozens. Thus, by New Testament times it was still considered a legitimate way of life for those who could afford it within Judaism, which explains why Paul taught in 1st Timothy 3:2 that an elder must be "the husband of one wife." This was likely taught not because polygamy was regarded as a sin but because any more than one wife and a man would already have too many responsibilities to be worrying about taking any leadership positions in the church. But Christianity went to place a certain stigma on the practice in later centuries which eventually became strongly reinforced after the Mormons went off the deep end with it, and sullied the reputation of "Christianity" as a whole as being a religion of male gratification and self-indulgence.

As a result, it's now a ship that has sailed within Christianity anyway. The Muslims place no stigma on the practice, but then many Muslim men abuse the Hell out of it, so they don't exactly make a strong case for it either. But I think there are in fact some men capable of being a good husband to more than one wife, and some women who would rather have part of a good man than all of a bad one. But again, the issue is whether a man is taking advantage of women and simply exploiting them, or is he seriously dedicated to giving them the best life possible, or at the least a better life than what they might have otherwise.

God looks on the heart, and He knows what their inner motivations are, but this is not always the case with the way mankind operates.

My criticism here is that as you point out, God's original intention was one man marries one money hence Adam and Eve were created and not Adam, Eve, and Eva, etc.

This is evident with Genesis 2:24 "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." (ESV)

It doesn't say a man shall leave his parents and marry multiple wives and become multiple flesh. It says one flesh. The word here is 'eḥāḏ.

However, one could argue that the practice of marrying multiple women came from Lamech in Genesis 4:19, who by the way, was of Cain's line and took two wives for himself.

Also, while yes, Abraham had two wives, it was not God who declared that should happen, it was Sarah who facilitated that. Likewise with Jacob, again, it was not God who declared that should happen, Jacob fell into the trap of Laban and because Jacob wanted Rachel so much, he opted to marry them both and later on when Rachel and Leah were conflicting with one another, they gave him their servants to marry and he birthed the 12 tribes through all of them. One of David's wives is someone he had an affair with, killed her husband indirectly, and then got judged for it and it ripped apart his descendants as a result. Again, God didn't decree they should do this.

Given God created one man and one woman, I would argue that like many other cultural things of the time of the Bible, God worked with what was there. The culture at large allowed for polygamy, manly polygany, and so you see God working around some things that are not gigantic issues until they become issues. For example, simply because a law was written around polygamy in Deuteronomy 21:15-17, and another Mosaic law dealing with polygamy is Leviticus 18:18.

Also, there are passages where polygamy is a result of judgment. See Isaiah 4, for example. Or it caused Israel to fall into God's disfavor, see 1 Kings 11-1-4 where Solomon was seduced by his wives into worshipping false gods. God even made a rule for this that seems to contradict Deuteronomy 21:15-17 which seems to allow for multiple wives, but God said it was for Kings. In Deuteronomy 17:17, it states, "And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold." (ESV)

I do agree that Jesus' revisited the issue as he did with much of the OT law that the religious leaders muddied up with their interpretations and he had to clear things up. From there the disciples, apostles, and NT writers followed suit. And yes, the practice continued in cultures around them and they had to challenge it. I might argue that Paul's declaration that Christian leaders had to be the "husband of one wife" may have come from the above Deuteronomy 17:17 declaration that Israelite political leaders (who were also considered their religious leader) should not take multiple wives because multiple wives, as we saw, would lead them astray.

 

[Hidden In Him]

For a time, God did permit a man to have more than one wife. (Genesis 4:19; 16:1-4; 29:18-29) But God did not originate the practice of polygamy. He provided only one wife for Adam.

Sorry for the late reply, BB. I wanted to give your post a thorough response and I haven't been able to until now.

In looking at it more closely, I would have to retract something I said earlier. It appears the rejection of polygamy within Christianity didn't happen in recent history, but rather took place almost from the outset, as the early fathers were virtually unanimous in their opposition to it within Judaism. But here's the deal, and this is where things get more complicated. The Romans were rejecting it, even to the point of trying to make it illegal throughout the empire at one point, though they never succeeded at implementing it among the Jews and eventually gave up trying. But for the church, this would have meant that they were appearing less moral than the Romans at the time, which you can understand would have made church leadership downright reactionary about.

I think that's where the real impetus came from, and not because of what the word of God actually taught, because when you look at it from the eyes of scripture itself it was not something God Himself raised strong objections to, though He had numerous opportunities.

Let's start here. In the Torah, there were three places where He explicitly allowed for it. In Exodus 21:10, He told them, "If a man take another wife for himself; her food, her clothing, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish". In Deuteronomy 21:15–17 He taught that a man must award the inheritance due to a first-born son to the son who was actually born first, even if he hated that son's mother and liked another wife more, and in Deuteronomy 17:17 He commanded that the king should not have too many wives.

Now, one could argue He was allowing this simply because of the hardness of the Jews' hearts even though He originally wanted something else, but the problem with this argument is that many of the men who engaged in polygamy were not carnally-minded Jews but men who were exceedingly close to God. Moreover, He in several cases actually appeared to these men, meaning if He didn't approve of it He had every opportunity to tell them so. Early in the Genesis account, God Himself appeared to Abraham, and even made a blood covenant with him (Genesis 17). God appeared to Jacob, not once but several times (Genesis 35:9-19, Genesis 46:2). And He not only appeared to King David as well (1 Chronicles 21:15, 26, 27), but David was a prophet of God who heard from the Lord in dreams. The Lord objected strongly to some of things these men were doing, but polygamy was never one of them, so this leaves the "fleshy Jews" and that God always wanted better for them a little weak on closer analysis.

The argument the fathers went with is that God simply wanted the Jews to procreate a lot, but that He doesn't want the same thing from Christians. But while I agree in principle that the Spirit of God can create Christians by conversion rather than having to resort to the flesh, it argues that God somehow no longer wants Christians to fill the earth through procreation anymore, which even the Catholic Church (who opposes polygamy, btw) would balk at.

In the end, I find the entire early church argument a compromise with scripture, more as a moral expedient than anything else. Again, this is not to defend the practice or argue for its reinstitution - I think the backlash and moral disdain for it would be even greater today than it was among the 1st century Romans. But speaking strictly from a Biblical perspective, I don't think the arguments really hold much water.

 

[Hidden In Him]

Nothing can improve on a life partner committed in love to you. Nothing.

I agree, sister. True love with one partner for life is all consuming, and God's ultimate design.

 

[Hidden In Him]

Hello @Hidden In Him,

This is all likely too much, but...

Thanks for the substantial response, brother. From you I would expect nothing less, lol.

I'll be sure to get to it when I have time.

 

[Hidden In Him]

I bet it makes you feel like king of the hill though. Two women love me so much that they're willing to put up with each other just to be with me. I'm that awesome. Lol.

I'm guessing if I had two wives, they'd remind me on a daily basis I'm not nearly as awesome as I think I am.

 

[Riven]

I'm guessing if I had two wives, they'd remind me on a daily basis I'm not nearly as awesome as I think I am.

Everyone's a critic these days.

 

[BB1956]

Sorry for the late reply, BB. I wanted to give your post a thorough response and I haven't been able to until now.

In looking at it more closely, I would have to retract something I said earlier. It appears the rejection of polygamy within Christianity didn't happen in recent history, but rather took place almost from the outset, as the early fathers were virtually unanimous in their opposition to it within Judaism. But here's the deal, and this is where things get more complicated. The Romans were rejecting it, even to the point of trying to make it illegal throughout the empire at one point, though they never succeeded at implementing it among the Jews and eventually gave up trying. But for the church, this would have meant that they were appearing less moral than the Romans at the time, which you can understand would have made church leadership downright reactionary about.

Jesus showed that God set the standard for marriage when He told the first human pair: “A man will leave his father and his mother and will stick to his wife, and the two will be one flesh.” (Matthew 19:5) Marriage was to be a lasting bond between two persons. However, by the time God organized the Israelites into a nation and gave them the Law, polygamy had become a common practice. Thus, though God did not originate or encourage polygamy, he provided laws to regulate it. When the Christian congregation was formed, God’s Word clearly prohibited polygamy.(1 Timothy 3:2)

Jehovah God tolerates certain things until his time to correct them. (Romans 9:22-24) Jesus showed that Jehovah had temporarily tolerated improper marriage customs as a “concession” made out of regard for Israel’s “hardheartedness.”
(Matthew 19:8; Proverbs 4:18)

God instituted the observance of a weekly Sabbath after he delivered the Israelites from Egypt. He later made it part of their national Law. (Exodus 16:22-30; 20:8-10) The apostle Paul explained that Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice and “abolished . . . the Law of commandments consisting in decrees” and “blotted out the handwritten document.” (Ephesians 2:15; Colossians 2:14) What was “abolished” and “blotted out” included the Sabbath law, for the Bible goes on to say: “Therefore let no man judge you in eating and drinking or in respect of a festival or of an observance of the new moon or of a sabbath.” (Colossians 2:16) Why did God give the Law, including the Sabbath, in the first place?

The apostle Paul wrote: “The Law has become our tutor leading to Christ.” Then he added: “Now that the faith has arrived, we are no longer under a tutor.” (Galatians 3:24, 25) Rather than changing his mind, God used the Sabbath as a temporary arrangement to teach people that they should regularly take time to meditate on spiritual matters. Although the Sabbath law was temporary, it pointed forward to the time when mankind would find lasting rest from physical and spiritual afflictions.(Hebrews 4:10; Revelation 21:1-4)

The Biblical examples considered above show that Jehovah God did give different directions and instructions at different times. But that does not mean that he changed his mind. Rather, he responded to the needs of his people under varying circumstances, and he did so for their benefit. The same is true today.

Because Jehovah does not change his standards, we can always know what we must do to please him. Furthermore, we can be certain that everything God has promised will come true. Jehovah says: “Everything that is my delight I shall do . . . I have formed it, I shall also do it.”—Isaiah 46:10, 11.

 

[Hidden In Him]

Russell Moul's handling of the issue in the article linked is pretty weak to me. Mostly because he leans on Justin Clardy's work who, according to what Moul provided, seems to be leaning on the LGBTQ+ playbook. With things such as everyone's not religious, so why should irreligious people be restricted to monogamy based on religion or everyone else has marriage right, so why can't polyamorists have marriage rights. Pretty much right out of LGBTQ+ primarily the L's and G's playbook.

Yes, and completely in lock step with the NWO "have no true loyalties to anyone but the State" mantra.

Good insight.

1) Economic & Poverty: One of the major problems I've found in some regions where polygamy is practiced is that it puts a strain on resources in some of the families that practice it. For example, in Kenya, many politicians and religious leaders point this out and are trying to do away with the practice all together or limit it to help with the poverty it causes. See: Reuters - 'Put up and shut up': polygamy breeds poverty for Kenyan women and children and BBC News - Why a Nigerian Muslim leader want to restrict polygamy?

Here's are some quotes from Reuter's article:
"But campaigners say most polygamous marriages in Kenya, and other African nations, are fuelling poverty - with husbands neglecting one family over another - leaving thousands of women and children impoverished and easy prey for exploitation."

"Almost 43 percent of households where the man is in a polygamous union are poor compared to 27 percent of those in monogamous unions, says the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics."

Here's a quote from the BBC article:
""Those of us in the north have all seen the economic consequences of men who are not capable of maintaining one wife, marrying four," the Emir said over the weekend.

"They end up producing 20 children, not educating them, leaving them on the streets, and they end up as thugs and terrorists."

It was a brave statement that anyone who has visited the north will find hard to deny.
In many northern towns and cities groups of small children, known as "almajiris", crowd around cars stuck in traffic, begging for small change.""

Yeah. I'd advocate strongly against it as well on purely social grounds if it were being abused like this. It's like letting stray cats get out of hand, only worse.

You'll find pro-polyamorists and pro-polygamists will argue for the economic advantages of the practices. Which in some ways can be true depending on the situation and if

2) Creates a lower class of men: Since many of these systems have to focus on men who have education and enough disposable income to support multiple wives and families, it creates and sustains a class of unmarried and uneducated men. Roughly half the men in these cultures leave the population before adulthood.

3) Creates a sort of oligarchy class: Since a small number of men are collecting the majority of women and influencing the culture, they become sort of a small unique elite group of men (and families) with powerful influence over everything.

4) Incentivizes families to send off their daughters at the earliest opportunity to be married given a shortage of qualified males and raises the bride price (in those areas where this is still a thing) which attributes to #1 & #2, creating a circular manifestation of the problems if this isn't regulated. For those in the West that favor Women's Rights, this starts to limit the options of the young women, etc. In certain countries since gang leaders and warlords are the affluent, they are able to attract new recruits by promising to cover their bride price/dowry.

5) Brings disadvantages to the children. Even in a monogamous society where, yes, we live in a economy that expects both parents to likely work to make ends meet and attention is stolen away from the children, in a polygamous society the advocates will argue that attention will be given back to the children by the multiple wives (or husbands, which wouldn't happen as the multiple husbands would likely be out working). But as said in #4, the mothers in these countries tend to be less educated, thus they can't provide an education for their children, and the children received a divided share of the father's or mother's attention between their multiple siblings and the multiple spouses.

6) Genetic Bottleneck Issues: Given #2, and that many men leave the area, you end up with people related to each other marrying and producing children. BBC wrote an article on this covering a few towns in America (surprise, surprise! it's in Utah) where they point out that many of Brigham Young's descendants are all over the place and point out that it's the same with guys like Genghis Khan and this is still influencing these areas today.

This isn't even everything. Nor does any of the above have even gotten into the jealousy, politics, drama, etc. of the polyamorous relationships. Especially when Westerners who aren't restricted morally by religion try it and jealously springs up and violence erupts.

This is all abuse on par with what some Muslim men engage in, especially when they are taking young girls from Christian parents through conquest and forcing them into marriage to Muslims. In many cases it is done as a religious expedient and/ or merely to fulfill lusts.

 

[Hidden In Him]

My criticism here is that as you point out, God's original intention was one man marries one money hence Adam and Eve were created and not Adam, Eve, and Eva, etc.

This is evident with Genesis 2:24 "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." (ESV)

It doesn't say a man shall leave his parents and marry multiple wives and become multiple flesh. It says one flesh. The word here is 'eḥāḏ.

Ok, here is where we get into the heart of the argument. I'm guessing the Jews responded to this by saying that this tenet was not exclusive to a one man, one woman relationship; i.e. that a man married to two woman was to essentially became one flesh with both, with the implication being that he should become one in mind, heart, soul and strength with both of them as well, and they with him.

See, Paul made the same statement that a man could potentially become one flesh with a prostitute merely by the act of sexual intercourse, which going back to my statements about God tolerating multiple marriages among His servants means that having multiple marriage could not have been a game breaker of the whole "leave the mother and father and become one flesh the wife" principle or God would not have been allowing it.

Also, while yes, Abraham had two wives, it was not God who declared that should happen, it was Sarah who facilitated that. Likewise with Jacob, again, it was not God who declared that should happen, Jacob fell into the trap of Laban and because Jacob wanted Rachel so much, he opted to marry them both and later on when Rachel and Leah were conflicting with one another, they gave him their servants to marry and he birthed the 12 tribes through all of them. One of David's wives is someone he had an affair with, killed her husband indirectly, and then got judged for it and it ripped apart his descendants as a result. Again, God didn't decree they should do this.

Ok, but now how would you counter Post #23? My argument in response to this one is that if the practice was so egregious in the eyes of God, why did He never speak up to them about it when these were all men He went so far as to even appear to personally. Certainly Abraham's decision to follow Sarah's advice was a bad choice, and David's sin with Bathsheba was downright blatant sin, which both these men payed for in this life. One could also argue that God never wanted the Israelites to have kings to begin with, let alone have to make a stipulation that they not have too many wives. But the situation with Jacob is interesting, and poses something closer to the real question: What about a man who ends up marrying someone he didn't want, and gets cheated from marrying the one he did? Was God's will at this point to have him just eat it, or was it to marry both if both were willing?

I realize this was a very rare instance that might never be repeated in the history of man, Lol, but it goes to the question of what God regards as most important: Adherence to a mere principle, or caring for the soul of a man who was in love and was about to get rooked out of spending the rest of his life her.

Let me have your response to Post #23. I'd be interested in hearing it. Seems to me if monogamy was so important to the True and Living God that He would have prevented it from happening amongst men who had an open line of communication with Him, and went on to be among the greatest men in Israel's history.

 

[BroRoyVa79]

Yes, and completely in lock step with the NWO "have no true loyalties to anyone but the State" mantra.

Good insight.


Yeah. I'd advocate strongly against it as well on purely social grounds if it were being abused like this. It's like letting stray cats get out of hand, only worse.


This is all abuse on par with what some Muslim men engage in, especially when they are taking young girls from Christian parents through conquest and forcing them into marriage to Muslims. In many cases it is done as a religious expedient and/ or merely to fulfill lusts.

You'll find pro-polyamorists and pro-polygamists will argue for the economic advantages of the practices. Which in some ways can be true depending on the situation and if

Just realized I didn't complete this thought.

Which can be true depending on the situation if they actually use their children for labor properly or to create family business legacies, etc.

But the problem in areas that it's practiced is that it's kind of hit or miss in regard to the positives and negatives. Most of the negatives will manifest around treatment of the women within the harem. The economic negatives are usually a product of already existing economic issues in the region. But the other things, the genetic bottleneck issue, loss of viable young men, etc. Yeah. Those are problems that manifest over long time without any type of oversight control.

 

[BroRoyVa79]

Ok, here is where we get into the heart of the argument. I'm guessing the Jews responded to this by saying that this tenet was not exclusive to a one man, one woman relationship; i.e. that a man married to two woman was to essentially became one flesh with both, with the implication being that he should become one in mind, heart, soul and strength with both of them as well, and they with him.

See, Paul made the same statement that a man could potentially become one flesh with a prostitute merely by the act of sexual intercourse, which going back to my statements about God tolerating multiple marriages among His servants means that having multiple marriage could not have been a game breaker of the whole "leave the mother and father and become one flesh the wife" principle or God would not have been allowing it.

Man, I have to learn to proofread. LOL. I said "marries one money?" Why was I thinking about money while typing that? LOL.

Ok, but now how would you counter Post #23? My argument in response to this one is that if the practice was so egregious in the eyes of God, why did He never speak up to them about it when these were all men He went so far as to even appear to personally. Certainly Abraham's decision to follow Sarah's advice was a bad choice, and David's sin with Bathsheba was downright blatant sin, which both these men payed for in this life. One could also argue that God never wanted the Israelites to have kings to begin with, let alone have to make a stipulation that they not have too many wives. But the situation with Jacob is interesting, and poses something closer to the real question: What about a man who ends up marrying someone he didn't want, and gets cheated from marrying the one he did? Was God's will at this point to have him just eat it, or was it to marry both if both were willing?

Have to remember Abraham is during the time of the patriarchs before any written law. May have been oral or passed down understanding from Adam through the line of Shem, but likely not as sophisticated post Moses. Still, Ishmael's descendants became consistent hostile rivals to their relatives, sons of Isaac.

David. Aside from Abigail and Michal, all of the sons of David's wives caused some kind of problem in the long term.

Neither of these are exactly glowing displays of polygamy in scriptures. Nor do we always get to see the issues involved around the men with multiple wives in scripture, either.

I realize this was a very rare instance that might never be repeated in the history of man, Lol, but it goes to the question of what God regards as most important: Adherence to a mere principle, or caring for the soul of a man who was in love and was about to get rooked out of spending the rest of his life her.

I would agree that God working to produce the Messiah through His chosen people was more important, but there were obvious things that were clear no-no's such as worshipping false gods, child sacrifice, etc. that would disqualify them until God worked it out to fix the problem. No, polygamy wasn't one of them, but I'd be reluctant to say it defaults at being an okay thing to do because God didn't restrict it immediately.

Coming to the end of my work day and don't want to go over, so I'll try to make some of the following responses quick since I already started.

In looking at it more closely, I would have to retract something I said earlier. It appears the rejection of polygamy within Christianity didn't happen in recent history, but rather took place almost from the outset, as the early fathers were virtually unanimous in their opposition to it within Judaism. But here's the deal, and this is where things get more complicated. The Romans were rejecting it, even to the point of trying to make it illegal throughout the empire at one point, though they never succeeded at implementing it among the Jews and eventually gave up trying. But for the church, this would have meant that they were appearing less moral than the Romans at the time, which you can understand would have made church leadership downright reactionary about.

I think that's where the real impetus came from, and not because of what the word of God actually taught, because when you look at it from the eyes of scripture itself it was not something God Himself raised strong objections to, though He had numerous opportunities.

Hmmm, not exactly so. As far as the Roman thing goes. May depend on what timeline we're talking about here, I guess. While in Rome generally marriage was monogamous, they did allow for a man to have a concubinage, often former slaves, and not consider her sort of the main wife, the uxor. So, while you'll go out and read that Roman marriage practices by their law was monogamous and officially banned polygamy, they allowed certain men the option to go out and practice polygynous mating. Yet, despite this, their culture was already "monogamous" by the time they started interacting with the Jews.

I'm not sure I'd make an argument and die on that hill that Roman practices influenced any of it, I'd argue the influence more so came from Jesus' debates with the Pharisees and Sadducees where he clearly states marriage was intended to be between one male and one female and then the disciples and apostles likely going from there.

To be continued...

 

[BroRoyVa79]

Let's start here. In the Torah, there were three places where He explicitly allowed for it. In Exodus 21:10, He told them, "If a man take another wife for himself; her food, her clothing, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish". In Deuteronomy 21:15–17 He taught that a man must award the inheritance due to a first-born son to the son who was actually born first, even if he hated that son's mother and liked another wife more, and in Deuteronomy 17:17 He commanded that the king should not have too many wives.

Now, one could argue He was allowing this simply because of the hardness of the Jews' hearts even though He originally wanted something else, but the problem with this argument is that many of the men who engaged in polygamy were not carnally-minded Jews but men who were exceedingly close to God. Moreover, He in several cases actually appeared to these men, meaning if He didn't approve of it He had every opportunity to tell them so. Early in the Genesis account, God Himself appeared to Abraham, and even made a blood covenant with him (Genesis 17). God appeared to Jacob, not once but several times (Genesis 35:9-19, Genesis 46:2). And He not only appeared to King David as well (1 Chronicles 21:15, 26, 27), but David was a prophet of God who heard from the Lord in dreams. The Lord objected strongly to some of things these men were doing, but polygamy was never one of them, so this leaves the "fleshy Jews" and that God always wanted better for them a little weak on closer analysis.

Well I know you brought this up in a way, but Jesu when dealing with divorce in the Gospels, I'm thinking of Matthew 19:1-12 now, told the Pharisees that they were permitted to divorce because their hearts were hard and "it was not this way from the beginning" and went on to add that anyone who divorces except for sexual immorality of some kind and marries again commits adultery.

So you have a problem, because that lays down the foundation of God allowed divorce to happen with limitations while not ever wanting divorce to happen. Yet outlined within divorce when it would become a problem. In other words, the point I'm making here and the point I made earlier, God allowed divorce in the since that He tolerated it like he does a lot of other wicked behavior and the wicked behavior of those He chose to work through as human agents throughout the course of bringing about Jesus to the world.

You also have the notion that God divorced Israel, metaphorically speaking, in Jeremiah 3 after multiple warnings, but told them to come back in the same series of passages and even used the priest, Hosea to exemplify this by having him marry a prostitute who became unfaithful and then God sent Hosea after her to redeem her showing He would redeem Israel.

Similarly the men you listed who practiced polygamy where men God chose to fulfill His work through to bring about Messiah ultimately. Out of all three of them, their union with multiple wives brought about some type of disaster for their family. As I said above, Abraham's son Ishmael's descendants became a thorn in Isaac's descendants' side. Jacob's sons while we would say they rightfully killed the men of the kingdom of the man who raped their sister, the way the Bible paints them doing it paints it as manipulative and then they used this same manipulative nature on their own brother, Joseph. Also, as I said above, the only two of David's wives' children didn't cause the kingdom rampant problems. We all know what happened with Solomon and his multiple wives and how they led him astray. Polygamy whenever dealt with in scripture in greater detail shows the trouble it causes.

We can't argue that silence from God on a thing connotates approval of that thing. There are tons of what let's call them micro-sins, for sake of conversation, that before Jesus expounded on them in his backs and forths with the religious leaders of the time, they likely had no idea they were a thing. Not to mention they were busy drudging up their own micro-sins and micro-redemptions, etc. for their own benefit.

The argument the fathers went with is that God simply wanted the Jews to procreate a lot, but that He doesn't want the same thing from Christians. But while I agree in principle that the Spirit of God can create Christians by conversion rather than having to resort to the flesh, it argues that God somehow no longer wants Christians to fill the earth through procreation anymore, which even the Catholic Church (who opposes polygamy, btw) would balk at.

If I'm understanding the fathers here to mean Rabbis, then I'm wary. They've come up with a lot of fuzzy, mystical stuff. Lot of it before the first century and why Jesus was getting on them for muddying up the law. If it's early Christian leaders, then I know that a few like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria (specifically), Theophilus, and Methodius were pretty outspoken against polygamy, or for monogamy.

In the end, I find the entire early church argument a compromise with scripture, more as a moral expedient than anything else. Again, this is not to defend the practice or argue for its reinstitution - I think the backlash and moral disdain for it would be even greater today than it was among the 1st century Romans. But speaking strictly from a Biblical perspective, I don't think the arguments really hold much water.

I'd respond with that when you take into account Genesis' God creating one man and one woman, Adam and Eve, you take into account Jesus' revisiting that in regard to divorce and marriage debates and within that as I pointed out saying that divorce was never something God wanted to allow but allowed it because of the wickedness in men's heart. Add to this that the vas majority of times when the Bible speaks of marriage or the parties involved it is in the singular "wife," "husband," "man," or "woman," etc. unless it's speaking of a situation where there are multiple wives or in the context of addressing a group as in Ephesians 5:25. And of course, this is not getting into the original languages. Of course you have Paul's words later, or decrees to Christian leaders to be monogamous in their partnerships. I would say that when you take all of this into account then you have a Biblical perspective about it. Was it tolerated? Sure. Does that mean it was absolutely ok? No. Does that mean it was something God was going to condemn them and punish them for back then? No.

But as I said, God worked with wicked people just like he still works with wicked people, but he worked with wicked people to fulfill the goal of providing a way to reconcile with Him.

I had to rush this. still went over my hours here at the office. Going to end it here, but may not have been as clear as I wanted.