Why biblical polygamy does not turn out well

Though polygamy is clearly allowed in the Bible, it almost always leads to really bad situations. Of the three religions coming out of the Bible, Christianity (early) and Judaism (much later) ended polygamy while Islam continued it.

Jacob marries two Sisters: Rachel and Leah

Jacob Marries Two Sisters: Rachel and Leah Source:There are several stories of polygamy in the Bible, and they almost all turn out badly.

In Genesis 29 (see this article attached to this learning for the complete story), Jacob has fled Canaan from his murderous brother Esau after deceptively obtaining Esau's blessing from Isaac. He makes his way to Haran, to his uncle Laban's house.

There he ends up marrying Laban's two daughters, Leah and Rachel, as well as their two handmaidens, Bilhah and Zilpah. But he only married Leah because he was tricked into it, and as verse 29:31 records, Leah was hated. Some translations offer the nicer "unloved" or "not loved," but the literal Hebrew is quite clearly hate.

Reading through this chapter, and the explanations that Leah gives to the names each of her children receives, it's heart-wrenching to see what it can be like for one wife when a different wife is clearly preferred by her husband. And when they're sisters, of course, it's that much worse.

This dynamic doesn't end - the children of Rachel are preferred by Jacob to the children of Leah, leading to a lot of resentment and ultimately the brothers' selling Joseph (Rachel's son) down to Egypt.

Later on in the Bible, the reality that it's not such a good idea to marry two sisters is turned into a proper prohibition:

"You shall not take a woman as a wife after marrying her sister, as her rival, to uncover her nakedness beside the other during her lifetime." (Vayikra 18:18)

Abraham, Sarah and Hagar: Hagar is banished

Abraham, Sarah and Hagar: Hagar Is Banished Source: torah.org A couple of generations earlier, Abraham's wife, Sarah, who he loves, is barren for many years. So she suggests that Abraham take her maidservant, Hagar, as his second wife.

But she ends up regretting it pretty quickly, as Hagar starts disrespecting her from the moment that she becomes pregnant. In two separate episodes, Sarah demands that Abraham banish Hagar, first when she is pregnant and then after Hagar's teenaged son, Ishmael, is mistreating Sarah's young son, Isaac (don't let the image trick you - Ishmael is 13 years older than Isaac, not the same age as in this painting).

In each case, Hagar and Ishmael almost perish in the desert but are miraculously saved.

So Sarah and Hagar did really poorly as co-wives. This post retells the full story and suggests based on a rabbinic source that Sarah acted inappropriately. Here maybe the message is not to marry your wife and her servant.

Very interestingly, after Sarah dies, the midrash suggests that Isaac took an unusual step. Abraham's servant was off searching for a wife for Isaac. Isaac, according to the midrash, felt that the least he could in return was make sure his father wasn't alone.

So in Genesis 24:62, he went to the Well of the Eternal One Who Sees, the well named by Hagar after her miraculous salvation. Why did he go there? The midrash suggests that this is where Hagar went to live after having been sent away the second time.

(Interestingly, I believe Islam says the same thing - this is the Zamzam well outside of Mecca.) And Isaac went there to bring Hagar back to be his father's wife once more.

So there you have quite a co-wife dynamic: the son of the preferred wife encouraging his father to remarry the rejected wife after his preferred wife passes away. And then after Abraham dies, it says in 25:11 that Isaac went back to the Well again, to ensure that Hagar remains part of the family.

Rival wives: Hannah and Peninah

Even when there's no prior relationship between two wives, it still can go quite badly. In the beginning of the Book of Samuel, as you can read in this post, Elkanah has two wives, and as usual the one he loves better (Hannah) is barren while the one he loves less (Peninah) has kids. And just as this painting captures, Peninah does not hesitate to torture Hannah with incessant reminders of her barrenness.

In Biblical Hebrew, the word tzarah means both "trouble" and "co-wife." So that makes it pretty clear, I'd say - no illusions here about whether co-wives were likely to get along happily.

King David & King Solomon and their many wives

When it came to the kings, they can't say they weren't warned. Deuteronomy 17:16-17 warns, "The king must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, "You are not to go back that way again." He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray."

King David took at least 22 wives and concubines, and suffered greatly from the infighting as to who would inherit his throne.

But King Solomon's story offers more of a warning. This learning takes you to I Kings 11, where we read of King Solomon's 1000 wives (which doesn't include the Queen of Sheba, pictured here, with whom he had a more ambiguous relationship, but the Ethiopian Orthodox Church claims descent from their union, as well as the resulting possession of the holy Ark of the Covenant).

Just as Deuteronomy warned, they lead him astray, building sites of idol worship in his old age, as a result of which he is punished by having the kingdom torn in two in the next generation.

Why (and When) did Christianity outlaw polygamy?

Why (and When) Did Christianity Outlaw Polygamy? Source: en.wikipedia.org If polygamy was so clearly allowed in the Hebrew Bible, how did it come to pass that the early Church prohibited it?

You could say they were good readers of the Hebrew Bible and saw how this didn't go so well. But this Wikipedia article suggests that a major driving force may have been the fact that Roman marriage had to be monogamous. And since Christianity began within the Roman empire, that may well have had a major impact.

As you can see in this article, there is debate as to what the Christian Bible has to say about polygamy. Though there are several Biblical passages that seem to outlaw it, none of them are 100% clear, leaving open the possibility that the Christian prohibition came only after the Bible. Sign Up to comment

TLC's Sister wives: Mormonism and Polygamy

It's well known, thanks to shows like Big Love and the TLC's series of documentaries of real-life families, that an offshoot of the Mormon church still practices polygamy today.

This learn Board from Discovery highlights TLC's "Sister Wives" documentary featuring Kody Brown and his four wives. There's also an interesting learning about the history of polygamy in the US and the original position of the Mormon church on the question.

Finally, there's a learning that looks at this issue from a totally different perspective. Many traditional African societies today have polygamy, and in this learning the author argues why polygamy is a good thing.

Maasai tribe: The meaning of love and polygamy

From the BBC show "Tribal Wives" (where British women get integrated into indigenous tribes around the world), this video provides some interesting perspective on polygamy.

If marriage is not about love but about successfully running a household, then polygamy could take on a totally different feel. In the Bible, it kind of feels like marriage is about both love and practicality, or sometimes one and sometimes the other.

Does Jewish law forbid polygamy?

In Judaism, there's no mention of polygamy in the rabbinic period (~2000 years ago), so it seems to have been a permitted but very uncommon practice.

But 1000 years ago, the head of the Ashkenazi (Northern European) Jewish community, Rabbeinu Gershom, put out a new decree. Among other things (like forbidding reading other people's mail), Rabbeinu Gershom outlawed polygamy.

This article suggests 5 different reasons for Rabbeinu Gershom's decree, most of them to do with ensuring greater happiness within the home, either because of infighting between the wives or a husband not being nice to all his wives or just because of the financial strain.

However, this decree did not apply to the Sephardic Jewish communities in Spain and later on North Africa and the Middle East.

Jewish polygamy

This 1906 entry from the Jewish Encyclopedia gives a very thorough look at polygamy in Judaism, from a close reading of the Bible (When did polygamy start? What was the ideal, as represented by Adam and Eve? Why did the Judges take multiple wives? Why did the Prophets not do so?) through the rabbinic period and into the last millenia.

Polygamy in the Sephardic world was certainly rare, but it remained a possibility until recent years, when there were basically almost no Jews left living in countries that permitted polygamy.

Why polygamy is allowed in Islam

This blog post written by a Muslim woman attempts to explain the underlying reason behind Islam's allowing a man to take up to four wives. In addition, she offers suggestions to the women for how to make it work.

In Islam, explicit in the Quran and Hadith (oral teachings of the Prophet Muhammad), a man is allowed to marry up to 4 women. It's neither encouraged nor discouraged, just allowed. The author argues, based on the context in the Quran of these teachings, that after a time of war, with so many fallen men, polygamy is a means of caring for the widows and orphans.

Islam requires the husband to treat all his wives equally - to divide his time and financial resources evenly and provide similar housing for each.

Towards the end of this post, the author provides an interesting collection of tips and advice for women considering marrying someone who is already married.

Polygamy in Islam: The historical context

Among many interesting pieces in this Wikipedia article, two in particular jump out as worth paying attention to:

1) The historical context. In the Arabian peninsula in the time of the Prophet Muhammad, there were no limits on the number of wives a man could take. There was also in general a good deal of variety of the kinds of marriages allowed by different societies in the region.

It was most definitely not a Christian-ruled area with monogamy as the norm. It's quite possible that Islam actually greatly limited polygamy and added protections for that time period.

2) A current list of Muslim countries with some restrictions on polygamy and what those restrictions are.

Becoming sister wives: The story of an unconventional marriage

Since TLC first launched its popular reality program Sister Wives, Kody Brown, his four wives—Meri, Janelle, Christine, and Robyn—and their seventeen children have become one of the most famous families in the country.