Bible not state to have multiple wives is sin.
We know Jesus defined Marriage as one man and one woman.
Informational on ANE practices:
"
5.1 A slave-girl
The most widely known way to have a second wife was to bring in a slave-girl. In
the Bible we see that the childless Sarai offered her husband Abram her Egyptian
slave-girl Hagar:
Take my slave-girl; perhaps through her I shall have a son (Genesis 16:2).
She gave Hagar to Abram as his wife after almost ten years of childlessness. As the
Bible story develops we are told that she was an upstart slave-girl and developed
ideas about herself above her station. That was not a unique situation, for we see
a slave-girl (šipḥā) getting the better of her mistress (g
ebirā) cited in the book of
Proverbs as one of the problems that could cause chaos in the world.
Under three things the earth shakes, four things it cannot bear: a slave becoming a king, a
fool gorging himself, a hateful woman getting wed, and a slave supplanting her mistress
(Prov. 30:22–23).
A slave-girl would take on a more elevated position if she bore children. Her
status was sometimes recognised with a new contract. Old Babylonian marriage
contracts state that such a girl would be a man’s ‘wife’ and his wife’s ‘slave-girl’,
maintaining the higher position of his first wife.¹² In an anecdotal speech a slave
who had become a second wife in this way said,
I am a slave-girl and I have no authority over my mistress. Let me go and pick my own
husband.¹³
The laws of Ur-Nammu consider the repercussions when a man took the initiative
in ‘making the slave-girl just like her mistress’. Whoever then insulted her would
have to go and wash out his mouth:¹⁴
If anyone should utter a curse against the slave-girl of a man, who has been made (equal to)
her mistress, then his mouth should be rubbed with a litre of salt (§ 25).
12 J.J. Finkelstein, YOS 13 (1972) p. 15 f.
13 B. Alster, Proverbs of ancient Sumer I (1997) 247, Coll. 19 Section D 11; 326 UET 6/2 386.
14 A. Falkenstein in C. Wilcke, Das Lugalbandaepos (1969) 182; Studies Th. Jacobsen (2002)
319 f.; see H. Neumann in Durand, La Femme (1987) 135–137. Previously it was thought that a
slave-girl put herself on a par with her mistress and was punished. – Now C. Wilcke, Festschrift
J. Krecher (2014) 546 § 30’.
A slave-girl 169
The following law deals with someone striking a slave, but the passage about the
punishment has been broken off. Was she a slave-girl who had been promoted to
be the wife, or was she a concubine? Slave-girls could sometimes also be concubines, as we shall see in Chapter 6.
In the Old Assyrian period a childless wife could buy a slave-girl on her own
initiative.
If she has not produced a descendant for him within two years, she shall herself buy a slavegirl and as soon as she later produces a child for him, she may sell her to whomsoever she
wishes.¹⁵
We often see in the Old Babylonian period that the second wife is from humble
origins and is evidently a slave. Even so, she may not be sold.
One instance of this is a marriage in Sippar in the time of King Immerum. We
learn from this text that the second woman is of lowly birth and that her fertility has already been proven.¹⁶ The text is concerned with a certain Warad-Sîn,
the son of Ibni-Sîn, who had married a girl named Ištar-ummi. He was a wealthy
man and the text comes from his archive. Ištar-ummi is a typical slave’s name,
and the phrase ‘is her name’ after the name itself is an addition often found with
the names of slaves. It is stated that the girl was the daughter of Buzazum and
Lamassatum, and on the clay envelope in which the text was wrapped her mother
L. is said to be a nun (a nadîtu, of the god Šamaš). One assumes that the girl
had at some time been adopted as a daughter by the couple, B. and L. She was
taken in marriage out of their custody by Warad-Sîn, undoubtedly as his second
wife. He paid forty shekels of silver as her ‘bride-price’ and he also gave them a
slave, specified by name. This was exceptional. The price given is higher than we
know from elsewhere and the gift of a slave was also unprecedented. According
to the envelope, the parents of the bride could not complain against or make any
demands on ‘Ištar-ummi and her children’, which is surprising. It is conceivable
that the children already existed. We know of a similar case from a contract for a
marriage, where the first wife had the name of a nun and the second was called
her ‘sister’. There mention is made of the children of the second wife, ‘which
had been or would be born’ (they were regarded as being the children of both
women).¹⁷ We learn from this that a second wife with children could be married.
This woman was seen as being fertile, which she would have to be when taken
15 ICK I 3. We shall translate this text in full later.
16 VAS 8 4–5 (VAB 5 32), discussed by M. Stol in Studies A. Skaist (2012) 157 f.
17 BAP 89 with R. Harris, JNES 33 (1974) 365 f. One of a group of three texts which we shall discuss later under ‘A marriage to two sisters’.
170 A second wife
as a second wife. Reverting to the high bride-price, we note that the bride was
valuable for two reasons. She had shown that she was fertile and furthermore
she had brought children to the marriage. This would explain why the bride-price
was high. Possibly a slave was given in exchange for the children. It is conceivable
that this slave would be later adopted by the couple on condition that he would
care for them in their old age. That was something that often happened.¹⁸
One gets the impression that second wives came from humble parentage.
Their simple names already indicate this.¹⁹ Possibly they were handed over on
payment of a bride-price by destitute parents. In those circumstances the ‘brideprice’ seems more likely to have been a ‘woman’s price’, an idea which can be
supported with textual evidence. A woman ‘takes’ a girl like this from her father
and mother and pays ‘the full bride-price’. This was done with the intention
of avoiding having to make later payments, because there was probably some
concern that the bride-price had been really very low. The girl was to be a ‘slavegirl’ for this woman, but for her husband Warad-Sîn ‘she was a wife’. The girl
had to share in the likes and dislikes of the woman. But if ever she ‘made her
heart sick’ she could immediately be sold, after she had been marked as a slave
by shaving off her hair.²⁰ The inferior status of this girl, who was after all a free
woman, is surprising. Did her parents in fact sell her? Or is this a clause in divorce
law which aims to mark the low status of this woman within marriage?
5.2 Initiating the transaction
Sometimes the man took the initiative in procuring a second wife, at other times ..."
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