natsab

This week I found a terrific short paper by Tom Shipley that sticks a dagger in the ‘Monogamy is a Creation Ideal’ doctrine. While I, and many others, have demonstrated multiple errors and fallacies with the ‘Creation Ideal’ doctrine, few are so succinct as this salient quote from the above linked two page paper.

2) Secondly, but equally important, the moral and ethical validity of polygyny, multiple wives, is derived immediately and directly from the creation narrative in Genesis. In establishing patriarchy, the headship of the man, the moral and ethical validity of polygyny is thereby also established. Consider
what St. Augustine had to say about this:

“For by a secret law of nature, things that stand chief love to be singular; but things that are subject are set under, not only one under one, but…even several under one…For neither has one slave…several masters, in the way that several slaves have one master. Thus we read not that any of the holy women served two or more living husbands; but we read that many females served one husband…for neither is it contrary to the nature of marriage. For several females can conceive from one man: but one female cannot from several men (such is the power of things principal) as many souls are rightly made subject to one God.” —from “A Selected Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church,” Ed. by Philip Schaff, Vol. III, pg. 407-408

All hierarchical structures have this one vs. many characteristic. In a corporation, there is one CEO but many subordinates, and all of the sub-departments of the corporation have the same structure…

Creation = Patriarchy = Polygyny

Simply, by definition, patriarchy, a major theme of all of Scripture, demands the option of polygyny, a man having more than one wife. Scripture supports and satisfies this demand with regulatory laws and commands while giving zero condemnation of it or any practitioner thereof. ZERO! Anyone who says otherwise is a liar and a charlatan.

Selah!