Christian Polygamy

The bible is very clear about right and wrong. God is explicit about what He likes and what He hates (see for example Exo 20:5-6, Deu 12:28-31, or Pro 6:16-19), about what we are supposed to do (Exo 20 and following chapters, for example), and about the rewards or punishments for our actions (for a general overview, see the blessings and curses of Deu 28).

If a person in the bible is punished or destroyed, there is no doubt about the why - Scripture tells us the reason. Pharaoh and his whole army are destroyed because God wants to make it absolutely clear that it is He, not Pharaoh, who frees the Israelites from Egyptian bondage (Exo 14:18). Moses does not enter the promised land because he did not follow God’s instructions exactly as he was told (Num 20:7-12). Onan is killed by God because he does not fulfill the duty laid upon him by the regulations for Levirate marriage and refuses to father an heir for his late brother (Gen 38:8-10). David is punished for adultery and murder by proxy after he impregnated the wife of Uriah, the Hittite (2 Sam 12:7-14). These are just a few examples: We are never left in the dark about the reasons for punishment, and since God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts not our thoughts (Isa 55:8), we do well to rely on what the bible reveals about God’s reasons instead of speculating about possible reasons for this, that or the other.

Given this fact, what really amazes me is that while many people would agree to what I just stated, when it comes to God’s ideas about marriage, they would rely precisely on said speculation. People would claim that, while Scripture does not condemn polygamy, it still favors monogamy, not outspokenly so, but one could clearly tell by looking at the marriages we find portrayed in the bible. They would point out that polygamy causes strive, that the husbands are “harangued” and the wives rivals, and that exemplary marriages are always monogamous. So from all this one could infer, they argue, that polygamy is sinful whereas monogamy is what God wants. Hmmmm…

Like I just said, God tells us, in Scripture, what He wants and what He does not want. In terms of polygamy, He never punishes anyone for polygamy, and if there is strive, it is because husbands fail to do what God told them to do. In Rachel’s and Hannah’s case, for example, their husbands favor them over the other wive(s), which is why they are barren (Gen 29:30-31 and 1 Sam 1:1-6) - God explicitly tells husbands not to diminish the rights of one wife if another wife is taken (Exo 21:10), so having a barren wife is the punishment for failing to follow God’s rules in this regard.

If you pick up your bible and read it, cover to cover, you will not come away with the idea that there are different forms of marriages, one good, one bad, but you will find that as far as Scripture is concerned, marriage can be a man and one wife just as well as a man and more than one wife. Everything the bible says about marriage (and divorce) is said about both monogamous and polygamous commitments, Scripture does not make a difference between the two. Bible scholars do, Christianity does, but Scripture doesn’t.

We should let Scripture shape our world view instead of allowing our modern world view to cloud our view of Scripture.

In the bible you find plural marriage not only to be a common and accepted form of marriage, but also a protected one. The biblical definition of “marriage” is not “one man one women”, but “becoming one flesh” (Gen 2:24), and since according to Paul you can become one flesh with a whore (1 Co 6:16), it is by no means restricted to “one man one woman as such”, but to “one man one woman at a time”. The point about marriage in the bible is that it is a lifelong commitment, a lifelong responsibility, and it is formed by the act of becoming one flesh - no church, no state necessary. By sleeping with someone, you marry him or her. That’s the biblical concept of marriage, it is as simple as that.

If polygamy was sin, why would God tell David through the prophet Nathan that He has not only given him his predecessor’s wives into his arms, but would also have given him more if that was not enough? But David had to run off and sleep with a married woman (adultery = sleeping with a married woman, the marital status of the man does not figure into the definition), and then kill her husband by proxy (murder) - see 2 Sam 12:8.

If polygamy was sin, why would a man be required to take his widowed sister in law and produce offspring with her in order to provide an heir for his untimely deceased brother, no matter if he was married already or not (Deu 15:5-10) ? This, by the way, is also contrary to the common incest laws.

If polygamy was sin, why would the law of Moses specifically provide for the first wife and protect her from being cast aside for a ‘younger model’, as man in his fallen state is prone to do (Exo 21:10)?

If polygamy was sin, why would Jesus portray himself as the bridegroom to ten virgins, five of which proved themselves to be unprepared and therefore unworthy (Mat 25:1-13)?

And if polygamy was sin, why would God portray Himself as the husband of two wives to make His point about the idolatrous nature of His people (Eze 23)?

Marriage, according to Scripture, can be either polygamous or monogamous.  The important bit about marriage, however, is that it is a lifelong commitment, a covenant not to be broken by man - the only exception being the woman committing adultery (Deu 24:1, Mat 19:9). Adultery and whoremongery are sexual relationships outside this marriage relationship, not inside of it. You cannot commit adultery with you own wife, or be a whoremonger with your own wife. That’s why the marriage bed of a polygamist is undefiled (Heb 13:4).

Let’s continue where we left off last time we talked about marriage, and elaborate a little on what Scripture has to say about marriage.

Like we said, to read romantic notions of marriage, i.e. exclusivity between one man and one women into biblical marriage is to insert a secular, romanticized concept into the bible that is simply not there.

If you want to point to the “Song of Solomon” for notions of romantic love, please remember who Solomon was and how many wives he loved - and yes, he sinned in not listening to the commandment not to multiply wives to himself as the king (Deu 17:17), and in marrying foreign wives who turned out to be a snare to him with their foreign religions (1 Kings 11:1-6). And Jesus came through this line, came through people like Abraham and Jacob, through the union of Judah and Tamar, David and Bath Sheba, Uriah’s widow, all of whom were people who in some way or another lived in a polygamous relationship, or in the case of Judah and Tamar, had issues with the Levirate marriage commandment - check it out in Matthew 1 and the respective chapters in Genesis, 2 Samuel and 1 Kings.

If you want to point to Paul talking about letting every man have his own wife and every women her own husband (1 Cor 7:2) to prove that Paul advocates monogamy, please look at the two different Greek words translated as “own” here and you will find that they both pertain to the man, that both state possession from the man’s perspective - her “own” husband is her “proper” husband, the husband that properly possesses her, just as his “own” wife, “own” being a reflexive pronoun here, is the wife that he possesses, that belongs to him, that he is responsible for. If you look at the language, this verse is not a verse pointing to exclusivity with regards to how many wives a man can have, but rather to a woman belonging to one man alone, thus pointing to the responsibility on the part of the man, but doesn’t indicate quantity when it comes to wives.

Besides, the context in 1 Co 7:2 indicates the reason for marriage in the first place: to avoid fornication. Men have to take responsibility for every woman they sleep with for by sleeping with a woman, a man makes her his wife. Even in today’s world, by the way - a marriage that is not consummated is not a valid marriage in court, but could be dissolved based on the fact that it was never consummated, since it can legally be considered null and void. So the biblical standard is kept up here in this regard.

The bible uses no specific term for polygamous relationships, but simply calls having a wife or more than one wife “marriage” - and whenever “marriage” is mentioned in the bible, it refers to the biblical definition of marriage that includes both polygamy and monogamy, and not to a modern day definition of marriage that is based on a romantic concept and a social preference, in our small part of the world, for this romantic ideal.

Someone asks: polygamy is it godly?

Naturally, our position is that indeed a polygamous family is godly…always has been and always will be. In the Scriptures there is no differentiation between monogamy and polygyny. It’s all the same, ie. marriage, and we all know what God has to say about marriage.

“What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” Mark 10:9 ESV

We have a dream of what our Christian plural marriage family will look like, and if you are potentially interested in joining us as a sisterwife, here is what would await you, what you would be a vital, active participant in.

We dream of a big family, up to seven wives and our husband, and a whole lot of children, as many as God might grant us. We hope that our Christian polygamous family will be multi-generational soon, either with old or left-alone parents of the sisterwives to join us, or when our children are old enough and take over what will be prepared for them, so that there can be progress both in Kingdom Building and in the raising of a God fearing, patriarchal, independent, self-sufficient, big polygamous family that

“shall speak with the enemy in the gate” (Ps 127:5).

Read more.