I’ve seen a few polygamy-related threads here, but I haven’t seen a detailed discussion of this particular question. As I understand it, the ancient Romans and Greeks did not practice polygamy, though almost everybody else in the Roman Empire did. Although the practice is not specifically prohibited in the Bible, sometime in the Middle Ages the Roman church declared polygamy to be un-Christian. Before that, they put up with it. (Charlemagne does not seem to have needed to go monogamous after his conversion.)
So my question is, given that monogamy was more a Roman tradition than a Judeo-Christian one, why did it come to be equated with Christianity? Why did the Church decide to forbid polygamy when it did? Also, as a side note, did the pre-Christian Romans and Greeks have any rationale for forbidding polygamy among themselves apart from “that’s the way we do things”?
You mean Constantine, not Charlemagne, right? (Moot point about him, though–Constantine did not actually convert until he was dying-- before that he had simply made Christianity legal) Well, I think the Roman empire just sort of just slid into the Christian era, temporally continuous, and eventually, holding the same old standards and values, whatever had been Roman that continued was now “Christian” Roman. Of course the other groups that converted may have previously been polygamous, but I’m not familiar with what scripture would mention polygamy, although I’m sure there’s something. I’m sure someone else here knows more on that.
No, I meant Charlemagne. I thought he converted to Christianity, though now I look him up again it looks like he was born into it. Either way, he was definitely polygamous.
I realize many Roman practices continued in the Christian era, but the Church didn’t make all of them into Christian law–it didn’t make everybody speak Latin and wear Roman clothes and eat Roman food, for instance. What I’m wondering is why the Church came to regard it as a moral issue rather than a matter of local custom (as the pagan Romans seemed to regard it).
As to what the Bible says, Christians I’ve asked mention Paul saying that it’s better to have one wife than many, and better still to have no wife. They also sometimes mention that there was only one Eve for Adam. Both of those strike me as retrofitting scripture to suit the rule, frankly. And I don’t know if those are the reasons for the Church’s original ban.
On the one hand, polygamy was legal among the Jews for many centuries, banned among Ashkenzim (North and East Europeans) about 1000 years ago, and Sefardim (Mediterranean and Middle Eastern) only in the last few decades.
On the other hand, monogamy was always preferred over polygamy. Offhand, the only Jewish men I can remember with more than one wife are Jacob and King David. Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Aaron, and most others all had only one wife.
Well, in most polygamous societies only the wealthier guys can afford to do it, and the Hebrews seemed to fit that pattern. I don’t remember it being preferred for moral reasons though.
[sub]NOTE: The word translated “overseer” here is traditionally interpreted as the modern equivalent of a deacon.[/sub]
This is one of only three DIRECT statements in the New Testament that declare that a man is REQUIRED to be monogamous; and I note that these statements apply only to men who aspire to certain leadership roles.
However, throughout the NT we see statements that suggest that monogamy is preferable.
1 Cor 7:2, 7:3
Eph 5:28, 5:33
As for the polygamy of early Christians: it seems that the idea of polygamy just took a long time to die out. It’s rather like slavery, really. Slavery was something that was tolerated in Biblical times (both the Old and New Testaments have detailed passages dealing with how to deal with slaves) but that Christendom has since deemed morally reprehinsible.
In fairness to the early Christains, the slavery of the Mediterranean and middle-east, while still not a fun existance, wasn’t as bad as American chattle slavery.