Polygamy.
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it sanctions that other twin relic of barbarism, polygamy.
The Mosaic law provides that “if a man have two wives, one beloved and another hated,” he shall not ignore the legal rights of the hated wife’s children (Deut. xxi, 15–17). This statute recognizes both the existence and the validity of the institution.
Another statute (Deut. xxv, 5) provides that if a man die, his surviving brother shall become the husband of his widow, and this regardless as to whether the brother be married or single.
The first eighteen verses of the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus are devoted to what is termed “unlawful marriages.” Here polygamy is recognized and regulated to the extent of prohibiting a man from marrying the sister of a living wife.
But there is one statute which places the validity of this institution, so far as the Bible is concerned, beyond all controversy. Deuteronomy (xxiii, 2) declares that no illegitimate child shall enter into the congregation of the Lord, even up to the tenth generation. Now, polygamy was either lawful or unlawful. If unlawful, then the children of polygamists were illegitimate children, and disqualified for the sanctuary. But the children of polygamists were not thus disqualified. The founders of the twelve tribes of Israel were all children of a polygamist.
The most renowned Bible characters were polygamists. Abraham had two wives, and when he died the Lord said, “Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws” (Gen. xxvi, 6).
Jacob was a polygamist, and after he had secured four wives and concubines, God blessed him and said, “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. xxxv, 11).
Gideon had “many wives” (Jud. viii, 30), and it was to him an angel came and said, “The Lord is with thee” (Jud. vi, 12).
David had a score of wives and concubines, and “David was a man after God’s own heart;” “David did right in the eyes of the Lord.” God himself said to David, “I delivered thee out of the hands of Saul; and I gave thee thy master’s house and thy master’s wives” (2 Sam. xii, 7, 8).
“And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart”—sufficient to hold a thousand wives and concubines.
Many years ago the Mormon, Orson Pratt, wrote a defense of polygamy, based upon the Bible. A noted lawyer of New York sent a copy of it to the Rev. Dr. W. B. Sprague with the interrogation, “Can you answer this?” Back came the frank reply, “No; can you?”
It is claimed that the New Testament is opposed to polygamy. It is not. William Ellery Channing says:
“There is no prohibition of polygamy in the New Testament. It is an indisputable fact that although Christianity was first preached in Asia, which had been from the earliest ages the seat of polygamy, the Apostles never denounced it as a crime, and never required their converts to put away all wives but one.”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton says: “It was at a Jewish polygamous wedding that Jesus performed his first miracle, and polygamy was practiced by Christians for centuries.”
It is true that many primitive Christians did not practice polygamy. And why? Because Pagan Greece and Rome had taught them better. It was to them, and not to their Scriptures, that they were indebted for the monogamic system of marriage. The Roman Catholic church did not generally sustain polygamy; but it did sustain a system of concubinage which was certainly as bad. For centuries the keeping of concubines was almost universal among the Catholic clergy, one abbot keeping no less than seventy.
The founders of the Protestant church, however, accepting the Bible as their guide, attaching to it a degree of authority which had never been attached to it before, were candid and consistent enough to admit the validity of the institution. Referring to this subject, Sir William Hamilton, a Christian and a Protestant, says:
“As to polygamy in particular, which not only Luther, Melanchthon, and Bucer, the three leaders of the German Reformation, speculatively adopted, but to which above a dozen distinguished divines among the Reformers stood formally committed” (Discussions on Philosophy and Literature).
Speaking of Luther and Melanchthon, Hamilton says:
“They had both promulgated opinions in favor of polygamy, to the extent of vindicating to the spiritual minister a right of private dispensation, and to the temporal magistrate the right of establishing the practice if he chose by public law” (Ibid).
In accordance with these views, John of Leydon, a zealous Protestant, established polygamy at Munster, and murdered or drove from their homes all who dared to oppose the odious custom. Other Protestants followed his example.
On the 19th of December, 1539, at Wittenberg, Luther and Melanchthon drew up the famous “Consilium,” authorizing the landgrave, Philip of Hesse, to have a plurality of wives. This instrument bears the signatures of Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Martin Bucer, Dionysius Melander, John Lening, Antony Corvinus, Adam Kraft, Justus Winther, and Balthasar Raida, nine of the leading Protestant divines of Germany.
It is a well-known fact that Luther advised Henry VIII. to adopt polygamy in his case, but by divorcing two wives, and murdering two more, the founder of the English church avoided it.
The advocacy of polygamy by the chief Reformers prevented Ferdinand I. from declaring for the Reformation. The German princes, too, generally opposed it; and this opposition, coupled with the fact that the most licentious sects espoused it, finally caused a reaction in favor of monogamy.
Protestants, it ill became you to point the finger of scorn at the Mormons of Utah. Yet with characteristic consistency you were demanding the suppression of polygamy in the territories, while at the same time you were endeavoring to have the whole country accept as infallible authority a book which sanctions the pernicious custom. Make the Bible the fundamental law of the land, as you demand, and polygamy will become, in theory at least, a national instead of a local institution.