# 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:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/21 "2010-06-08T20:57:40Z")
> [@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? It’s a question that I have asked for years. The Bible very clearly states that, at that point in time, there are only three living humans: Adam, Eve and Cain. So where did the wife come from? ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/22 "2010-06-09T04:04:44Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > It’s a question that I have asked for years. The Bible very clearly states that, at that point in time, there are only three living humans: Adam, Eve and Cain. So where did the wife come from? Could you point out where it very clearly states that? True we only have three surviving named humans by Genesis 4:16. But unless my various bibles are missing verses, there is nothing in there that explicitly says that there are only three. Of course it also doesn’t say that they eat, excrete, or sleep either. But I think that we as readers are supposed to fill in some of the gaps ourselves. As they say absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. ---
**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 9, 2010, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/23 "2010-06-09T04:23:23Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > The Bible very clearly states that, at that point in time, there are only three living humans: Adam, Eve and Cain. So where did the wife come from? I don’t know what bible _you’ve_ been reading, but the NIV not only does _not_ clearly state what you say it does, it implies quite the contrary: Gen 4:13 Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me." 15 But the LORD said to him, “Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the LORD’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden. 17 Cain lay with his wife … Clearly, Earth has plenty of people and Cain fears retribution from them - so much so that God specifically protects Cain from them. Where did these people come from? Well, there are plenty of places in this chapter where years (or even centuries) could have passed. Seth is Eve’s third child, but he wasn’t the last. Really, I don’t understand the need to make this out to be some kind of mystery. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/24 "2010-06-09T04:27:25Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > There are plenty of places in this chapter where years (or even centuries) could have passed. Ah, that makes the most sense then. So Eve could have dropped a few hundred kids, those kids would have in-breeded like crazy (possibly with Adam and Eve’s help,) and then one of them could have married Cain. Yeah, Cain screwing his sister would have been sick. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/25 "2010-06-09T04:30:21Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > 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? The bible claims epic life spans for the first few generations of the Bible. Seth lives 800 years, so if Cain survived a similar amount of time, thats enough for some 40 generations, enough time for Cain to see the World go from just he his parents and sibilings to a pretty well populated Earth, easily enough to find a wife and populate a city. ---
**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 9, 2010, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/26 "2010-06-09T07:11:24Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > Yeah, Cain screwing his sister would have been sick. Well, _somebody_ either screwed a sister (or possibly Adam screwed his daughters, so Adam’s sons could screw their nieces) at some point. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/27 "2010-06-09T07:18:31Z")
Thousand year old tradition is that Cain and Abel were each born with a twin sister and each was to marry the twin of his brother. Their names were (spellings vary widely) were Aclima (the twin of Cain) and Jamila (the twin of Abel), though Cain was in love with his own twin who was betrothed to his brother. (Lord Byron changed the names to Adah and Zillah but used other parts of the legend.) Cain, who also according to some apocryphal but ancient variants and commentaries was not the son of Adam but son of Eve and the serpent/demon Sammael- hence the rejection by God- slew Abel because he envied Aclima and to spite God for his rejection. [A page on some of the variants.](http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/cain.html#palestine) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/28 "2010-06-09T14:17:21Z")
> [@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? We haven’t found the text yet, but after God rested on the seventh day he created a few more individuals on the eighth day. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/29 "2010-06-09T14:24:29Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > We haven’t found the text yet, but after God rested on the seventh day he created a few more individuals on the eighth day. Including the Hobbits and, by some accounts, the Smurfs. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/30 "2010-06-09T17:17:04Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > 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? Yes. And he built it on Rock and Roll. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/31 "2010-06-09T18:28:12Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > 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. I don’t know if you actually support this position or not, but it really irritates me when Christians (not all of them do this, btw) try to make the argument that A&E and co were ‘genetically perfect’. The concept makes no sense biologically speaking and it’s simply an attempt to make the explanation _sound_ scientific, when the reality is, it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/32 "2010-06-09T18:47:20Z")
The attempts of many modern biblical literalists to reconcile an ancient mythos with established scientific principles are doomed to fail because these two mental models are orthogonal to one another. I am not a Christian, but if I were, I’d be more than a bit irritated at the diminished nature of the Creator that is implied by the requirement for Him/Her/It to conform to a literal interpretation of the texts described by some humans as Holy Writ. In other words, an entity capable of Creating an entire Cosmos by fiat should not be constrained by the limited imagination of a few self-appointed spokespeople. Doing so seems somehow hubrical to me. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/33 "2010-06-09T18:54:38Z")
As obscure as the apocryphal “Cain was the son of the serpent” variant is, incidentally, it has found its way into the mythology of some white supremacists. Lines I’ve never understood how biblical literalists get around is the descendants of Cain. His g-g-g-grandson Lamech is said to have had two wives and with his first wife > [@](#): > > Then Lamech took for himself two wives: the name of one was Adah, and the name of the second was Zillah. And Adah bore Jabal. **He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock.** His brother’s name was Jubal. **He was the father of all those who play the harp and flute.** Now, the entire population of the world is washed away in the Great Flood with the exception of Noah and his sons and daughters-in-law. How then can Jabal be the ancestor of tent dwelling shepherds and Jubal be the ancestor of all musicians? While certainly it’s possible Noah was a descendant of these people, then that would mean that all tent dwellers and musicians and craftsmen and dancers and farmers and one-eyed drag queens for that matter are descendants fo Noah. If Noah’s sons married girls who descended from these- well, within a generation or two the Shemites and Japhethites and Hamites were completely intermarried as well so thereagain it’s not like descent from Jabal or Jubal is any distinction- everybody would be a descendant of them both. Of course I was told not to worry about this in elementary school (I went to a religious academy). The same school told us that the descendants of Ham went down to Africa and turned black and that’s why we say “hambone” today (which I think actually _is_ true in the etymology of hambone but it’s a bit odd for the rest). ---
**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 9, 2010, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/34 "2010-06-09T22:11:16Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > Yes. And he built it on Rock and Roll. As Ray Stevens didn’t sing: Guitar-Cain Made yourself a pain Built a city on a plain And made yourself a name Guitar-Cain ---
**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 9, 2010, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/35 "2010-06-09T22:13:29Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > The bible claims epic life spans for the first few generations of the Bible. Seth lives 800 years, so if Cain survived a similar amount of time, thats enough for some 40 generations, enough time for Cain to see the World go from just he his parents and sibilings to a pretty well populated Earth, easily enough to find a wife and populate a city. So he wandered for centuries in the wilderness with no women or nothing? No wonder he could populate a city after he got married - he was probably horny as hell. ---
**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 9, 2010, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255/36 "2010-06-09T22:16:48Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Clearly, Earth has plenty of people and Cain fears retribution from them - so much so that God specifically protects Cain from them. > Where did these people come from? Well, there are plenty of places in this chapter where years (or even centuries) could have passed. Seth is Eve’s third child, but he wasn’t the last. Really, I don’t understand the need to make this out to be some kind of mystery. So he only wondered about people after the sons of Seth (and later children of Adam and Eve) grew up? Talk about holding a grudge. Not to mention that at this point every person on earth was either a child, a brother or a niece of nephew. That must have been a family that made the Corleones look like sweethearts. Reminds me of Anna Russell’s version of the Ring, where she points out that for most of his life every woman Siegfried ever knew was an aunt. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-cain-and-abels-wives-come-from/542255.md?page=1)