Polygamy

The practice of polygamy has been in the news some, lately, and, even though it is a controversial subject, I thought that I would weigh in on it. It has been pointed out that it was generally accepted in the Old Testament, and never specifically forbidden in the New Testament. Let me first point out that just because something isn’t specifically forbidden, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is okay.
Let me also say that it may not have been as common as you may think, even in the Old Testament. Granted, David had multiple wives, and so did Solomon, but they were both kings, they were not commoners. Abraham had a wife, Sarah, and a concubine, Hagar. He did marry another wife, but not until after the death of Sarah(?) It’s an interesting discussion, because Keturah had six sons by Abraham, and he was already old when Sarah died, so perhaps Keturah was a concubine (in fact, 1 Chronicles 1:32 refers to her as such), that had sons while Sarah was still alive—possibly even while Abraham was still young. I have to question that, though, because if Abraham had sons when God promised to make a great nation from Abraham’s seed, then wouldn’t Abraham and Sarah have assumed that God meant from his existing sons? There would have been no point in enlisting Hagar as a concubine, if Abraham already had a concubine that had already given him children. Isaac only had one wife, Rebekah. Jacob had four wives, or two wives and two concubines, depending on who you listen to. Gideon also had multiple wives. Very rarely is there any mention of anyone else having multiple wives. (Some have said that Moses had two wives, but the Bible only names one: Zipporah. Zipporah’s father has two names, though, and is sometimes called Reuel, and sometimes called Jethro).
The question arises, though, what is the difference between a wife and a concubine? Easton’s Bible Dictionary says that a concubine was a wife of secondary rank (it says more than that, but I only have so much space, and I don’t want to get sued for plagiarism). Smith’s Bible Dictionary points out that a wife could be divorced, whereas a concubine could not. Smith’s goes on to catalog four types of concubines: A Hebrew girl bought from her father, a gentile captive taken in war, a foreign slave bought, or a Canaanitish woman. The first two had rights under the Law of Moses, the third did not, and the fourth was actually prohibited by the Law (not to suggest that it didn’t happen, though). I should point out that, although Zilpah and Bilhah are mentioned as being Jacob’s wives, they were only with Jacob because they were Leah and Rachel’s slaves, and, in fact, Bilhah is mentioned as being Jacob’s concubine in Genesis 35:22. Apparently there wasn’t considered to be much difference between a wife and a concubine at that time.
By the way, from what I understand, a supporter of Biblical polygamy once challenged Mark twain to find any place in the Bible where polygamy was forbidden. Twain responded with Matthew 6:24. Quite frankly, though, even though one of the parables that Jesus told seems to support the idea of polygamy, Jesus also made it clear that when God created marriage, he created Eve to be Adam’s wife. He did not create a harem for Adam, he created a wife. The parable was intended to convey the idea that although many people can be saved, only those that are ready when He comes will be. Keep in mind that Jesus used parables to relate spiritual things to physical things that people could understand, but not necessarily physical things that he approved of; remember the unjust judge?

A Few Thoughts on Marriage

Just a few thoughts on the subject of marriage:
Eve was created specifically to be Adam’s wife. Of course, Adam didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter (I’m sure you’ve heard the joke where God told Adam He would create for Adam the perfect wife, but it would cost him an arm and a leg. “Gee, that’s pretty steep, God, what can I get for a rib?”), but she was the right woman for him. Cain had a wife (Where did she come from? The Bible doesn’t really say). A wife. Abraham had a wife, but then, after the promise was given, Sarah had a hard time believing that she could have a child, so she turned over her handmaid, Hagar, to Abraham (apparently Abraham had a hard time believing it, too). God later made it clear that this was not what he had intended, but, for whatever reason, very little in the way of punishment was meted out to Abraham for his lack of faith, although he had to deal with the consequences. Isaac had his Rebekah, and there is no mention of any other woman in his life.
Jacob (also known as Israel) ended up with two wives and then two more wives (Genesis 30:4-9), but not really by his own choice. The love of his life was Rachel, but Rachel’s father, Laban, tricked Jacob. When Jacob first asked about marrying Rachel, Laban agreed that if Jacob worked for Laban for seven years, then the marriage could take place. Perhaps Laban thought he could marry off his older daughter, Leah, within seven years. It didn’t happen. Custom dictated that Laban marry off his daughters in order (at least, that was the reason he gave Jacob as to why he switched daughters on Jacob). So Jacob goes through the wedding, thinking that he’s marrying Rachel, and wakes up the next morning, only to find that he is married to Leah (I’m thinking that there was probably an inordinate amount of alcohol consumed before the wedding. I wonder how that made Leah feel, that her father felt like he had to get her sister’s suitor liquored up in order to get Leah married off?). A lot of men would have simply kicked Leah to the curb, “I didn’t work seven years for YOU!” and demanded satisfaction from Laban. Jacob, however, knew that Leah was no longer a good candidate for marriage, and that it was because of him (granted, because of something that he was tricked into doing, but something that he did, nevertheless). Jacob, apparently, also understood that Laban did what he felt he had to do (can’t let Rachel marry until Leah is married, but Leah doesn’t have a suitor, and Rachel has been promised). Later on, as the two sisters competed with each other, they brought their handmaids into service. It seems to me that Jacob would have been happy with just Rachel, and yet, he allowed himself to be (what’s the plural of henpecked?). Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not suggesting that Jacob’s problems were all because of Leah and Rachel; I’m not even suggesting that those problems were all because of Laban; a lot of his problems were simply because he was such a nice guy, and he tried to make everybody happy. This probably should have served as an example to his descendents as to what NOT to do, but a lot of them seemed to think that it was okay to have multiple wives and concubines as long as they weren’t nice about it…
King David had many wives, and a few concubines, and it wasn’t so much them that got him into trouble (although Michal was troublesome at times) as the fact that, for him, they weren’t enough. Solomon had an incredible number of wives and concubines, and they definitely got him into trouble, but, again, not so much because they were evil, or wicked, but because he allowed himself to get spread so thin trying to see to their needs that he stopped attending to God.
Of course, Jesus said that when a man marries a woman, they two become one flesh. Paul also told us that a bishop or a deacon should be the husband of one wife—and I think it’s fair to assume that he was not commanding marriage, he was specifying quantity… It also occurs to me that, even though he specified bishop or deacon, that doesn’t necessarily exclude the rest of us from that, because sometimes callings change (just because I’m not filling the position of a deacon now, it doesn’t mean that I won’t get called into that position later).