# Where did Cain and Abel's wives come from? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 7, 2010, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255 "2010-06-07T09:11:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/1 "2010-06-07T09:11:19Z")
I was reading Genesis today, and in the section where Cain killed Abel, Cain fled with his wife. Where did his wife come from? Also, Adam and Eve had a third son, Epram or something. Where did all the wives come from? They must have been his sisters, right? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/2 "2010-06-07T09:26:55Z")
Yes. Or nieces. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/3 "2010-06-07T11:01:55Z")
The usual explanation is that- yes, there was sibling-marriage because that was all that was available. Adam & Eve being the first ensouled humans were genetically perfect. However, the Fall into Sin introduced illness, genetic deterioration & death to the human race, but it took time for it to affect Adam & family. Parent-child sex was forbidden from the start (Genesis 2:24). After the Flood, humanity got a re-boot, but Noah’s grandkids had their cousins to intermarry with. Abraham & Sarah MAY have been half-siblings (or he may have been lying about that). It wasn’t until Book of Leviticus that the Law was set down to not mate any closer than first cousins (yep, cousins is allowed & genetic studies AFAIK still OK that). Oh- and Son #3 was Seth. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/4 "2010-06-07T11:39:54Z")
Sice there was 2 Genesis stories of Creation; Adam also had a wife before Eve and maybe they had children, so maybe they were girls,and Adams children by his first wife then mated with their half sisters? Or maybe the creation story is just that…a way to explain the beginning of human life on earth! ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/5 "2010-06-07T12:06:34Z")
Or could be Nod people. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/6 "2010-06-07T12:21:15Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > Sice there was 2 Genesis stories of Creation; Adam also had a wife before Eve and maybe they had children, so maybe they were girls,and Adams children by his first wife then mated with their half sisters? Or maybe the creation story is just that…a way to explain the beginning of human life on earth! Even if there were two Creation stories, there is no Biblical mention of any pre-Eve wife of Adam. Nor is that in the Talmud, as is often claimed, tho Lilith is mentioned there. The idea that Lilith was the first wife of Adam appears no earlier than 700 A.D. [Lilith - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith#Folk_tradition) ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/7 "2010-06-07T12:35:38Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > I was reading Genesis today, and in the section where Cain killed Abel, Cain fled with his wife. Where did his wife come from? Also, Adam and Eve had a third son, Epram or something. Where did all the wives come from? They must have been his sisters, right? Third son was Seth. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/8 "2010-06-07T12:58:19Z")
The _Book of Jubilees_, an Apocryphon that IIRC the Ethiopian Orthodox include in their canon, comes right out and says the first generations married their sisters. _Genesis_ only \*\*names \*\*3 of Adam and Eve’s sons, but does say they had many sons and daughters. As mentioned, the understanding of heredity for most of history for many people was that humanity had _degenerated_ from a more perfect state (and continued downward). Also consider that with the alleged extreme lifetimes of those characters in Early Genesis, you could get into Heinlein-like scenarios where within a couple of hundred years you’d have a large population of VERY distant collateral descendants of your parents around you and you’d still be in the prime of your life. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/9 "2010-06-07T13:22:46Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > _Genesis_ only \*\*names \*\*3 of Adam and Eve’s sons, but does say they had many sons and daughters. Actually, Eve’s name gets dropped from the story as soon as Cain’s name is added, well before Seth and any other children, whose only named parent is Adam. Trivial nitpick, I know. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/10 "2010-06-07T13:26:22Z")
Double post. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/11 "2010-06-07T13:42:05Z")
Cough … [fanwank](http://wiki.fandomwank.com/index.php/Fanwank)… cough … . ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/12 "2010-06-07T13:53:37Z")
I don’t think the early Jews really had a problem with taking the story (true or false) as well as there being other people around when neccessary. It’s a very mdoern preoccupation to make early histories and legends make “sense”, because people simply didn’t write down everything. There was a damn lot they assumed the audience knew or would understand without being told. Thus, they never explain where this or that ancient empire came from in the Bible. The Babylonians and the Egyptions just appear in the text. This is because it was meant to convey history and moral teachings and not be a nice, safe novel. ---
**Author:** ![Shawn1767](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Shawn1767](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shawn1767)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/13 "2010-06-07T14:01:59Z")
Well, when fundamentalists are saying that it’s the literal word of God, how can people go in and say that they married people who weren’t mentioned before? Can we also put in there and say, “well, they meant to put in the Bible that homosexuality was ok.” Or can we only change the “literal” word of God when it doesn’t make sense? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/14 "2010-06-07T14:02:36Z")
So in addition to modern people being less genetically perfect, we’re also more anal? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/15 "2010-06-07T14:18:51Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > It’s a very mdoern preoccupation to make early histories and legends make “sense”, because people simply didn’t write down everything. There was a damn lot they assumed the audience knew or would understand without being told… So you’re saying people in the olden days understood myths, metaphors, allegories, etc. but modern Americans in the days of Beck, Limbaugh and televangelism are less intelligent? Hmmm … maybe they _are_ right about one thing, after all: evolution _isn’t_ working! :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/16 "2010-06-07T14:50:03Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > So you’re saying people in the olden days understood myths, metaphors, allegories, etc. but modern Americans in the days of Beck, Limbaugh and televangelism are less intelligent? Hmmm … maybe they _are_ right about one thing, after all: evolution _isn’t_ working! :smack: Well, the argument isn’t that modern Americans are “less intelligent”, but (and I’m taking this from Karen Armstrong) that, since the scientific revolution, modern man has changed the way that we understand “facts” and “truth”. While premodern man recognized two kinds of truth; “mythos”, which focuses on ideas of universal truths and spiritual patterns, and “logos”, which focuses on this world and drawing conclusions from observable events, modern man only recognizes “logos” as legitimate. So modern man is forced to reinterpret premodern myths through a modern lens. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/17 "2010-06-07T15:49:31Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > So you’re saying people in the olden days understood myths, metaphors, allegories, etc. but modern Americans in the days of Beck, Limbaugh and televangelism are less intelligent? Hmmm … maybe they _are_ right about one thing, after all: evolution _isn’t_ working! :smack: _Looks balefuklly at septimus_ Do me the honor of not grabbing what I wrote and turning it into an excuse to vomit your politics and insult people’s intelligence. I do not roll my eyes at you, because your comment is not even worth it. **Captain Amazing** , I think you are on the right track, but partly wrong conclusion. People today do believe in myth - or mythos. However, it does have the pretension of scientific truth, and often to its detriment. It must pretend to be scientific, even when its wildly inappropriate and doesn’t add anything of value. We are simply used to having every piece of information at our fingertips, even before the internet. We don’t consider a story (truthful or otherwise) complete until or unless we have twenty sources, fifty analyses, and media pundits talking about it on the nghtly news. People didn’t used think that way. Information moved slowly, writing difficult and time-consuming. There were fewer pretensions to fake accuracy\* and only what was absolutely essential was communicated down the eons. \*As in, using precise-sounding information to pretend something is more accurate than it is. It’s an old statistical trick: say that 72.183% of the population liked your [car/sextoy/weightloss scheme/whatever] and people will be less likely to challenge the numbers. They get intimidated by the heavily massaged “scientific” data. ---
**Author:** ![Lanzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/74df32/32.png) [@Lanzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lanzy)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/18 "2010-06-07T16:24:22Z")
Wives? Which one was black, Adam or Eve? oh wait or Oriental? Were they short and we got tall by acident or vice versa? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2010, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/19 "2010-06-07T16:35:52Z")
The interesting question is not who married Cain, but where the people in the city he went to came from. 4:17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch. Did he build a city just for himself? ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/20 "2010-06-08T03:35:48Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > So in addition to modern people being less genetically perfect, we’re also more anal? Also absolute hypocrites. I also read Leviticus. 😃 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255.md?page=2)