The Bible and Polygamy: Does the Bible Sanction Polygamy?Newman, John Philip
Religion
The Bible and Polygamy: Does the Bible Sanction Polygamy?
Newman, John Philip
Bible -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.; Latter Day Saint churches -- Doctrines; Polygamy -- Religious aspects
But there is certain reasoning introduced to show that a wife should
not be put away. In the beginning the Lord made one, that is a wife
for Adam, that he might not be alone. Woman was given to man for a
companion, that he might protect her, and for other holy purposes, but
not to be put away for trivial causes; and it was cause of condemnation
in those days for a man to put away his wife. But there is not a word
in Malachi condemnatory of a man marrying more than one wife. Jesus
also gives the law respecting divorces, that they should not put away
their wives for any other cause than that of fornication; and he that
took a wife that was put away would commit adultery. Jesus says, in the
5th chapter, that he that putteth away his wife for any other cause
than fornication causes her to commit adultery. Then the husband is a
guilty accomplice, and if he puts away his wife unjustly he is guilty
of adultery himself, the same as a confederate in murder is himself
a murderer. As an adulterer he has no right to take another wife; he
has not the right to take even one wife. His right is to be stoned
to death; to suffer the penalty of death for his sin of adultery.
Consequently, if he has no right to even life itself, he has no right
to a wife. But the case of such a man, who has become an adulterer
by putting away his wife, and has no right to marry another, has no
application, nor has the argument drawn from it any application, to the
man who keeps his wife and takes another. The law referred to by my
learned opponent, in Leviticus xviii and 18, shows that polygamy was in
existence, but was to be kept within the circle of those who were not
blood relations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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