TS brings up the Biblical question of Christian marriage:
I read with interest your article in WND stating that polygamy was simply against the present status quo and was not against God’s law.
You gave one example from the Bible (from Timothy) that has been used by Christians to argue against polygamy, and basically you dismissed it (with a rather weak counter-argument, in my opinon.) However, even discounting the Timothy argument, I would offer that there are many other examples suggesting – at the very least – that paired relationships are God’s ideal:
-God created Adam and Eve. He created one woman for Adam, and made her Adam’s complement. He did not create two or more women for Adam. This original pair is referred to as the example of perfection.
-Jesus referred to marriage as a man and a woman becoming one flesh. He did not refer to a man and women becoming one flesh.
-The Old Testament Israeli kings were told not to have multiple wives (although they all disobeyed.)
-In every example of the Bible where polygamy is practiced, the households are torn with great jealousy and strife. We have no examples of polygamous, biblical relationships which were happy or content.
First, let me note that the question of the Biblical ideal is largely beside the point. Although they are the primary foundation of the Western cultural tradition, Biblical ideals have no place in secular law per se – the significant distinction between morality and legality that my feminist critics also can’t seem to grasp – and if Christians were to be serious about enshrining Biblical ideals into law, they would probably consider banning marriage altogether. (1 Corinthians 7:8 and :38). Alternatively, one might interpret the concession Paul grants to rampant immorality as requiring marriage of everyone.
Since most Christians are not deacons or elders, your description of my Timothy- and Titus-based counter-argument as weak is very strange. If Christians could not marry more than one wife with the Church’s blessing, there would be no need for the qualification. Jesus Christ’s reference to “one flesh” appears to be either metaphorical or a literal description of the marital consumnation; it cannot be a reference to souls becoming one spiritually in light of his answer to the question of the ill-fated brothers and their single, much-widowed bride.
As to the Biblical examples, that statement is simply inaccurate. There are many men with multiple wives in the Bible whose states of marital harmony are not described as problematic as they are not described at all. Furthermore, most of the examples of monogamous marriage provided are equally problematic, beginning with the Adam and Eve pairing working out in sub-optimal fashion. With regards to the reference to OT kings, were the black robes to permit it, there is no reason why an additional requirement that in addition to being 35 and a natural-born citizen, a man must also have but one wife in order to be elected President.
But the main reason that these Christian objections to polygamy are spurious is that if seven of the Ten Commandmends are not enshrined in law, if the Great Commandment is not enshrined in law, there is no significant requirement for something that is only potentially a minor Biblical ideal – on the level with temperance – in comparison to be enshrined in secular law.
In fact, one could make a better Biblically-based argument for making greed illegal. It is said that the good of things can be best judged by their fruits, and there are few things as unfruitful as modern monogamous marriage in the West.