The Bible Says Polygyny is Permissible – Wait… What?

Traditional marriage is no longer traditional at all. Now some Christians are arguing that it should be okay to have more than one spouse. Recent discussions on Facebook argued that the Bible supports polygyny, where a man can have more than one wife. There is even a “Biblical Christian Polygamy/Polygyny Group” of over 2K followers on Facebook. Given today’s redefination of marriage, why should this shock me today?

Of course I tried to argue that the condoning of polygyny was an inaccurate understanding of Scripture, but like many arguments on social media, that went no where fast. So, instead of trying to fight it out on a platform that tends to encourage division and not respectable discourse, I am posting reasons why polygyny is wrong here.

As was stated in someone’s argument for the acceptance of multiple wives, there is no “one verse” that explicitly says having more than one wife is committing adultery. However, if you’re an avid reader of the Bible, there are a lot of things that are not explicitly stated. So we must look at the whole of Scripture to conclude that polygyny is not God’s intention. Yes, polygyny was allowed in the Old Testament, but It was a cultural issue that ancient societies practiced for these main reasons:

1. Infertility – in the Bible, polygamy was a result of infertility, such as when Abraham took a second wife, Hagar, and conceived his son Ishmael.
2. Economic activity – Polygamy was more common in places where subsistence farming was the main economic activity, such as in Africa.
3. Infant mortality – When many children died before the age of five, families needed more than one child-bearer to be economically viable.
4. War – When many men died in war, having more than one wife was a way to quickly increase the population.
5. Status – Wealth and status were often tied to the number of wives a man (kings) had.
6. Political alliances – Having more wives allowed a man to form more military and political alliances.

The Old Testament shows that kings and patriarchs who took multiple wives faced disastrous consequences. God even warns any king of Israel not to “multiply wives,” (Deut. 17:17) or else his heart will turn away. And that is what usually happened – King Solomon married many foreign wives and in 1 Kings 11, he turned from God.

In Deuteronomy 24, Moses created divorce laws for the Jewish people. This was not what God wanted, but He allowed it because hearts had become hardened. By the time Jesus was on Earth, he spoke specifically against divorce since Jewish men were divorcing their wives for a wide range of reasons, including not pleasing the husband, or simply finding another woman more attractive.1¹ The wife had little legal standing to contest the divorce. Jesus confronted the men about this. He refered back to the creation account in Matthew 19:5-9. He said that a man who marries another is guilty of adultery (Mark 10:11). I think that is perhaps the closest verse we will find about how polygamy is like adultery. 

Paul also said that a man who already has a wife cannot add another, because his body belongs to his wife (1 Cor. 7:4). Also, in the Pauline epistles, these letters say that church officials should be respectable, above reproach, and the husband of a single wife (1 Tim. 3:2). Polygamists can’t be church leaders. And consider Ephesians 5:22-33, and specifically in verse 33, take notice of the singular nouns— husband and wife. It says the two become one – why would you want something God permits instead of what His intention is?  Divorce was permitted because of hardness of heart – do we want to have hard hearts? 

In the overall biblical narrative, a thoughtful reader will notice that there is a progressive movement towards a better ethical treatment of people. This is how Christians eventually saw slavery was not God’s best, even though He allowed it. It’s crucial in the proper interpretation of the Bible to know that God accommodates culture but does not create it. He works within our limited knowledge in the times in which we are born, but He wants us to grow beyond it, to a point where all people are treated like Christ treats us. So, given this understaning, the vast majority of pastors and scholars today do not believe having more than one wife is God’s design. There are laws against polygamy (or polygyny) today for good reason.

When interpreting the Bible, it is good practice to consider cumulative verses, reading reliable scholarship and taking into account the differences between ancient cultures and our present day. We should be moving towards a better understanding of God’s perfect will, not just His permissive will.

What do you think? Leave a comment below, and may God bless you for reading this blog to its end!

1.  D. W. Amram, The Jewish Law of Divorce according to Bible and Talmud( New York: Hermon  Press, 1975), p. 24  ↩︎