Keep your Bible open

Here are the passages I think we need to read.

If we were sitting at a kitchen table, I would not ask you to settle this from one verse. I would start with the laws that name the household, then we would read Genesis, Jesus, and Paul.

One caution before we start: a law can regulate an arrangement without praising it, and a story can report an action without approving it. Silence proves neither permission nor prohibition. On each page, I first ask what the passage actually establishes and what would still have to be shown from the rest of Scripture.

You will find the Hebrew or Greek, a close translation, and a serious reason someone may read the passage differently. Exodus 21:10 is a good place to begin. It takes about a minute to read, and the objection about regulation appears right beside it.

If the history is your first question, see how the teaching developed. For a shorter introduction, check the three familiar Bible details.

The law

These passages address plural households directly.

  1. Exodus 21:10–11What a man owesThis law describes a man taking another wife and immediately turns to the woman already in the household. Her food, clothing, and marital rights may not be reduced. If he withholds them, she goes free. The law tells us about her legal standing and his obligations, but it does not answer every moral question about the household.
  2. Deuteronomy 21:15–17The son of the unloved wifeThe law begins, “If a man has two wives,” and protects the firstborn son of the less-loved wife. It establishes his lawful place in the family and limits his father's power. It does not tell us, by itself, whether the household should have been formed.
  3. Leviticus 18:18The hardest verse in the argumentOne Hebrew phrase may mean “a woman in addition to another,” which would make this a direct prohibition. Or it may mean a woman’s actual sister. The argument made here has to survive that choice.
  4. Deuteronomy 17:17The law for kingsThis verse plainly limits the king's wives and places that warning beside horses, silver, and gold. The dispute is whether it forbids every second wife or warns the throne against dangerous accumulation.

The beginning

Genesis gives the creation account quoted by Jesus and Paul.

  1. Genesis 2:24What Genesis says, and what we infer from itGenesis describes a man leaving his parents, holding fast to his wife, and the two becoming one flesh. Jesus and Paul both return to these words. The question is whether they define each marriage or also establish that no husband may form another.

Jesus and Paul

These passages are most often used to complete the traditional case.

  1. Matthew 19:3–9 · Mark 10:2–12The question Jesus was askedThe Pharisees ask whether a man may divorce his wife for any cause. Jesus takes them back to creation and gives a demanding answer. The question is whether his answer also establishes a marriage limit they did not ask about.
  2. 1 Corinthians 7:1–5Paul answers Corinth’s marriage questions“Let each man have his own wife” sounds like a numerical rule when it stands alone. In the conversation Paul is answering, some married believers appear to be asking whether they should stop sleeping together.
  3. 1 Timothy 3:2 · Titus 1:6 · 1 Timothy 5:9A one-woman manThe King James and RSV say “the husband of one wife.” The NIV says “faithful to his wife.” The NRSV says “married only once.” That difference matters, so we will start by asking why careful translators reach three different conclusions.

After these eight passages, you may still wonder whether the New Testament’s silence should settle the matter. Read the answer about that silence.