Jesus does not directly forbid polygamy, nor even revert to the subject, since it had been almost universally given up. No case of polygamy among the Jews is presented in the Gospel narrative; and when a wife is mentioned, it is stated or implied in the account that she is the only wife. The special evil of Jewish society was the facility of divorce-men putting away their wives for any, often a trifling, cause. Our Lord, when the Pharisees asked him (Matthew 19:3-9) whether it was lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause, replied that God at the beginning made them a male and a female (ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ), thus indirectly condemning polygamy as contrary to the original institution of marriage: with a male and a female only polygamy was impossible. He then declares that the bond of marriage is indissoluble; the husband and wife are no more twain, but one flesh; and what God hath thus joined together let no man put asunder; and afterwards replies to their question on divorce: “Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.” The practice of polygamy then existed by permission, not by command. It was a positive temporary regulation of Moses as a political governor, not of God as a moral ruler. The Jews had become hardened in their hearts; they were harsh and severe even to their own flesh. Their nearest relatives they treated with cruelty and injustice. Until the people could be brought into such a state that they could feel and understand the force of law, it was necessary for their rulers meanwhile to devise prudential regulations for the purpose of checking their lawlessness. All the evils of that early and idolatrous age of the world could not be remedied in a moment; and such was the state of society that not even until the advent of the Savior was the institution of marriage restored to its primeval integrity by revoking the permission of polygamy and divorce. The teaching of the apostle Paul, too, is worthy of most serious attention, as the subject of polygamy must have come immediately before him. The Christian converts in the apostolic age may be divided into three classes: Jews, Romans, and Greeks. Polygamy, though not unknown among the Jews, had fallen, as we have said, into general disuse. It was positively forbidden by the Roman law, though divorce was even more frequent among the Romans than the Jews; but it undoubtedly was the common usage of the Greeks. Thus Theodoret says: Πάλαι γαὶ εἰώθεισαν καὶ ῎Ελληνες καὶ ῾Ιουδαῖοι καὶ δύω καὶ τρισὶ καὶ πλείοσι γυναιξὶ νόμῳ γάμου κατὰ ταυτὸν συνοικεῖν (Com. in 1 Timothy 3:2). The epistles of Paul were generally addressed to Grecian converts; let us see, then, how he dealt with the question, which must have come directly before him. Two ways were open to the apostle: either a partial or temporary toleration, or an immediate and direct prohibition of the custom. The multitude of Greek converts were undoubtedly polygamists; it might seem a hard measure, and would produce much domestic discontent and misery, to compel converts to abandon their wives legally married according to the Grecian law. Did, then, the apostle permit the usage temporarily, either till that generation had passed away, or until polygamists themselves were willing to conform to the higher Christian standard? We most emphatically reply that the apostle never for even the briefest period tolerated polygamy among baptized or Christian disciples, and that it never existed in the Christian Church at all. Had it been tolerated even temporarily, some notice or reference to it would be found in the apostolic epistles. Tie sincerity of converts must have been put to a severe test: to give up their wives no doubt often involved a painful sacrifice to Christian duty, yet so emphatic and peremptory must have been the apostle’s prohibition that not a murmur of opposition was heard from Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonica, and other Christian communities.
The apostle often censures Grecian converts for their violation of Christian duty, some of them having fallen from their regenerate state, and abandoned themselves to their old sins; but we find no reference to polygamy in his epistles, nothing which implies that it was continued or even known among them. There is no mention, however remote or indirect, of a believer’s wives. This silence can only intimate the utter abandonment of the usage among Christians as clearly as the most emphatic statement. It could not have been tacitly allowed as indifferent, or permitted even for a brief period; since it must be remembered that the apostle had expressly forbidden polygamy, and if it existed at all in the Christian communities he planted, it could only have been in defiance of his direct prohibition. No language can be plainer than that of 1 Corinthians 7: “Let every man have his own wife, and every woman her own husband; let not the wife depart from her husband, let not a husband put away his wife.” Again, the non-existence of polygamy in the apostolic churches is implied in the same apostle’s comparison of marriage to the union of Christ and his Church. The apostle says: “The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the Head of the Church” (Ephesians 5:23). But as Christ’s Church, as Paul says, is one body (Ephesians 4:4), there would be no meaning in the comparison, no similarity in the things compared, if the husband might have a plurality of wives: the marriage union would not then have a typical representation of the union of Christ with the one body, which is his Church. Taking, again, the testimony of the Catholic Church, the evidence against polygamy will appear most positive and decisive. The mind of the divine Legislator was so clearly and ineffaceably stamped on his followers that the usage in early and later ages of the Church was utterly unknown; there is no instance on record of a baptized polygamist for fifteen hundred years after Christ. Catholic, schismatic, and heretic, amid all their differences, agreed at least on this point. No professing Christian, however erroneous his belief or scandalous his life, ever ventured to revive the interdicted usage. The testimony of the Church, clearly brought before us by the consentient practice of Christians in all ages, is too explicit to leave room for further controversy, or any real doubt of the teaching of the New Testament on the subject. Besides, the practice of the whole world was strictly uniform, with one exception in the 16th century. In an evil hour Luther unhappily gave permission to one of his followers to marry a second wife during the lifetime of the first the landgrave of Hesse. He was the first and the only Protestant polygamist of the Christian Church.
To continue reading this Bible article, click here.
Author: McClintock and Strong Cyclopedia
Keywords: Polygamy, multiple wives, marriage, two wives, polygamous, husband of one wife, concubines
Bible reference(s): 1 Corinthians 7:2, 1 Timothy 3:2, Ephesians 4:4, Ephesians 5:23, Matthew 19:3, Matthew 19:6, Mark 10:8, 1 Corinthians 6:16, Ephesians 5:31
Source: John McClintock and James Strong, Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature.
Page indexed by: inWORD Bible Software.