POLYGAMY

The Bible, in tolerating polygamy, gives evidence that the practice
had long been an accepted social institution when these laws were
written down. In the patriarchal age polygamy is regarded as an
unquestioned custom. While the Bible gives a reason for the action of
Abraham in taking Hagar for an additional wife and, in the case of
Jacob, for having Rachel as a wife besides Leah, it only proves that
polygamy as well as concubinage, with which it was always associated,
was among the mores of the ancient Hebrew people (Gen. 16:1-4;
29:23-28). The same attitude is revealed in the episode of Abimelech
and Sarah (Gen. 20:1-l3).

Polygamy was such a well established part of the social system that
Mosaic law is not even critical of it. We find only certain
regulations with respect to it; as, for example, if a man takes a
second wife the economic position of the first wife and of the
children she bore must be secure; and, in the case of inheritance, no
child of a subsequent marriage is to be preferred over a child from
the first wife. Other regulations were that the high priest could have
only one wife and that a king in Israel should not have too many wives
(Lev. 21:13; Deut. 17:17; Ex. 21:10). The last injunction, however,
was of no effect. David had seven wives before he began to reign in
Jerusalem, and an extraordinary number of wives and concubines has
been attributed to Solomon (II Sam 3:2-5, 14; 5:13). In connection
with David, the prophet Nathan did not denounce the king for adding
Uriah's wife to those he already had but for the means he employed to
secure her (II Sam. 12:7-15).

However, if polygamy was not forbidden it was not directly sanctioned.
It was a heritage from the past and it was left undisturbed. As the
civilization of the people reached a higher form and, especially under
the teaching of the prophets, their moral and religious consciousness
developed, the polygamous system gradually declined. This is
noticeable in Israel after the return from the Exile. In the Second
Commonwealth polygamy is far from general (cf. Tobit and Susanna). Yet
it survived far into the Christian era. In the New Testament Jesus
neither condemns polygamous unions nor advocates a change in the
system. From this noninterference attitude Luther, as late as the 16th
cent., arrived at the conclusion that he could not forbid the taking
of more than one wife.

According to the Talmud the right to a plurality of wives is conceded,
but the number of legitimate wives, as in the Koran, is limited to
four. The taking of additional wives is held as sufficient ground for
divorce for a woman who had previously been the sole wife. Where a
polygamous union exists, provision must be made for adequate
maintenance of each wife as well as a separate domicile. Throughout
the Talmudic age not one rabbi is known to have had more than one
wife. Monogamy was held to be the only ideal legal union; plurality of
wives was a concession to time and condition.

At a later period Maimonides in his Mishneh Torah maintains, contrary
to his personal opinion, that polygamous unions from a strictly legal
point of view are permissible. Eventually, however, they were
proscribed under the authority of Rabbi Gershom (about l000), although
cases of polygamy were found in Spain as late as the 14th cent. That
such cases were not rare may be inferred from the fact that in the
Spanish communities the Kethubah, the document marking the betrothal,
exacted that the man was not to take a second wife. The Islamic
influence on the Jews in Spain was more or less pronounced until the
expulsion at the end of the 15th cent.

In modern Europe polygamy disappeared from Jewish domestic life while
among Christians it remained a tolerated privilege of royalty until
very late times. In the declaration against polygamy of the Sanhedrin
convoked by Napoleon in Paris, in 1805, there is no implication that
modern Judaism tolerated plural marriages. It was just an emphatic
assertion that Jews had discarded the orientalism of the past and were
in full accord with the culture and civilization of Western Europe.

CHARLES A. RUBENSTEIN


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Bibliography:

Abrahams, 1., Jewish Life in the Middle Ages (1917);
Westermarck, E., History of Human Marriage (1901);
Spencer, H., Principles of Sociology idem, Descriptive Sociology;
Lay, Wilfrid, A Plea for Monogamy (1923)
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Howard A. Landman / HaL Computer Systems / landman@hal.com

Last updated 1995 May 4