The way the Catholic church reads this is that deacons do not remarry if widowed. In the Orthodox church a priest must be married before ordination, because he is not allowed to do it afterward. It does not imply that ordinary men had more than one wife.
O.T. Jews did not commit suicide or infanticide which were common practices among the people around them - they were not forbidden to do these things - they just did not do them!
Mrs VS
Since the RC Church also forbids clergy to marry and that is something that I've never seen in scripture, I can't use RC tradition for basing my faith or understanding of the scriptures. No disrepsect intended.
The original poster is correct in saying that there is no prohibition to most having more than one wife and that there are many examples of those that did and received no condemnation from God. Solomon got into excess and idolotry; David took another man's wife and had the man killed.
Those that focuse on "a wife" and similar phrases are bringing in their bias into the topic so support what they want the scrtipture to say instead of allowing it to speak for itself.
For instance, witchcraft and homosexuality are not part of the ten commandmens but those practices are clearly and heartily condemned cover to cover.
However, a man having a plurality of wives never is.
And if we go with only scripture, we have a very hard time condemning a practice that God Himself doesn't condemn. At least I do.
After Pentecost Peter, and later Paul, make it clear that upholding Jewish law and tradition does not lead to righteousness and that the Gentiles are not required to convert to Judiasim in order to be saved.
Paul addresses certtain practices that he finds to be harmful to the church but never criticizes those who have more than one wife. He had plenty of opportunity to do so but never did.