The Bible and Polygamy: Does the Bible Sanction Polygamy‪?‬

Here is a law, in the words of the Great Law-giver himself, the Lord, who spake to Moses; and it certainly must be a sanction of a plurality of wives, for it is given to regulate inheritances in families of that description, as well as in families wherein the first wife may have been divorced, or may be dead; wives contemporary and wives that are successive. It refers to both classes; and inasmuch as plurality of wives is nowhere condemned in the law of God, we have a right to believe from this law that plurality of wives is just as legal and proper as that of the marriage of a single wife. This is the ground we are forced to take until we can find some law, some evidence, some testimony to the contrary. They are acknowledged as wives in this passage, at least—"If a man have two wives." It is well known that the House of Israel at that time practised both monogamy and polygamy. They were not exclusively monogamists; neither were they exclusively polygamists. There were monogamic families existing in Israel in those days, and therefore in the Lord giving this He referred not only to successive wives, where a man had married after the death of his first wife, or if the first wife had been divorced for some legal cause, but to wives who were contemporary, as there were many families in Israel, which can be proved if necessary, that were polygamists. I might here refer to the existence of this principle concerning the rights of the first-born in monogamic and polygamic families prior to the date of this law. This seems to have been given to regulate a question that had a prior existence. I will refer, before I proceed from this passage, to the monogamic family of Isaac, wherein we have the declaration that Esau and Jacob, being twins, had a dispute, or at least there was an ill feeling on the part of Esau, because Jacob at a certain time had purchased the right of the first-born—that is, his birth-right. The first-born, though twins, and perhaps a few moments intervening between the first and second, or only a short time, had rights, and those rights were respected and honored centuries before the days of Moses. This was a monogamic family, so far as we are informed; for if Isaac had more than one wife, the Bible does not inform us. We come to Jacob, who was a polygamist, and whose first-born son pertained to the father and not to the mother. There were not four first-born sons to Jacob who were entitled to the rights of the first-born, but only one. The first-born to Jacob was Reuben, and he would have retained the birth-right had he not transgressed the law of heaven. Because of transgression he lost that privilege. It was taken from him and given to Joseph, or rather to the two sons of Joseph, as you will find recorded in the fifth chapter of 1st Chronicles. Here then the rights of the first-born were acknowledged, in both polygamic and monogamic families, before the law under consideration was given. The House of Israel was not only founded in polygamy, but the two wives of Jacob, and the two handmaidens, that were also called his wives, were the women with whom he begat the twelve sons from whom the twelve tribes of Israel sprang; and polygamy having existed and originated as it were with Israel or Jacob, in that nation, was continued among them from generation to generation down until the coming of Christ; and these laws therefore were intended to regulate an institution already in existence. If the law is limited to monogamic families only, it will devolve upon my learned opponent to bring forth evidence to establish this point.

We will next refer to a passage which will be found in Exodus 21st chapter, 10th verse. It may be well to read the three preceding verses, commencing with the 7th: "And if a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men servants do. If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed; to sell her into a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her. And if he hath betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. If he take him another wife, her food, her raiment and her duty of marriage shall he not diminish." Also the following verse, the 11th: "And if he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without money." I think from the nature of this passage that it certainly does have reference to two lawful wives. It may be that objection will be taken to the word "wife"—"another wife"—from the fact that it is in Italics, and was so placed by the translators of King James, according to the best judgment they could form, taking into consideration the text. I do not intend at present to dwell at any great length upon this passage, merely declaring that this does sanction plurality of wives, so far as my judgment and opinion are concerned, and so far as the literal reading of the Scripture exhibits it does sanction the taking of another wife, while the first is still living. If this word "wife" could be translated "woman," that perhaps might alter the case, providing it can be proved that it should be so from the original, which may be referred to on this point, and it may not. We have the privilege, I believe, of taking the Bible according to King James' translation, or of referring to the original, providing we can find any original. But so far as the original is concerned, from which this was translated, it is not in existence. The last information we have of the original manuscripts from which this was translated, is that they were made into the form of kites and used for amusement, instead of being preserved. With regard to a great many other manuscripts, they may perhaps agree with the original of King James' translation, or they may not. We have testimony and evidence in the Encyclopedia Metropolitana that the original manuscripts contained a vast number of readings, differing materially one from the other. We have this statement from some of the best informed men, and in several instances it has been stated that there are 30,000 different readings of these old original manuscripts from which the Bible was translated. Men might dispute over these readings all the days of their lives and there would be a difference of opinion, there were so many of them. This, then, is another law, regulating, in my estimation, polygamy.