Friday, November 21, 2008
Polygamy
Blaine Robison, M.A.
Revised 14 May 2008
Polygamy has become a hot topic in America due to the various lawsuits challenging state constitutional bans on the practice and the growing numbers of polygamous families in the United States. Some Christian conservatives have joined with secularists to attack polygamy as an aberrant and immoral behavior, lumping polygamists in with homosexuals. This article represents my own investigation of polygamy in its historical, biblical, and contemporary context to help Christians better understand the issue.
NOTE: A list of my research sources may be found at the end of the article. Numbers in brackets refer to references in the Works Cited section at the end of the article.
Definitions
By etymology polygamy means “many marriages” (polus, many, and gamos, marriage or wedding) and thus the functional meaning of polygamy in Western civilization has always been “plural marriage with many wives.” In other words, the husband is the polygamist and the wives are monogamous to him. Polygamy is not group marriage, which has a communal basis, nor polyamory ("many loves"), which consists of multiple sexual relationships.
Anthropologists generally identify the sub-categories of polygamy as polygyny, multiple wives, and polyandry, multiple husbands. Some polygamists prefer to say they practice polygyny rather than polygamy to reinforce this distinction. When describing marriage customs in ancient cultures other social researchers use a more general definition of polygyny to include unmarried partnerships, such as concubinage.
In contrast monogamy is defined as the exclusive union of one man to one woman until separated by death or divorce. In many countries of the world monogamy has the advantage of exclusive legal sanction.
History of Polygamy
Polygamy and polygyny have existed since recorded history and practiced throughout the ancient Near East, the Far East, the Mediterranean empires, Europe and Britain as attested by royal archives of kings and Caesars and writings of ancient historians such as Moses, Herodotus, Demosthenes, Polybius, Strabo, Livy, Plutarch, Tacitus, Suetonius and Josephus. Besides legitimate marriage, temple prostitution and the spoils of war were the two most common sources of women for polygynous men. Records of explorers and missionaries in the Christian era confirmed the widespread practice of polygamy among native tribes in Africa and the Americas.
Some ancient societies did offer protection to wives against a second co-wife. The Babylonian Code of Hammurabi stipulated that in the absence of special circumstances (such as infertility, sickness or misconduct of the first wife), the existing wife first had to agree to the second union.[1] Only among the Greeks and Romans was there any effort by civil authority to enforce monogamy for legitimate marriage. One Greek marriage contract reads, “It shall not be lawful for Philiscus to bring in another wife besides Appolonia.”[2]
However, concubinage was universally practiced in all ancient societies as illustrated in the famous quote from Pseudo-Demosthenes (4th century BCE), "Mistresses we keep for the sake of pleasure, concubines for the daily care of our persons, but wives to bear us legitimate children and to be faithful guardians of our households."[3] A concubine was not a legal wife, but a slave woman who lived with a man (often married) to provide regular sexual relations. Children of this type of union were not considered legitimate.
Biblical Record
The Bible records forty-one men by name with multiple wives, including three Gentile kings. At least half the men had more than two wives. The earliest recorded plural marriage was Lamech (two wives, Gen 4:19), six generations after Adam. Even though Lamech is the only polygamist identified before the global flood, there is no reason to believe that he was alone in that status.
The post-flood patriarchs (Terah, Nahor and Abraham) continued the plural marriage tradition (Gen 11:26; 16:3; 20:12; 22:20-24; 25:1-6). While Isaac was monogamous his two famous sons were polygamous. Esau had five wives (Gen 26:34; 28:9; 36:2-3) and Jacob had four (Gen 29:23-28; 30:4, 9).
The twelve sons of Jacob and their descendants no doubt continued to be polygamous considering the number of men of fighting age and the number of firstborn counted after the Exodus (Num 1:2; 3:40). Other notable men during the Israelite confederacy had plural marriages: Simeon, (Gen 46:10; Ex 6:15), Moses (Ex 2:21; 18:1-6; Num 12:1), Gideon (Judg 8:30), Jair (Judg 10:4), Ibzan (Judg 12:9), Abdon (Judg 12:14), and Elkanah (1 Sam 1:2). The tribe of Issachar was particularly noted for its practice of polygamy (1 Chron 7:4).
During the Israelite monarchy, the kings, their sons and other prominent men took multiple wives. In most cases the number of wives is given and in other cases polygamy may be assumed from the number of sons listed. These men include Saul (1 Sam 14:50; 2 Sam 3:7), David (1 Sam 25:42-44), Ziba (2 Sam 9
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