Oh, those awful patriarchs and kings. How could they have been so wrong? And their wives, their FIRST wives, their REAL wives--how could they stand it? Why did they stand it?
"Lamech took to himself two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other, Zillah" (Gen 4:19). This is the first we hear of polygamy in the Bible. If one wife is good, two must be better; and Lamech's reasoning is found amenable for generations thereafter.
Interesting that God does not provide any editorial remark. Doesn't He think polygamy is bad? Well, yes. It's terrible. So terrible no one needs to say it's bad because every sane person knows. God also makes no comment on Lamech's bragging on his own malice and bloodlust a few verses down. We don't need to have it spelled out for us that Lamech's sins are sins.
But anyway, imagine Lamech's kids and neighbors. Meh, two wives. That's just how we do it in our tent, just how they do it next door. Not normal for everybody, but normal for Lamech. And what's normal for your dad or your neighbor, well, it's not that weird, right? Something you see every day isn't weird. Normal for Lamech and Adah and Zillah becomes normal for their sons, normal for their daughters, normal for their neighbors, just normal.
So Jacob: another week, another wife. David, a man after God's own heart, never gives us an indication that this polygamy business keeps him up at night for any good reason (neither does the practice solve his lust problem). Even tender Elkanah cannot imagine himself to be worth less to Hannah than ten sons, oblivious to having given her only half of himself. And if our main concern is that polygamy is bad for women, I wonder if 1000 lonely Ancient Near East guys might have some insights to offer wise Solomon.
What happens to polygamy? Exile, probably, and the poverty it brings. Roman occupation and law (thanks for that at least, nations). Once polygamy becomes abnormal again, its wrongness becomes self-evident to Christians. (Though our honored fathers can still trip us up.)
Polygamy: the sexual sin the people of God--good, pious, exemplary people of God--could not live without. Fornication, divorce and prostitution/pornography being roughly historically equal, can we possibly be so arrogant as to imagine that we have transcended this capacity for tremendous transgression, for unthinkable unchastity?
But don't worry, Protestants. As long as you're not a bishop (and what Protestant would be?) the Bible doesn't say you can't have two wives. As my favorite pastor told me, "At least polygamy is life-affirming."
5 comments:
I've got this pet theory about the silence of the OT RE: the polygamy of our dear patriarchs. When Eve destroyed herself, she really meant it. She took the pinnacle of creation and turned it into a black hole, thus becoming foul de facto. Foul, and of questionable worth. As it was for Eve, so it was for her daughters. Of course there was no issue with marrying many wives while having a dozen concubines on the side. It's what Eve wanted for herself, and what mother wants, she gets.
But, then, there was Mary, and through Mary God changed everything ...
RE: polygamy and God's attitude toward, I liked this quote I came across a while back:
"The first point to note is that when God determined to solve the problem of Adam's loneliness, He did not do it with a harem"
I was kind of shocked the other day when I saw a preview for some new "reality show" involving polygamist families. Are they trying to popularize it or the opposite? What's going on?
how do you spell "fornication"?
A-d-u-l-t-e-r-y.
RE: Further Reading... "Affordability."
::snort:: I get that all the time from the 2.1 crowd.
Leah, I think the bottom line for that show is that voyeurism is good business.
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