One man, one woman

Does the Bible really teach monogamy?

by Jonathan Sarfati

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Origin of marriage

The clearest evidence that monogamy is God’s ideal is from Christ’s teaching on marriage in Matthew 19:3–6. In this passage, He cited the Genesis creation account, in particular Genesis 1:27 and 2:24, saying “the two will become one flesh”, not more than two.

Another important biblical teaching is the parallel of husband and wife with Christ and the Church in Ephesians 5:22–33, which makes sense only with monogamy—Jesus will not have multiple brides.

The 10^th Commandment “You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife [singular] … ” (Exodus 20:17) also presupposes the ideal that there is only one wife. Polygamy is expressly forbidden for church elders (1 Timothy 3:2). And this is not just for elders, because Paul also wrote: “each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband” (1 Corinthians 7:2). Paul goes on to explain marital responsibilities in terms that make sense only with one husband to one wife.

The example of godly people is also important. Isaac and Rebekah were monogamous—they are often used as a model in Jewish weddings today. Other examples were Joseph and Asenath, and Moses and Zipporah. And the only survivors of the Flood were four monogamous couples.

Polygamy’s origins and consequences

It is very important to remember that not everything recorded in the Bible is approved in the Bible. Consider where polygamy originated—first in the line of the murderer Cain, not the line of Seth. The first recorded polygamist was the murderer Lamech (Genesis 4:23–24). Then Esau, who despised his birthright, also caused much grief to his parents by marrying two pagan wives (Genesis 26:34).

Skeptics often try to discredit this teaching by pointing to examples of multiple wives in the Bible. But what does the Bible really teach?

God also forbade the kings of Israel to have “many wives” (Deuteronomy 17:17). Look at the trouble when Israel’s kings disobeyed, including deadly sibling rivalry between David’s sons from his different wives (2 Samuel 13, 1 Kings 2); and Solomon’s hundreds of wives helped lead Solomon to idolatry (1 Kings 11:1–3).

What about godly men who were polygamous?

Abraham and Sarah would have been monogamous apart from a low point in their faith when Hagar became a second wife—note how much strife this caused later with Ishmael and Isaac and their descendants to this day (Genesis 16, 21). Jacob wanted only Rachel, but was tricked into marrying her older sister Leah, and later he took their slave girls at the sisters’ urging, due to the rivalry between the sisters. Jacob was hardly at a spiritual high point at those times, and neither was David when he added Abigail and Ahinoam (1 Samuel 25:42–43). Also, Hannah, Samuel’s mother, was humiliated by her husband Elkanah’s other wife Peninnah because of Hannah’s previous barrenness (1 Samuel 1:1–7).

Why did God seem to allow it, then?

God’s permitting of polygamy seems more like the case of divorce, which God tolerated for a while under certain conditions because of the hardness of their hearts. But it was not the way it was intended from the beginning (Matthew 19:8). Whenever the Mosaic law had provisions for polygamy, it was always the conditional: “If he takes another wife to himself … ” (Exodus 21:10), never an encouragement. God put a number of obligations on the husband towards the additional wives, which would discourage polygamy. In view of the problems it causes, it is no wonder that polygamy was unknown among the Jews after the Babylonian exile, and monogamy was the rule even among the Greeks and Romans by New Testament times.

Readers’ comments

Kevin May, Australia

Some cultures (other than Islamic) today still accept polygamy, as the community’s means of providing for widows. We encountered this among the Nimboran people of Irian Jaya, Indonesia, where levirate marriage is normal. When a man dies, his relative marries the widow and takes responsibility for her and her children. Often the relative is a younger brother, or perhaps a close cousin who in the culture is also viewed as ‘brother’.

Numerous men in the village where we lived thus had a second wife. But the seemingly inevitable result was conflict between the wives—so much so that the second wife normally lived a long distance from the first, usually in a different village. The one man who had both wives in adjacent houses suffered constant conflict between the rivals, leading to frequent quarrels raging, and destruction of each one’s personal effects by the other.

While the social benefits of having provision for widows and orphans are clear, it is also clear that polygamy is not an ideal situation. Human nature does not take kindly to it, and it is certain to arouse envy and jealousy. So there are very good practical reasons to teach and practise monogamy besides the scriptural reasons that Dr Sarfati has quoted.

Juliery A., Sweden, 3 May 2012

Is it wrong me thinking that: “of course the two(husband and wife) will become one(child).” The act of having intercourse is always one on one. A child(one)bears the genes of two(father and mother). Therefore it is obvious that one husband and one wife shall become one(child). It does not really mean a man should marry one wife otherwise the Bible would have condemned and not embraced the marriage of many wives.

Jonathan Sarfati responds:

No, that can’t work, because the Bible clearly regards childless marriages as real marriages, and same with multi-child marriages. The last comment is already answered in my article.

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Creation Ministries International