Expert: Rev. Andrew Smith - 5/16/2008

Question
Hi,

I know that in many nonChristian countries in the world, such as Arab countries and many parts of Africa, men are allowed to have many wives.  I read in the Boston Globe that because of this reason many men in Africa convert to Islam.  This was also the case in the Old Testament.  Can you tell me why Christians are not allowed more than one wife?  Where is this forbidden in the New Testament. I am not looking for a second wife, I'm just curious where the change is recorded.

Thank you

A.J.

Answer
  A.J.,

  I almost passed on this question because it's way out on the edge of my expertise. Hopefully what I DO know about the subject will be enough to answer the question.

  First, polygamy as such is not condemned in the New Testament, although "bishops" are expected by the author of I Timothy to be the "husband of but one wife" as indicated by chapter three of that epistle. That's the easy part of the answer.

  The hard part is explaining why Christians have almost always rejected a practice not rejected by the New Testament! Let me provide some numbered points.

  1) The Christian Church didn't create marriage. It was already a social convention in the environment where it emerged, both among Jews (who practiced monogamy even though rabbis admitted that the Hebrew Scriptures did not condemn polygamy; they just asserted that it was a bad idea) and Greco-Romans, who practiced marriage mostly as a way of ensuring orderly transfer of property from parents to children. For Romans, marriage was only permissible between free persons; slaves were not permitted to marry under Roman law. The church simply came to recognize marriages as a part of life and affirmed it as something worth respecting. Because polygamy was considered out of bounds for people in the Greco-Roman world, the church simply accepted that judgement in the same way that it accepted its judgements on slavery (Colossians 3:18-25).

  2) An early Christian defense of monogamy can be found at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf04.iii.vii.i.html . This is Tertullian's (160-225 AD) "On Monogamy." I have never read it all the way through, but you might find it interesting. The caution here is that Tertullian, who, as a "Montanist," believed that a person could only get married once, is probably not attacking the practice of bigamy, but of remarriage after the death of a spouse.

  2) Less importantly, Martin Luther did something during the Reformation that showed the conflict between monogamy as a social convention and the silence of the New Testament on the matter. One of the Reformation's chief supporters among the German nobility, Philip of Hesse, was stuck in an unfulfilling marriage. Because he was something of a bon vivant anyway, he decided to marry another wife (1540). Bowing to pressure, Luther and his helper Melanchthon admitted that the New Testament did not explicitly forbid multiple marriages. Philip went through with it, but when word got out, it caused a scandal for the Lutheran cause and eventually precipitated Philip's abandoning the Reformation altogether. Philip eventually landed in prison for his behavior.

  This is about all I know on the topic. I hope it helps. Thanks for asking a really good question.

  Andrew