Why Are Christians More Receptive to Divorce Than Polygamy?

The interpretation of elder qualifications is a great litmus test for how a church thinks about marriage and singlehood. But even the most farfetched spin must admit that "husband of but one wife" rules out polygamous elders.

The acceptance of divorce is another litmus test. Logically, you can't romanticize marriage and also be excusing of divorce. If they try to do both then they are strangers to logical thought.

If you want to know whether something has relevance today, it helps to understand why it ever had relevance in the first place. There were in fact reasons. Divorce was bad in Biblical times because it caused financial hardship to women and children. Generally it was instigated by the husband. Nowadays, not so much.

It's said that divorce is emotionally devastating for children. What those who say this tend to leave out is any basis of comparison. Devastating compared to what? To growing up under a marriage full of bitterness? Divorce is most certainly less bad than that.

There's nothing magical about marriage. The world figured this out long ago, but Christendom still worships that idol. Divorce is part of the price we pay for expecting too much from marriage.

Rubiks said:

Not only is polygamy not condemned, it is explicitly permitted in Exodus 21:10.

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I think that is why Matt is important to respecify.

Genesis 2:24 ESV / 337 helpful votes
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Matthew 19:4-6 ESV / 227 helpful votes
He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

While the ideal of Genesis is one man one woman, we don't ever see polygamy condemned when it is mentioned kin the Old Testament. The only prohibition against it directly anywhere is in the New Testament, where a pastor is to be the husband of one wife. So it would seem pastors should not be polygamous, but no mention of others. We do see jealously between wives when polygamy is mentioned however. As for divorce, it is condemned in the Bible and remarriage after divorce is likened to adultery.

When we look at the historical context of the Bible we find polygamy was acceptable in the OT.
It was Plato in the Republic that said it should be one man and one woman.
By NT times is was Roman law that a man could only have one wife.
The Jew are the only ethnic group to get an exception to this law. So we see church fathers poking fun at Jewish men with their wives following behind them. It took 1000 years before a Jewish Rabbi in Europe finally said that Jewish men should only have one wife.

So Paul is teaching that pastors should only have one wife so that they don't get in trouble with Roman authorities.
One wife and one husband is actually a pagan idea and not a Jewish idea.

Albion said:

See Romans 7:1-3; marriage to another person while the first spouse is living is deemed to be adultery.

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"7 Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? 2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. 3 So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man."

There is a huge difference between what you said and what the Bible says. The Bible says "woman" not "spouse".

cnystrom said:

"7 Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? 2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. 3 So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man."

There is a huge difference between what you said and what the Bible says. The Bible says "woman" not "spouse".

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I believe I covered all angles of that issue in my previous post.

Kukus said:

Why is it that Christians are more receptive to a man who has divorced his wife and remarried, or a woman who has divorced her husband and remarried, but very unreceptive to a man having two or more wives?

People who have divorced and remarried work as pastors and elders without any problem, regardless of whose fault it was for the divorce. Even the vague "Incompatibility" is becoming increasingly tolerated. However, the marriage of two wives, which unlike divorce and remarriage after divorce, has neither been condemned nor discouraged in the Bible, is frowned upon?

Is this a case where the traditions of man make the word of God to be of not effect? Mark 7:13

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There is no Christian antecedent for polygamy. Christianity arose in a monogamous culture (the Roman Empire). Jesus' statements concerning marriage were taken as being authoritative, about a man leaving his mother and father and cleaving to his wife (as opposed to wives, plural). The Apostolic rule established for those desiring to be clergy forbade polygamy, "the husband of but one wife". And so monogamy was always treated as the norm in the Church, it was the cultural norm for the majority of Christians, Christian clergy were required by Apostolic rule to have no more than one wife (and married priests were generally the norm both in the East and West until the high middle ages, but still remains generally the norm in the East even today).

On the other hand, Christianity does have antecedent for divorce, while divorce is taken very seriously; indeed Christ said "what God has brought together let no man separate" taking the position that the Torah only permitted divorce on account of human weakness. The Western rigor concerning divorce is somewhat unique to the Western tradition; the East takes divorce very seriously as well, but is more open to the causes that could lead to divorce. Protestant churches have tended to likewise take a more pragmatic, rather than strictly rigorous, approach to divorce. Divorce is taken seriously, but clearly there are times when divorce may be inevitable.

So divorce, while taken very seriously, does have antecedent based upon biblical teaching and Christian discernment; that's simply never been the case with polygamy.

One can argue that there is no technical rule against polygamy, but perhaps St. Paul's wisdom here that, "All things are lawful for me, not all things are beneficial for me" should be taken into consideration. After all, there's no rule against jumping out of a boat into shark infested waters, but that doesn't mean it's a wise thing to do.

Quite frankly, it's hard for me to conceive of how polygamy can exist without chauvinism playing a part. With women effectively being reduced to trophies and possessions. That, most certainly, is unacceptable in the Church. Unless one wants to also argue in favor of polyandry.

-CryptoLutheran

He-rat of the Circus-mice said:

I think the point was that divorce is explicitly prohibited in numerous places, but polygamy is essentially advised against once (?) in the passage you quoted. Yet Christians seem quite content with the more seriously condemned sin, yet take very seriously the lesser evil.

I hadn't actually realised this apparent hypocrisy before, until it was stated plainly here.

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Except that divorce is not explicitly prohibited in scripture, whereas polygamy is. Because Jesus referred to conditions which could justify divorce, this is not a "one size fits all" kind of issue. And it definitely is not the case that most Christians or churches are "quite content with" something like a boss running off with his secretary after an adulterous affair.

ViaCrucis said:

Quite frankly, it's hard for me to conceive of how polygamy can exist without chauvinism playing a part. With women effectively being reduced to trophies and possessions.

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It's interesting to consider the experience of two large faith-based forms of polygamy: Islam and the Mormons.

In Islam, men are limited to 4 wives, though 99% of Muslims only have one because they can only afford one. In the context of history, when Muslim men went off to war and didn't come back, the widows were absorbed by other men, and polygamy was more common. In other more peaceful periods/regions, polygamy was practiced mainly by the wealthy.

However, there is a huge balancing factor: marriage contracts. In many parts of the Islamic world, a contract is signed before marriage and both parties can put whatever they want in there - e.g., we're going to live in this town, we're going to have children, Aunt Sadie is not allowed to come to the house, etc. Guess what a lot of women put in as their first bullet point? No other wives. If man and wife are social equals, they have equal bargaining power...if it's a Sheikh and a shepherdess, the financial attractions may outweigh insisting on this clause.

OTOH, you have the Mormons, where polygamy is no longer practiced except in fundamentalist splinters. But going back to when it was common, polygamy was viewed as a commandment from God and something you'd be rewarded for - a HUGE difference compared to Islam, where polygamy is permitted but there is no reward and many strict commandments on treating wives equally. In Brigham Young's day, there were not marriage contracts or protections. Needless to say, when men believe they must have many wives, this practice does not "scale" very well...you quickly run out of women, which is why you see age pressure in fundamentalist splinter groups.

Certainly not endorsing either religion, just adding some data. I agree with ViaCrucis that polygamy does reduce women to possessions. I'm sure we can find many historical, medieval cases where small communities of Muslims have used polygamy to adapt to their historical situation, and while I can't endorse it, it seems to have worked for them. But today it's a privilege of the wealthy - instead of dating magazine cover models, wealthy Muslims have multiple wives. And in Mormonism, it's hard for me to see how it was ever truly idealistic to begin with, and it certainly never played out that way.

I also find reading an endorsement of polygamy into scripture to be a bit desperate to see something that isn't there. God set the pattern in the garden of Eden. I also wouldn't rush to use the kings of Israel as examples for modern behavior

ViaCrucis said:

There is no Christian antecedent for polygamy. Christianity arose in a monogamous culture (the Roman Empire). Jesus' statements concerning marriage were taken as being authoritative, about a man leaving his mother and father and cleaving to his wife (as opposed to wives, plural). The Apostolic rule established for those desiring to be clergy forbade polygamy, "the husband of but one wife".

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If the culture was monogamous then why was there a need for a prohibition? It seems to me either it was a culture where no one wanted a second wife and so the meaning of the verse is something more like "must be married", or "must be married to his first wife", or there was a polygamous culture and thus a prohibition was needed. It seems a contradiction to argue it both ways. So which was it?

ViaCrucis said:

One can argue that there is no technical rule against polygamy, but perhaps St. Paul's wisdom here that, "All things are lawful for me, not all things are beneficial for me" should be taken into consideration. After all, there's no rule against jumping out of a boat into shark infested waters, but that doesn't mean it's a wise thing to do.

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This is of course a very different argument than that polygamy is a prohibited sin. Maybe your waters are different than my waters?

ViaCrucis said:

Quite frankly, it's hard for me to conceive of how polygamy can exist without chauvinism playing a part. With women effectively being reduced to trophies and possessions. That, most certainly, is unacceptable in the Church. Unless one wants to also argue in favor of polyandry.

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Maybe God is pro-patriarchy?

ObadiahHaidabo said:

I also find reading an endorsement of polygamy into scripture to be a bit desperate to see something that isn't there. God set the pattern in the garden of Eden.

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It is funny how you talk about seeing something in scripture that is not there and then you mention the garden of Eden.
Just because you see a pattern, does not mean that it is a pattern that is binding. It could just as easily be your own confirmation bias.

There IS a pattern in the garden of Eve story. But the pattern is not monogamy like you think. It is patriachy. The man is made first. The man named the animals, Eve is made from Adam. This is confirmed in the NT when it is stated that sin entered the world through Adam, even though Eve sinned first.

For this reason the ancients never saw any contradiction in this story and what they were doing, including the person that wrote the story. Both monogamy and polygamy can fit the patriarchy pattern, but modern "equality" marriages do not fit the pattern, even if they are monogamous.

ObadiahHaidabo said:

I also wouldn't rush to use the kings of Israel as examples for modern behavior

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But in the stories about them there might be clues on what God thinks is right and wrong. For example, we might learn something in 2 Chronicles 24:1-3.

cnystrom said:

Maybe God is pro-patriarchy?

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Is that intended to be a serious statement?

-CryptoLutheran

Personally I would argue that the Bible is equally anti-divorce and anti-polygamy, with the one caveat that divorce is permitted in some circumstances while polygamy is not. It is worth noting, however, that divorce exists because marriage exists, but there is no circumstance under which a person might find himself or herself needing to enter a polygamous marriage in order to ensure his/her own personal safety.

That said, if you read the Bible from beginning to end and ask yourself, "What is the Bible's take on polygamy?" I don't know how you can conclude that the Bible is pro-polygamy. Implicitly, it talks about God-honoring marriage as being between one man and woman. Also, I have heard of Jewish scholars noting how it is almost comical the way that things just do not seem to go well in the Old Testament in instances where polygamy is practiced (ex. Abraham and Sarah/Hagar, David, Solomon).

SleepingAtLast said:

Personally I would argue that the Bible is equally anti-divorce and anti-polygamy, with the one caveat that divorce is permitted in some circumstances while polygamy is not.

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Actually not only is polygamy permitted, but in some circimstances it may be required. See "levirate marriage" or "yibbum" for more information.

SleepingAtLast said:

That said, if you read the Bible from beginning to end and ask yourself, "What is the Bible's take on polygamy?" I don't know how you can conclude that the Bible is pro-polygamy. Implicitly, it talks about God-honoring marriage as being between one man and woman.

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Polygamists also believe that marriage is between one man and one woman. Polygamy is not the same thing as group marriage.

SleepingAtLast said:

Also, I have heard of Jewish scholars noting how it is almost comical the way that things just do not seem to go well in the Old Testament in instances where polygamy is practiced (ex. Abraham and Sarah/Hagar, David, Solomon).

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Things did not go all that well for many monogamists in the OT either. For example in the "ideal" monogamist family they brought sin into the world, got kicked out of the garden and then one of the kids ended up killing a sibling, etc. That is not evidence against marriage or family. That is just real life.

ViaCrucis said:

Unless one wants to also argue in favor of polyandry.

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Romans 7:2 and 1 Cor 7:39 prohibit polyandry.

Albion said:

Polygamy was permitted in Old Testament times, but it was never God's ideal. In the New Testament, however, we find it flatly rejected. See Romans 7:1-3; marriage to another person while the first spouse is living is deemed to be adultery. Neither a fornicator or an adulterer shall inherit the kingdom of God -- 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.

In 1 Corinthians 7:2 we see, “Let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.” Polygamy is therefore rejected.

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If you read the entirety of that passage, Paul was saying men who feel lust should get married to prevent pre-marital sex. That is the immorality referred to, not men having multiple wives.

cnystrom said:

Romans 7:2 and 1 Cor 7:39 prohibit polyandry.

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So I'm starting to get this idea that you seem to think that men should be allowed to be with as many women as they want, and that women should be a man's property.

That about right?

-CryptoLutheran

Kukus said:

Polygamy is permitted the same way marriage is permitted. Is there a place why you'll find polygamy prohibited?

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That's an easy one. After the original Mormons were treated like crap for practicing polygamy regularly - to the point that it was the religion's bad reputation - they condemned it for Biblical reasons. So wherever LDS is the dominant religion, polygamy is prohibited.