Why was is okay for men to marry multiple women but women couldn’t?

Tone

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Maybe because the blood lineage is through the man?

I think it has to do with His Seed, which should only come through His Bride...and She should not preserve the seeds of others...only Her Husband's.
 
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Tone

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For the record, Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines.
Cain's son Lamech had two wives.
Moses had two wives as well.

About 40 instances in all.


Yeah, thanks for that...don't know what I was thinking.
 
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Tone

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It is also through the woman. Only the baby's sex is determined by the man.

But do you see what I'm saying as far as the picture between Messiah and His Church?
 
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eleos1954

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Genesis 19:6-8, this isn’t really about marriage but I just noticed how lot was willing to give up his daughters like they were nothing, and God didn’t say anything about it. How come it was okay for women to be treated like that. Not to sound rude or anything, but I don’t think it matters what culture or time it was, it was still a sin, right? And there were many men in the Bible that married many women, and yet it was okay? I don’t think submitting has anything to do with it, because in the end you are suppose to submit to each other and stick with each other. I understand “man of the house”, or whatever you wanna call it but it’s just doesn’t seem fair that women could be treated like that and nothing was said. Many women were raped, and forced into marriage, and that was okay by God? What if she didn’t want to marry her own rapist... I just don’t understand the things that God seems to let pass. Are women really beneath men? Do we not matter as much? Were we just put here for men’s pleasure?

The only thing that is OK with God and always has been is this

Genesis 2:24

New International Version
That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

God doesn't necessarily intervene in one's choices, but He does provide what the right and good choices are.
 
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GodLovesCats

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Actually, all life is determined and granted by the Father from heaven.

If the word F is lowercase, the statement is 100% about the biological father. No typos accepted - if you mean God, you capitalize it, every single time.
 
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yeshuaslavejeff

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I just don’t understand the things that God seems to let pass.
Many times in Scripture, the illustration is used comparing Jesus and His body, Ekklesia on earth,
to a man and his wife.
Jesus has many followers , but there is only one Lord, one Savior - Jesus.

And remember Sarai called Abraham 'lord', properly.

For her or another woman to have more than one 'lord' would be vary inappropriate, if not directly and strongly in opposition to Yahuweh's (God's) Plan and Purpose.
 
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Tone

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Of course not.You are talking about biology.

Many times in Scripture, the illustration is used comparing Jesus and His body, Ekklesia on earth,
to a man and his wife.

For her or another woman to have more than one 'lord' would be vary inappropriate, if not directly and strongly in opposition to Yahuweh's (God's) Plan and Purpose.

This ^ is the illustration I was trying to convey...good job @yeshuaslavejeff!
 
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Ignatius the Kiwi

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I think there were a few reasons why Polygamy has been permitted historically and was practiced in the ancient world.

Men can have multiple children at a time and were the providers in the ancient world. To have more wives was to be of higher status because you could provide for them and any children as a result. This ensured your line's continued existence in a world with a high mortality rate and children dying in birth or shortly thereafter was not uncommon.

This doesn't justify polygamy and we see often in the Bible the results of Polygamy are family dysfunction. Competition and conflict between wives for the affection of their husband and the such. Jealously in the relationship where one women can provide a child but the other cannot.

Polygamy was and is unsuitable for a healthy family structure but it is natural tendency for women to be attracted to a smaller group of men than it is for men. Most women consider most men unattractive and instinctively go for the higher status men because of either their looks or what they can provide. The ancient world was simply an unrestricted version of this.

To me it speaks of the need of men and women to control themselves and God has let us learn the hard way that polygamy doesn't work and isn't good for society as a whole when compared to monogamy. I think we can see this by comparing this to the Islamic world which still practices and tolerates Polygamy.
 
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JCFantasy23

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If I were to guess, I would say that it wasn't in His plan at the time to change the societal structure to that degree (it would have been pretty massive considering how the times with it being a male-dominated society). He knew the right timing and way of everything; of course now we can look back thousands of years later and wonder why He didn't change this or that right then and there. A lot of "better things" have improved for cultures and societies over time that weren't changed in the bible, but I doubt it meant it met God's father.

I think it's simply a case of men in power having multiple wives because they were seen more as possessions of a sort, "helpers" to bring children, cook, clean, and do other wifely duties. I don't fully back some of the studies that "show" it's based on the male being the decider of the gender of the child (it's a theory, not a proven fact, and there's studies that also show otherwise), so I doubt that had anything to do with it gender wise as mentioned in the thread. It's been shown that through hard times, mainly with loss of food or food choices, that more men are born during these time periods, so if more men were born during this time, it wouldn't be only down to the men chosen to have multiple wives. Here's one article on that, which does assume men's dna can play a role, but mainly backs the theory on it being the diet of women and the food options/times that seem to dictate boy vs. girl births. The evolutionary reasoning behind this makes sense too.

Since men were considered the part of the family primarily paid attention to (with possessions, power, rights, reputation), it would make sense that those who were higher up would be entrusted with more wives to be responsible for.

And as Ignatius stated, a lot of it was logic and protection of the family line. Women would often die in childbirth, as would infants, so having more than one made more sense to carry on the family name. Cold sounding but reality. Men could spread plenty of the seed but they didn't actually have to have the dangers (or time maintenance) of the harvesting, so could it couldn't have worked the other way as effectively, even if it weren't such a male-dominated society.
 
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joshua 1 9

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Many women were raped, and forced into marriage, and that was okay by God?
God makes His plans for marriage very clear. Genesis 2:24 "For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." God made them male and female, man and women so the two could be joined back together and become one. The reason God destroyed Sodom was because they were not following God's plan for marriage. Lot was told to leave the city or be destroyed with the city. As long as he was living there he was taking a chance on his daughters being sucked into their corruption. Even his wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. Perhaps she is the one that wanted to live there in that city.

I just don’t understand the things that God seems to let pass.
You can not blame God for the mess that man and the devil has made out things. This is why Jesus went to Calvary so that man, women and all of Creation could be redeemed and restored to God plan and purpose.

According to Oprah and the law of attraction - people bring this on themselves. People attract either good or evil to themselves. We are told that all things work out for the best when we love God and when we are called according to His purpose. If people live in rebellion then they bring this on themselves.

Parents are to protect their children. I know a pastor and this upset him more then anything else that parents would harm their own children and not protect them the way they should. Women can be even quicker to sell out their children. This is difficult to understand why people are in this sort of a fallen condition and not following God and His plan for us.
 
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public hermit

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Such a great question! I think of what Jesus says in Mark 10:5 that God permitted the writing of certificates of divorce, not because it was good but because of the hardness of the human heart. I take it that God allows for all kinds of behavior even if it is not what God would consider best (i.e. permissive will vs. perfect will). So the fact that some of the patriarchs had more than one wife does not necessarily entail that God thought it was a good thing. Certainly, I think God is not pleased with the mistreatment of women, then or today. Moreover, there is a trajectory within the scriptures that shows a gradual, but certain, tendency towards a more equal treatment of women. Consider Paul's statement that in Christ there is neither male nor female (Galatians 3:28). So yes, in the Hebrew scriptures we find a certain mistreatment/degradation of women, but post-resurrection Paul has Phoebe deliver his letter to the Romans and calls her a "deacon/minister." As for why God allowed such things as the degradation of women, God continues to allow evil in the world to this day. That doesn't mean that God approves. But, great question!!
 
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