Posted on 07/04/2015 2:11:54 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Just to magnify your question somewhat, you’ll note that Torah presents the original paradigm of marriage—that of Adam and Eve—as monogamous. Furthermore, virtually every instance of polygamy recounted in the Torah is related directly by the narrative to some sort of calamity—whether strife between competing wives, as was the case with Hannah and Peninah,1 or between rivaling half-siblings, e.g. Jacob’s2 and King David’s sons.3 Even the very verse4 in which the Torah provides a green light for polygamy frames it within an undesirable circumstance: “If a man will have two wives, one beloved and the other hated . . .”
Why, then, make room for trouble? If the ideal union of man and woman is an exclusive one, why should “a nation of priests and a holy people” compromise?
The simple answer is that Torah deals with life on earth, and the gamut of social life and human experience over all of history and world geography is too diverse to be restricted to one narrow ideal. Take, for example, an agrarian society whose male population has been decimated by war. How are women to survive, and how is the population to replenish itself, without the mechanism of polygamy? Similarly, a man married to a barren woman who could not produce sons to help in the field and defend the fort would find himself ill-put to survive in those times. In an exclusively monogamous society, his wife would find her position insecure. Although in normative circumstances being “only one of many” compromises a woman’s value as a person, in these situations a permit for polygamy is a form of compassion.
The only case of a polygamous rabbi recorded in the Talmud5 provides an excellent illustration: Rabbi Tarfon married 300 women. Why? Because there was a famine in the land. But Rabbi Tarfon had plenty of food, since he was a kohen and received the priestly tithes. The wife of a kohen is also permitted to eat those tithes. Those 300 women were very happy that the Torah permitted polygamy.
Torah discourages abuse of this permit—not just by recounting the calamitous narratives mentioned above, but also by placing requirements on the husband. For every extra wife, no matter how lowly her status, a man must provide “food, clothing and conjugal rights” commensurate to her needs and his capacity, and equal to any other wives.6 Additionally, the husband must provide separate housing for each wife. Divorce requires involvement of a scribe, and the sages later instituted the ketubah as a further impediment of divorce. (See also Why is Jewish Marriage So One-Sided?) We see that these means were in fact effective—polygamy in Jewish circles was historically a rare exception.
Rare, but necessary nevertheless. Even when Rabbi Gershom and his rabbinical court assembled to declare a ban on polygamy due to the conditions of their time (see previous link for more on this injunction), they nevertheless left the door open for extenuating circumstances. That loophole has proven vital in many an instance—for example, the case of a wife who has become (G‑d forbid) mentally incapacitated and is not halachically qualified to receive a divorce.
You may wish to think of Torah as the DNA of a highly resilient organism called the Jewish people. Whenever circumstances change, this organism looks back into its DNA and finds some code that allows for an adaptive modality. There’s plenty off limits, but there is enough leeway to provide for every situation human life on planet Earth can throw at you. Proof is, we’ve been through it all—nomadic, agrarian, civilized, industrial, technological—and in every part of the world, and we’re still here, strong as ever.
FOOTNOTES 1. I Samuel ch. 1.
2. Genesis ch. 37.
3. I Kings ch. 1.
4. Deuteronomy 21:15.
5. Jerusalem Talmud, Yevamot 4:12.
6. Exodus 21:10; Maimoindes, Laws of Marriage 14:3.
That is an interesting subject. I’ll have to see what Rabbi Daniel Lapin says about this (American Alliance of Jews and Christians).
It may have allowed polygamy as an act of mercy, but it also mentioned many wrongs of Israel. The fact that it mentioned wrongs is not evidence of approval.
The prophets often mentioned that, because Israel chose to worship Baal, many curses was pronounced on the state of Israel. Polygamy may have been one of those curses because we know today that polygamy often makes a society more violent because it leaves many males without hope for a mate.
Rabbi Lapin says
“Years of slavery in Egypt damaged Jewish family life. For its very first ritual as a nation, God gathered the Israelites, not into political, tribal, gender, or labor groupings but into individual families. By asserting the bond between husband, wife and children, God was reestablishing the importance of the family as society’s fundamental element. Hence, rule number one.”
In today’s modern world, with jet airplane and ship travel, how could “many males” in our society be left without hope for a mate? There are four countries I can think of, right off the top of my head, that contain HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of females willing to marry a Western male and no, Russia and the Ukraine are not on that list.
Females are more willing to share a mate than males are. If Western society permits widespread polygamy, there will be males somewhere that will not have mates. Non-mated males tend to be very risk oriented and will do things when they aren’t being kept in check by somebody.
Anyone who interprets their reading of The Bible “allowing” polygamy has a reading for comprehension problem. Polygamy stories ALWAYS go South and many of our wourld’s problems today can be traced straight as an arrow back to these disasters thousands of years ago.
Do you want me to list those four countries? It’d be easy to double that.
I think the Rabbi is saying that it isn’t proscribed.
Then you got nothing to worry about. Let us legalize polygamy.
Progress!
I’m already married and have been for some time.
Interesting speculation.
Regards,
Yeah, I get that, and the history he quotes supports him. Having read the Bible for myself a few times I have to say you having to really be trying to come up with “the Bible supports polygamy”.
Hardness of heart is also behind the example of the rabbi who married hundreds of women and provided them with food. There was a famine, the author says ... but obviously there was enough food, or the rabbi wouldn't have it for his wives. The problem was hardness of heart when it came to distribution ... and apparently nobody was willing to help a starving woman unless he got to use her for sex.
As I understood the story, they could not eat of the priest’s allotments unless they were in his family and marriage accomplished that, so that he “saved” 300 women.
That’s what it said. However, the fact is (according to the story), there was plenty of food. The food was concentrated in a few hands, rather than available to all.
It’s true, as a simple matter of economics, that one way to allocate food resources is for the man who controls them to use them to buy other people, but it’s difficult to consider that a religious ideal.
Again, it would seem that the rules say he cannot just pass out that temple food willy-nilly, but only to certain people, as it is a tithe.
Then the people who gave him the food needed to use it to feed the starving, instead. There’s a reason God said, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” The hard of heart will use any excuse not to help others.
Fortunately it was late '80s and I wasn't sent up for a Courts Martial....
Polygamy is evil. Justifications are BS. 300 wives to solve a famine problem? Really? The Rabbi had what? Massive grain silos? Sounds like Soviet-style socialism to me. He obviously didn’t work for those grain silos.
I realize that a lot of things happened in history that shouldn’t be judged by today’s standards. At the same time we shouldn’t bend over backwards to apologize for the bad behavior of ancient wrong-doers. If you have 300 wives you are a slave-holder. Ok so slavery was part of the ancient world, yes. But please don’t call it Good.
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