Polygamy, Polygyny and Polyandry

[ialmisry]

Does the following suggest that the wedding resulted in one wife for the bridegroom? Did he have more than one wife already? Did he marry again later? We don't know. It says only that Jesus and His family members attended a wedding, not how many wives the man had.

1 On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; 2 Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples. 3 When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." 4 And Jesus said to her, "O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come." 5 His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."
 6 Now six stone jars were standing there, for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the steward of the feast." So they took it. 9 When the steward of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward of the feast called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, "Every man serves the good wine first; and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine; but you have kept the good wine until now." 11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him. 12 After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothers and his disciples; and there they stayed for a few days. (Joh 2:1-12 RSV)

Also, does the following imply that a man can be married to only one wife at one time or does it speak to divorce only?

3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?" 4 He answered, "Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, `For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder." 7 They said to him, "Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?" 8 He said to them, "For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery." (Mat 19:3-9 RSV)

if it allowed polygamy, "marrying another" wouldn't be committing adultery.

[ipm]

Yeah, the Engels quote is funny in today's terms. It's all I could find on short notice to provide a competing opinion.

The bad boyfriends quote is a bit offensive to me since husbands can be abusive too. I lived that to some degree with my mom. In my opinion, women should have the legal right to walk away from abuse (via divorce) and should not for even one microsecond even think about that act of abandoning the abusive marriage as being morally incorrect. This is the equality part if you ask me.

This is interesting: "if it allowed polygamy, "marrying another" wouldn't be committing adultery.".  I guess my question was what if the husband marries another without the divorce that is mentioned? So here, the inappropriate divorce is not the point in defining the adultery. It's a prescription against any relationship outside of the first marriage, except if she commits adultery first. Then only on grounds of her infidelity is it OK for him to look elsewhere. If he does not divorce her, and still marries someone else, then its adultery on his part. I asked since one could read that last sentence as saying that the divorce defines the adultery and nothing else.

[ialmisry]

Yeah, the Engels quote is funny in today's terms. It's all I could find on short notice to provide a competing opinion.

The bad boyfriends quote is a bit offensive to me since husbands can be abusive too.

Not at anywhere near the same rate.  And while an abusive husband (and, for that matter a nonabusive husband) can be made to pay, an abusive boyfriend pretty much can't.

I lived that to some degree with my mom. In my opinion, women should have the legal right to walk away from abuse (via divorce) and should not for even one microsecond even think about that act of abandoning the abusive marriage as being morally incorrect. This is the equality part.

Hardly, as a man can't abandon an abusive marriage.  And the definition of abuse, as if that mattered nowadays, is quite malleable in divorce court.

[ipm]

Like I said, I strongly disagree with the boyfriend/abuse argument and I find that a bit offensive so I will drop it.

[Xenia1918]

At what point did polygamy become considered sinful in Jewish and Christian history, and why?

Ah, one of my pet issues, ever since becoming hooked a few years ago on Big Love (now ended).

Judaism permitted polygamy until 960 CE/AD, when Rabbenu Gershom issued a ban on it (for Ashkenazi Jews only, since European Jews were the only ones he had jurisdiction over). The ban was intended to last only 500 years, but by then most Ashkenazi Jews had become used to it.

Interestingly, it was not done for religious reasons; it was done to prevent antisemitism, because it was felt that if Jews could continue having plural wives when Catholics could not, Jew hatred would arise.

In the 1950s, when the zionist state initiated Operation Magic Carpet to airlift Jews from Morocco, the Ashkenazi Jews in the Holy Land were aghast to see Moroccan Jewish men descending the plane steps with their often 4 wives each in tow, all fussing over them! What a shanda! lol

A law was passed that banned future polygamy, though any Sephardic Jews with multiple wives at the time were allowed to keep them.

[vamrat]

If I may: one of the problems with polygamy is that if, for instance, one man marries four women, then who's left for the next three men who are looking for brides? The same thing would happen in the case of polyandry. Not as many men left for the remaining women. Pretty soon, you wind up with a serious population imbalance, because part of the community will have lots of kids while another can't. That's only one of the issues, but it's a serious one.

One that China is conducting an experiment on, by killing its girls.

I can think of one profession in China that will benefit from large numbers of sexually frustrated young men...  Someone needs to tell Russia to keep a close eye on Siberia.

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