The Tangent Series
Episode 8
Polygamy - NOT the Truth You've Been Sold
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This tangent was not on my radar. Not even remotely. But lately, my algorithm seems determined to educate me on the subject of polygamy, and judging by the number of confident, Scripture-adjacent arguments circulating, I can only assume I am not the only one being pulled into this particular conversation.
I have come to recognise just how many misleading paths are presented as though Scripture is firmly at the wheel, when in reality, if you look closely enough, you begin to see that something else is doing the driving entirely. I have done a great deal of faith deconstruction, and it is precisely issues like this that once had me ready to walk away from my Bible altogether. And I don’t mean in a passing, thoughtful reconsideration either, but in that turn-your-back, push-it-away, almost visceral kind of rejection that makes you question the entire thing. I would liken it to the kind of response that does not simply create distance, but breeds resentment. Suddenly, what was once held as sacred begins to feel suspect, even offensive. And I can tell you, no one is more surprised than me that I ended up on this side, defending the Gospel. To this day, I still question how my heart didn’t turn to stone through all of it.
If we are going to claim that we follow the Gospel, then we should be able to recognise when something feels just off, even if it has Scripture attached to it. The Gospel does not bend to fit us. If something needs bending, it probably is not the Gospel.
It took me years to understand that what I was reacting to was not Scripture itself, but the way it had been handled, framed, and at times weaponised in ways that caused real harm. And while I am willing to acknowledge that the intent to mislead is not always present, I have been kicked around enough to know that intent does not cancel out impact, and it certainly does not undo the damage that follows.
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Defining the Terms: What Are We Actually Talking About?
Before I even go down this road of mind-blowing creativity masquerading as Gospel possibility, it is only fair that we properly define what it is we are talking about. Now, polygamy, in its simplest definition, is the practice of one person being in a marital or covenantal union with multiple spouses at the same time. The term itself is what is known as an “umbrella” term. In its most basic sense, it is not gender-specific. If we are going to use the word properly, then we are talking about a structure that could move in both directions. One man with multiple wives, or one woman with multiple husbands.
But let’s not get cute with it here. There is no swinging pendulum of equal opportunity in this conjectured argument. Frankly, the definition being defended and the practice being promoted are not quite the same thing.
It is a false equivalence, and a convenient one at that.
On the contrary, what is actually being argued is far more specific. The term is “Polygyny” and it refers to the practice of one man having multiple wives. There’s no shared model here. Just a version that, interestingly enough, only ever seems to benefit one side of the equation.
“Polyandry,” on the other hand, is the term used to describe one woman with multiple husbands. This version rarely makes an appearance in the conversation, which should tell us something. And then, on the very rare occasion, you might hear reference to what is called “Group Marriage,” where multiple men and women are all married to one another.
We have seen this move before, where equality is paraded out front to make everything sound balanced, and then quietly adjusted the moment it actually has to be lived out. Equal on paper. Different where it counts. It is not a new concept. It is the same story women have been handed since the garden, just repackaged and sent back out again.
And that selective silence is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Because once a definition is quietly narrowed in practice but defended broadly in theory, it reveals something about the argument itself. It shows how far we are willing to stretch a word before it starts serving the system more than the truth. And what it often reveals is the quiet influence of patriarchy, not as God’s design, but as a distortion introduced in Genesis 3:16, one that places men in a position of rule and women in a position of bearing it.
The ripple effect of those consequences seeps into everything, including how we read and defend Scripture.
So for the sake of clarity, what is being argued in many of these circles is not polygamy in its full definition, but polygyny, a very specific structure that rarely gets called out for what it is, especially when it benefits the one defining it.
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When Description Becomes Doctrine
Scripture is not a sliding scale of absolutism, no matter how hard we try to make it one.
Your full-size luggage is not fitting into that carry-on sizer, regardless of how loud of a tantrum you pull at the gate.
And just so we are clear, this is not a commentary on how individuals choose to live. What people do in their personal lives is between them and God. I am not here to police anyone’s household, bedroom, or boat. Whatever floats it. Or sinks it.
My writing is not aimed at outside beliefs or other religious systems. I write to confront the ideas, theories, and traditions that masquerade as Christianity, borrow Scripture’s language, and shout loudly enough to sound holy, while quietly dividing, silencing, and driving people away from the Gospel Christ came to reveal.
To be clear, what I am very specifically addressing in this Tangent is not whether this structure appears in Scripture. Of course it does. Many broken structures can be found there. Scripture is honest enough to record humanity’s distortion without mistaking it for God’s design. What I am challenging is the claim that because something is recorded in Scripture, it is therefore endorsed by Scripture.
Those are not the same conversation.
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When Silence Becomes a Sales Pitch
I actually thought the idea of Christianity defending polygamy was a spoof. Like a joke that went a little too far and then no one quite knew how to reel it back in. But no, apparently my assumption was what got labelled “lame.”
How dare I suggest that “one flesh” might actually mean… one.
The responses were predictable enough. A raging feminist at my core, a heretic, jealous, prudish. I believe I have collected a fairly well-rounded list at this point. But the name calling is not new to me. I can take that kind of heat.
This is not exactly my first rodeo, and I am quite comfortable in the kitchen.
And if calling out hypocrisy earns me a few off-coloured labels, I will take them. Add them to the list. Sprinkle in a few more for good measure. It does not change the text, and it certainly does not strengthen the argument.
And truthfully, if the goal is simply to live however one prefers, then by all means, knock yourself out. That is not the issue.
The issue is calling it biblical.
Now, I have learned that when something sounds just biblical enough to feel convincing, yet just off enough to raise a question, it is worth slowing down. Because that is usually where the contortionist do their best work. Not in outright contradiction, but in careful construction, or albeit “re-construction.” A verse here, a phrase there, and before long, something that was never presented as design begins to sound like doctrine. In a roundabout way of course.
And that is where this conversation sits.
There is a narrative being built, one that suggests polygamy is not only permissible, but defensible. That if it is not explicitly condemned in a single line, it must therefore be acceptable. That if God allowed it, He must have endorsed it.
It sounds reasonable on the surface. So does any good sales pitch, if you don’t read the fine print.
This is what theologians call an argument from silence.
And for some, that silence is far more convenient than the clarity found elsewhere in the text.
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The Theology of Technicalities
Personally, one of my favourite arguments from silence is the commandment, “Do not covet your neighbour’s wife.”
Now, if we are going to apply the same logic that seems to be floating around here, that is basically my green light for polyandry, is it not? No mention of husbands, so apparently I have a full runway when it comes to coveting my neighbour’s husband.
I will just pretend I cannot read anything beyond that one line, for the sake of my flesh-induced urges.
Let the record show, I have absolutely no interest in this. But that is exactly the point.
Scripture is not a collection of convenient loopholes waiting to be discovered by the most creative reader.
And I will admit, my sarcastic nature brings a little levity to this. I sort of am chuckling as I write. Although most of what I am thinking is probably better left off the page. I have learned that lesson the hard way.
I mean, most men can’t handle one wife, and here they are advocating for more. All wrapped up in a narrative where women are meant to feel this elevated sense of “security” because they are being “taken care of.”
You know, “tsk, tsk,” it’s their role to be the “helper.”
And no, let’s not confuse that with Hamburger Helper, as though woman was created to round out the meal plan.
Which does leave me with a few practical questions.
What exactly are these men doing for a living? Because if we are going to lean this heavily into tradition and “manhood,” I am assuming these wives are not working outside the home. In today’s economic climate, that is not just impressive,
it is bordering on mythical. Almost unicorn-level rare. Have you seen the price of real estate? Imagine the grocery bill.
The engagement rings… plural, I assume? Or are we working with a single ring on a rotating basis?
Never mind that, what does retirement look like in this arrangement?
Perhaps this lifestyle is reserved for the exceptionally successful. I would love to get my hands on a
copy of those prenups, if there are any floating around. And really, why would there be?
There is absolutely no chance this kind of arrangement could ever go sideways. What could possibly go wrong?
Yes. The sarcasm is real.
And to be fair I’m also picturing the look on my dad’s face and can hear my mom laughing somewhere in the background.
Sure, not a laughing matter perhaps. Maybe I should take this topic a little more seriously you say. And I will.
Just not the kind of serious that reads like a fictional drama or a conveniently rewritten narrative.
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God’s Design Is Not Up for Revision
So let me be very clear about the ground I am standing on. God created them male and female,
and He called the two to become one flesh. That is the design He established. The Fall did not “rewrite” that. It fractured it.
And what we see in polygamy is the outworking of that fracture, shaped and sustained by systems that benefit from it.
And I have no interest in taking what was broken and calling it God’s intention.
That is the line I am not willing to blur.
If we are going to move forward, then we need to be anchored in what God actually established from the beginning.
Genesis 1:26-28
“Let us make mankind in our image… male and female He created them… and He blessed them and said to them,
‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.’”
Genesis 2:24
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
And when that design is later questioned, Christ does not adjust it. He returns to it.
Matthew 19:4–6
“Haven’t you read… that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said,
‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?
So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
That is the starting point. And if we are going to move beyond it, then let’s not pretend we are still standing in it.
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The Original Design
There is very little argument to be made, for or against the existence of biblical polygamy, if we do not first understand God’s design for humanity. And we can hem and haw all we want about it, circle it, poke at it, and try to soften it, but if we choose to sidestep what God actually established, then we also inherit the consequences that come with that decision.
I am fully aware that referencing Genesis 1:27, where God creates both male and female in His image and gives them shared identity, shared commission, and shared dominion, has become something of an eye-roll moment for some.
It gets labelled overused, overplayed, or conveniently set aside altogether.
And I will admit, I find that response more than a little perplexing. The words being dismissed are those of God Himself.
When that verse is minimised, brushed off, or mocked like some sort of convenient escape line,
what is actually being questioned is not interpretation. It is the authority of the One who established it in the first place.
God. Our Father.
Sit with the weight of that for a moment.
Ask yourself if this stance represents the fruit of the Spirit the Gospel calls us to bear?
And more than that, recognise what is actually taking place here. This is not a neutral disagreement.
This is the quiet dismissal of Scripture, carried out through the very people who profess to uphold it.
Yes, interpretation can be discussed. Of course it can. But there are places where Scripture is not vague, not layered, and not open to creative adjustment. There are foundations that do not move simply because they become inconvenient.
And when those foundations are set aside, it is not a difference of opinion.
It is a departure. God gives us free will to stay or to go, to join or to walk away, to submit or to rebel.
But there is no wishy-washy in between where we get to smooth it over on the sly and still pretend it holds.
The Gospel is not à la carte.
A verse here to support what we want. Another there to protect what we have built. A carefully selected line dropped into the conversation as though it settles the matter, while the very foundation it rests on is quietly ignored.
And frankly, I have had just about enough of Scripture being labelled a “silver bullet” the moment it is used to challenge a position. As though pointing to what God established in the beginning is somehow a shortcut, rather than the starting point.
It is a convenient form of deflection by dismissing the weight of the text without ever having to address it.
In the beginning and in the end must agree. That is not a suggestion. That is the standard we have been called to.
Christ was brutally beaten and died for the sins of His children.
Do we actually believe that, or have we reduced it to language we repeat without letting it shape what we accept as truth?
Because if we do believe it, then we must also be clear about what His blood was shed to redeem.
It was not shed to preserve distortion. It was not shed to uphold structures built out of the fallout of the Fall.
It was shed to restore what was established in the beginning.
Is that not what God Himself declared in the Garden? Did He not promise us a way out?
What kind of mess did we create that we needed out of? And when He returns, what does He restore?
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth;
for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away,
and the sea was no more.
I also saw the holy city,
the new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.
Then I heard a loud voice from the throne:
Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity,
and he will live with them.
They will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them and will be their God.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
grief, crying, and pain will be no more,
because the previous things have passed away.
(Revelation 21:1-4 CSB)
Then he showed me the river of the water of life,
clear as crystal,
flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb
down the middle of the city’s main street.
The tree of life was on each side of the river,
bearing twelve kinds of fruit,
producing its fruit every month.
The leaves of the tree are for healing the nations,
and there will no longer be any curse.
The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city,
and his servants will worship him.
They will see his face,
and his name will be on their foreheads.
Night will be no more;
people will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun,
because the Lord God will give them light,
and they will reign forever and ever.
God’s design.
His intention for humanity.
Sons and daughters, created in His image, called into unity.
(Revelation 22:1–5 CSB)
If we do not fully understand what was designed, then we cannot understand what is being restored. And if what is being presented does not align with that, if it does not reflect the redemption the Gospel declares, if it does not point forward to the new heaven and the new earth where that design is fully realised, then it is not something to be entertained, negotiated, or reshaped into something acceptable.
It is to be rejected.
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Allowance Is Not Endorsement
I see this idea thrown around a lot, and I will admit, I do not fully understand how it holds up under even a basic reading of Scripture.
Scripture is filled with accounts of God’s people turning away from Him, and what we consistently see is a Father with a
stretched-out hand, calling them back. If humanity had remained in alignment with God’s design, we would not be here,
you and I, writing, reading, or debating any of this.
One can merely speculate that there would be no Bible written to God’s children to teach them the narrow road, and there would have been no shedding of Christ’s blood on the cross to reconcile us. The truth of the matter is, we would never have been exiled from the Garden, separated from God, and needing a way to get back in.
This claim that “if God allowed it, it cannot be sin” is asinine. Was the beating and crucifixion of Christ not sin?
Scripture tells us He was beaten for the sins of the world. Which sins were those?
And yet, God allowed it.
So what distinction needs to be made here? If everything God allows is righteous, then the cross makes no sense.
What, exactly, are we being redeemed from?
What is defined as sin?
I would personally define sin as anything that separates us from God.
I would define anything that separates us from God as those things that go against His will.
And I would define those things that go against His will to be those things that go against His design.
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The Law: Regulation in a Fallen World
God’s patience with human hardness is not the same thing as God’s approval of human distortion. God called His creation of humanity very good. That was the standard He established before anything was fractured. But we are no longer living there.
We are living in a post-Fall reality, and that matters more than I think we are always willing to acknowledge.
We are not on vacation here. We are outside of the Garden. Outside of the home God created for us.
When we begin to ask what the Law is, or why it exists, we cannot ask that question as though we are still standing in Eden.
We are not. We are standing in exile. Exile. Do we recognise this?
So what is the Law?
The Law is not God rewriting His design. We have been separated from Him and are now living in a fractured reality where death and sorrow lives. And that separation is not a minor detail in the story. It is the defining condition of everything that follows.
And in that place, God does not abandon His children. He meets them in the mess of it. It is God stepping into that broken world and setting boundaries around the damage.
The Law is, quite simply, damage control.
The Law does not read like the language of perfection because it is not being spoken into a perfect world. It is being spoken into a fractured one.
Because if humanity had remained aligned with God’s design, there would be no need for regulation. There would be no need for instruction on how to navigate brokenness, because brokenness would not exist. No need to instruct a people on how to live within the consequences of their own rebellion. But that is not the reality we are living in.
The Law steps into that reality and begins to speak into what is already happening. Not to bless it, but to limit the harm it causes. Because He still loves His sons and daughters, and He still desires to be reconciled to us. I cannot think of a greater example of God’s mercy and grace toward His children than the Law.
And from a daughter’s perspective, I would ask His daughters in particular to pay close attention to this. God repeatedly steps in to protect His daughters from the harm that unfolds within patriarchal systems. He does not remove the system in that moment, but He does not leave them unprotected within it either.
And we need to be clear about why. God has given humanity free will, and with that comes the reality that people can choose whether or not they will live within what He has instructed. And many do not. Many of us have been harmed within those choices, within systems that have taken shape outside of His design.
But we need to understand this fully. God was not, and is not, the creator of those systems.
We see this clearly in passages like Exodus 21:10, where it says, “If he takes another wife, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights,” and again in Deuteronomy 21:15–17, where provision is made to ensure that a son is not stripped of his inheritance simply because he was born to a less-favoured wife.
The Law speaks into situations that already exist and says, if this is happening, then you do not get to neglect her, deprive her, discard her, or erase her child’s inheritance.
These are not commands to take multiple wives. They are instructions for what must not happen when that reality already exists. They are protective in nature and restrictive in action. The presence of a law does not mean the presence of approval.
It means the presence of brokenness.
Why do we have laws today? What is their purpose? Even outside of Scripture, common sense answers that for us. We do not create laws to celebrate what is good and functioning properly. We create laws to restrain what has the potential to cause harm.
We have speed limits not because driving fast is virtuous, but because without boundaries, people get hurt.
We have laws against theft, against violence, against neglect, not because those things are acceptable, but because they exist, and left unchecked, they destroy.
Imagine for a moment that we argued we should be able to drive 200 mph through a school zone. Or better yet, that the presence of a speed limit somehow proves it is acceptable, as long as we stay just under it. Would that make any sense at all?
The law exists because of the risk, not because of the virtue. So to turn around and use that same law as proof of
endorsement is to miss the point entirely. The restriction is not an invitation. It is a boundary.
Yes, you can drive. Just not beyond what was set for protection.
And Scripture is no different. Yes, you can marry. But not outside of what God defined as one flesh.
Scripture makes clear, God is our Mama Bear. He defends, He protects, and He steps into broken situations not to affirm them,
but to guard those who would otherwise be left exposed (Psalm 82:3–4).
So when we ask whether something is acceptable simply because it appears in Scripture, we are yet again asking the wrong question. The better question is why it needed to be addressed at all. The question is not, “Did God allow it?” The question is, “Why did He have to regulate it in the first place?” And once we understand that, why would we argue for behaviours that required regulation under the Law as though they were now permissible? Is that the standard we are aiming for?
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The Outcome: Scripture Shows the Pattern
If the Law shows us that God steps into broken situations to restrain harm, then the narratives show us what that brokenness looks like when it is lived out over time. These are not abstract ideas. These are real families, real consequences, and real fractures that unfold exactly where God’s design has been set aside.
And it does not take a theologian to recognise the pattern. It takes a willingness to read the whole story, not just the parts we prefer. If we are going to argue that polygamy (in the form of polygyny) can exist within God’s design, then we have to be willing to look honestly at what it produces when it is lived out.
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Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar — Division
Abraham is often pointed to as a patriarch of faith (not to be confused with the system of patriarchy), and rightly so. But his household also gives us one of the clearest early examples of what happens when God’s design is stepped outside of.
“He slept with Hagar, and she became pregnant. When she saw that she was pregnant, her mistress became contemptible to her. Then Sarai said to Abram, ‘You are responsible for my suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and when she saw that she was pregnant, I became contemptible to her. May the LORD judge between me and you.’ Abram replied to Sarai, ‘Here, your slave is in your hands. Do whatever you want with her.’ Then Sarai mistreated her so much that she ran away from her” (Genesis 16:4-6).
There is no unity here. There is no peace, no harmony, no sense of covenantal strength.
What we see instead is tension, resentment, blame shifting, and mistreatment. The moment the relationship expands beyond what God designed, the fracture is immediate. It does not take generations to show up. It is there from the start.
And it does not resolve itself with time. It deepens.
“But Sarah saw the son mocking—the one Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham. So she said to Abraham, ‘Drive out this slave and her son, for the son of this slave will not be a coheir with my son Isaac!’ This was very distressing to Abraham because of his son. But God said to Abraham, ‘Do not be distressed about the boy and about your slave. Whatever Sarah says to you, listen to her, because your offspring will be traced through Isaac’” (Genesis 21:9-12).
What began as tension becomes division. What began as a workaround becomes expulsion. A woman and her child are sent away. And while God, in His mercy, cares for Hagar and Ishmael, the situation itself is not redeemed within the household.
It is separated from it.
Is this a picture of covenantal unity? Or is this the cost of stepping outside of it?
We have seen this pattern before. Lines get messy, loyalties start pulling in different directions, and suddenly people are comparing notes, comparing worth, and trying to find their place in something that was never designed to hold that many moving parts. It is the kind of situation where people start keeping score, even if they pretend they are not, and someone always ends up carrying the weight of being less than.
Is this God’s design? Is this what we have been called to? Or is this exactly what happens when design is ignored, where division, jealousy, and expulsion are not the exception but the outcome? And are we really prepared to call that anything other than sin? Scripture clearly does not hide the sin. It does, however, record the result of it.
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Jacob, Leah, and Rachel — Rivalry
If Abraham’s household shows us division, Jacob’s shows us what happens when that division is lived out over time.
“So Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah… When the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb;
but Rachel was barren” (Genesis 29:30–31).
Right from the beginning, the imbalance is front and centre. One daughter is loved. One daughter is not.
And that difference does not stay quiet or resolve itself. It sets the tone for the story that follows.
“When Rachel saw that she was not bearing children for Jacob, she envied her sister. ‘Give me children,’ she told Jacob,
‘or I will die!’ Jacob became angry with her” (Genesis 30:1–2).
Jealousy does not take long to show up, and it does not stay contained. It spills into desperation, into anger,
and into a household where nothing feels settled and no one feels secure.
“During the wheat harvest, Reuben went out and found some mandrakes… Rachel said to Leah, ‘Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.’ But she said to her, ‘Isn’t it enough that you have taken my husband? Now you also want my son’s mandrakes?’… So Jacob slept with Leah that night” (Genesis 30:14–16).
And this is where it becomes almost painfully transactional. Affection is negotiated, access is bargained for, and intimacy starts to look like something being scheduled, traded, and sorted out depending on who has the upper hand that day. It starts to read less like a marriage and more like an agreement being worked out on the fly.
What I personally find interesting about this story is the fact that God saw that Leah was being rejected, and He stepped in.
Not because the structure itself was right, but because someone within it was being harmed. That alone should stop us from mistaking God’s intervention for God’s endorsement.
Once again, it is not unity that takes shape, but jealousy, competition, and the kind of emotional fracture that leaves no one untouched. I have a hard time believing one flesh was ever meant to involve bargaining for your turn.
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David — Family Disorder
If Jacob’s household shows us rivalry, David’s shows us what happens when that rivalry is left to grow unchecked.
I have to admit, I love this story, and probably not for the reasons one might expect. Because here we have David, a man described as being after God’s own heart, and yet living within a structure that clearly steps outside of God’s design. That contradiction should make us slow down and pay attention.
God said this about David long before Bathsheba, long before the unraveling of his household. It speaks to his heart toward God, not to the perfection of his life. Yet so many, eager to make a case for polygamy and other distortions, use David as though his standing with God validates his actions. It does not. And I’d like to call out the falsity of that claim.
There is so much more going on here.
If we are going to use David as a model, then we do not get to pick and choose which parts of his story we are willing to acknowledge. There is no denying that what unfolds in his family is anything but reflective of design.
And really, does calling someone righteous translate into a permission slip? That is a false equivalence, is it not?
Second Book of Samuel 11:2–4 tells us that David took Bathsheba and slept with her, while her husband was away at war.
The text does not present this as righteous. It presents it as abuse of power (I have a different word for it).
The fact that this is a sin is pretty self explanatory I would hope. Regardless, David doesn’t stop there.
Second Book of Samuel 11:14–15 shows David arranging for Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah to be placed on the front lines so that he would be killed. And when the prophet confronts him, Scripture does not soften it.
“Why have you despised the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes?
You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own” (2 Samuel 12:9).
God calls it what it is. Evil.
There are consequences that follow, including the death of the child (2 Samuel 12:14–18), and yet even within that, David’s position before God is not used to excuse his actions. It is used to call him to repentance. And that is the point.
David’s story is not a validation of his choices. It is a record of both his failure and the consequences that followed.
So if we are going to appeal to David, then we must be willing to take the whole account. Simply calling a man righteous does not make his actions righteous. You do not get to borrow the title and ignore the consequences.
Second Book of Samuel 13:1–14 records one of the most disturbing moments in Scripture, where Amnon, David’s son, violates his half-sister Tamar. What unfolds here is not subtle. It is not hinted at. It is recorded plainly, and it forces us to sit with the reality of what has taken root inside this family.
“In the course of time, Amnon son of David fell in love with Tamar… he forced her and lay with her.”
Call this what it is. This is not just dysfunction. This is violation (again, I have another word for this). This is precisely what happens when disorder is allowed to take root inside a structure that was never meant to carry it. And also pay careful attention, because just like David had violated Bathsheba in his own family home, likewise, Amnon violated Tamar within the home.
But it does not stop there.
Perhaps just as telling is what follows. There is no immediate justice. There is no swift correction that restores order.
The fracture is allowed to sit, and when fracture is left unaddressed, it rarely stays quiet.
Second Book of Samuel 13:28–29 shows us exactly what happens next, when Absalom, Tamar’s brother, takes matters into his own hands and has Amnon killed. “Absalom’s servants did to Amnon what Absalom had ordered… then all the king’s sons got up, mounted their mules and fled.”
Violation turns into retaliation and pain does not resolve itself, it multiplies. And still, it does not end.
Second Book of Samuel 15:10–14 reveals the next layer, where Absalom rises up in rebellion against his own father, turning the fracture of the family into the fracture of the kingdom itself. “Absalom sent secret messengers throughout the tribes of Israel… ‘As soon as you hear the sound of the trumpets, then say, “Absalom is king in Hebron.”’ … Then a messenger came to David, saying, ‘The hearts of the people of Israel are with Absalom.’”
This is where the weight of it becomes unavoidable. This is not simply a difficult family dynamic. This is chaos, violence, and the complete breakdown of family order. And again, we are left with the same question. Is this God’s design?
Is this what we have been called to?
The fracture moves from the family into the kingdom, and what begins in the home has a way of refusing to stay there,
no matter how much we would prefer to keep it contained. And quite honestly, it doesn’t take a genius to figure this one out.
You can pull from psychology, from counsellors, from authors, from study after study, and they will all tell you the same thing in different language, that what is left unresolved does not disappear, it transfers. It shows up again in the next relationship,
and the next, and before long it is not just a moment, it is a pattern. It moves from one relationship to the next,
from one generation to the next, until what should have been a place of safety becomes a place of instability.
The names may change, the roles may shift, but the outcome has a way of staying remarkably consistent.
This is not the inheritance Scripture speaks of. Proverbs 13:22 reminds us that “A good person leaves an inheritance to their children’s children…” and whatever is unfolding here, this is not that.
When we think of inheritance, we tend to default straight to finances, to bank accounts, to assets and what can be measured or divided on paper. But I would argue there is an inheritance far more significant than anything that shows up in a will. From addictions to relational breakdown, from insecurity to identity confusion, from patterns of control to cycles of neglect, this is the kind of inheritance that is passed down when fracture is left unaddressed. It is the quiet handing off of confusion, instability, divided loyalties, and wounds that were never dealt with, only absorbed and carried forward. This is the kind of inheritance that no one wants to admit or name, but everyone feels. Are we really prepared to call this transfer anything other than sin?
Scripture certainly does not pretend it is harmless.
Exodus 20:5 lays it out plainly, “…punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation…” and this is often misunderstood. This is not God arbitrarily reaching down and punishing children for something they did not do. It’s Him telling us that unaddressed brokenness has a way of repeating itself if nothing interrupts it. And that is exactly what we see here.
Once again, what unfolds is not unity.
And some of us may want to pridefully deny that, but as my mom would say, “the proof is in the pudding.” Patterns do not lie.
If addiction runs generationally in a family, it does not correct itself simply because time has passed. It changes when someone makes the decision to confront it and stop it, quite literally. The same is true of any pattern that has taken root. It does not dissolve on its own. It has to be broken. And that is not easy work. It is costly, it is often unseen, and it rarely comes with recognition.
Future generations may never know your name or the moment you chose to turn it around,
but they will live in the freedom that came from it.
**********
Solomon — Spiritual Compromise
If David’s household shows us how fracture erupts into chaos within the family and plays out in legacy, Solomon’s shows us where that same fracture ultimately leads when it is left unchecked. It moves deeper, until what began as relational disorder becomes spiritual compromise. And once again, God warned us of this.
First Book of Kings 11:1–3 does not soften the reality:
“King Solomon loved many foreign women in addition to Pharaoh’s daughter: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, ‘You must not intermarry with them, because they will turn you away from me to their gods.’ Solomon was deeply attached to these women and loved them. He had seven hundred wives who were princesses and three hundred who were concubines…”
This is not a small deviation, and wow, could I pull some comments from the peanut gallery here. But alas, I will contain my tongue. Mostly. What I do want to address is the argument from silence that tends to show up here. No, God saying, “Do not intermarry,” is not code for, “Go ahead and collect wives, just make sure they are from the right group.”
I mean, come on people, this is excess layered upon excess, justified over time until it no longer even registers as departure.
It is not even on the map anymore. What begins as allowance in a fallen world becomes, in practice, something that feels normalised, even defensible, if you are determined enough to dress it up that way. And personally, I think the more revealing question is why anyone is so committed to dressing it up at all.
But thankfully, Scripture does not leave us to guess where it leads.
First Book of Kings 11:4 makes it plain: “When Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away to follow other gods.
He was not wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD his God, as his father David had been.”
And there it is. A divided heart. A turning away.
Once again, what began in the home, what showed itself in rivalry and chaos, now reaches its fullest expression in idolatry.
The very thing Israel was called to guard against becomes the outcome of a life shaped by compromise.
And this is where the weight of it settles.
It’s hard to see past the egregious entitlement here, but this is not simply about numbers or arrangements or structures that can be debated on paper. This is about direction. This is about what shapes the heart over time. What we allow, what we justify, what we build our lives around, it does not stay contained to some box we have built. It forms us.
And let’s not kid ourselves, it does not take seven hundred wives for this to happen. It takes divided loyalty. It takes compromise that is left unchecked. It takes a willingness to live just outside of design long enough that it begins to feel normal.
Again, is this God’s design? Is this what we have been called to?
Or is this exactly what happens when design is ignored, where compromise does not remain small but eventually reshapes the heart itself? And like a broken record, once again, what we see is not unity.
It is a divided heart, idolatry, and the slow unraveling of what was meant to remain wholly devoted.
And it becomes very difficult to look at this and call it anything other than sin.
**********
There is not a single Scriptural account where polygamy produces covenantal unity.
Not one.
What is interesting is that the argument rarely stands on one leg for very long.
When one angle starts to fall apart, another quickly takes its place.
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The “Unmarried Woman” Argument
So let’s deal with one of the more creative little workarounds making the rounds, the idea that if
she is not another man’s wife, then she is somehow available. I mean, apparently covenant
now operates on a vacancy system.
No ring, no problem. No husband, no boundaries. Just a wide open runway and a green light
dressed up as biblical reasoning. (Whoopsie, I left my ring at home, ignore the tan line…)
And I have to say, it is impressive in a very specific way. Add a few statistics about how many
more women there are than men and, hypothetically speaking, you have yourself a perfectly
reasonable argument. And naturally, God’s kingdom has always been governed by population
ratios, has it not?
But let’s slow that down for just a moment and remember how God actually defined covenantal
marriage. Genesis 2:24 very clearly states, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” I mean, it was only God declaring
that. I am sure He would not mind if we adjusted the math a little. One could probably mean
two… or three… or four… maybe even a few. And depending on which uncle you ask, “a few”
might apparently mean eight. Which is funny when you are a kid. Less funny when grown men
try to do the same thing with covenant.
And that is where this argument begins to fall apart. Matthew 5:28 tells us Jesus does not
operate within that framework at all: “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully
has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
So whatever this system is that tries to define sexual ethics by availability, Jesus dismantles it
entirely. He does not ask who she belongs to. He addresses what is happening within you. And
just like that, the argument from silence collapses, along with the long parade of kings who
gathered wives to build influence and secure status, as though consolidating power ever
qualified as spiritual guidance. Jesus does not play that game.
And Paul reinforces that same singularity in marriage. 1 Corinthians 7:2: “But because sexual
immorality is so common, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.”
And let’s not miss what Paul is actually addressing there. The word used is porneia, a broad
term that covers sexual activity outside of the covenant God established. Not just adultery in the
technical sense. Anything that steps outside of the one-flesh design and then tries to justify it after the fact.
His own. Her own. Not shared. Not rotating. Not negotiated.
So when sexual ethics are reduced to “she wasn’t married,” what is actually being revealed is
not a deeper understanding of Scripture, but a complete redefinition of it. Covenant becomes
conditional, boundaries become negotiable, and what was designed to reflect unity is quietly
reframed to accommodate desire. Reducing sexual ethics to availability does not exactly elevate
the polygamy conversation. If anything, it does a very effective job of exposing it for what it is.
What I find particularly interesting about this patriarchal entitlement claim is that Paul, the
disciple so often quoted out of context to keep women nicely tucked into “quiet” little boxes,
actually addresses this outright and without any need for creative interpretation. And while other
Scriptures are dissected, debated, and conveniently reshaped, this one simply refuses to
cooperate, aligning plainly with the Gospel’s message of one flesh, one to one, each man to his
own wife and each woman to her own husband.
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Only a Sin If It’s Your Brother’s Wife?
If the last section made the case that polygamy is fair game so long as the woman isn't married,
this one steps a little further down the same hallway and into a different room.
I'll call this one the exception clause.
The reasoning runs something like this. Scripture—primarily Leviticus 18 and 20—names a handful of
women a man cannot have: mother, daughter, sister, aunt, daughter-in-law, neighbour's wife, brother's wife.
The named is the limit. Whatever isn't on the list, by quiet implication, must be on the menu.
Exodus 20:17, "do not covet your neighbour's wife," gets the same treatment.
The issue, they will say, is taking another man's wife, not having more than one wife yourself.
Even the elder qualification, "husband of one wife," gets filed under "preference" rather than "instruction,"
even though, if you sit with it for two seconds, it is a restriction against polygamy, not a workaround for it.
And while we’re here, the Law itself is not written like a fine-print contract waiting to be exploited.
It works through covenantal categories, kinship boundaries, and moral logic, which
tells you something about how much weight to give an argument built on what is not named.
The whole framework is built on a category error. Adultery and marriage are not the same conversation.
An exception in one is not a permission slip for the other. But that is exactly the move being made:
an exception clause in adultery law is treated as an open door for polygamous marriage.
And underneath all of it is the same question wearing a slightly different outfit.
What can I get away with if it isn't explicitly named?
So let's take a look at one version of this loophole, because this one tends to sound a little more
"biblical" on the surface. It runs through Leviticus 18:16 and 20:21, which instruct, "do not have
sexual relations with your brother's wife." The argument goes that the only explicit sexual or
marital restriction tied to polygamy is your brother's wife, and even that has its levirate exception.
So outside of that narrow case, multiple wives aren't actually condemned.
The reasoning follows that if she is not your brother's wife, the category somehow opens up.
Don't you just love the creativity? This classification thing is pure gold.
Right.
And the quiet assumption being made is… what, exactly?
That she only belongs to someone if she is already someone’s wife? That covenant is defined by possession?
That if she is not “your brother’s wife,” then the category somehow opens up?
Reclassification at its finest.
And so, while we are at it, who exactly is this “brother” stepping in to take care of his “brother’s wives”?
Is he on standby somewhere? On call? Rotating schedule? Do we send him a calendar invite?
Calendly works pretty well. Let’s just go ahead and slot him in for next Monday…
Oh. He doesn’t have a brother.
Well now, that complicates things, doesn’t it.
Now watch what's happening with the definitions, because this is where it gets interesting. Here,
in this prohibition, "brother" is treated as blood and only blood. Narrow, specific, and literal.
So narrow that, as we just saw, our man may not even have one.
And just like that, the rule has nothing to say about him.
But step into any other room of the church and the vocabulary stretches without breaking a sweat.
"Sister in Christ." "Brothers in the faith." Spiritual family.
It becomes beautifully convenient when the conversation calls for it.
Come on, people.
The pattern is hard to miss once you see it. Whichever definition expands male access or
extends male authority, that is the one that wins. "Brother" stays blood when blood keeps the
prohibition small. "Sister" becomes spiritual when spiritual widens the field of women subject to
male oversight. Selectively defined when it becomes useful. Useful, that is, to a very particular party.
And this is usually where someone reaches for the levirate marriage passage (the practice of a
man marrying his deceased brother's widow), as though it somehow supports the expansion.
It does not, in case you’re wondering.
Deuteronomy 25:5–6 reads, “If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son,
his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a
brother-in-law to her. The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother…”
Well, that is rather inconvenient for the argument, isn’t it? Because Deuteronomy 25 is not dealing with a man collecting
wives under the banner of biblical freedom. It is dealing with death, widowhood, inheritance, family obligation, and the preservation of a deceased brother’s name. In other words, this is not a passage about male access.
It is a passage about legal responsibility.
Brothers, if your brother dies without a son, there is a responsibility placed on you, and funny enough,
it does not seem to come with a checklist of personal preferences. Age, circumstance, attraction, convenience, desire…
none of that appears to be the point. The point is not, “Look, another woman is available.”
The point is, “A woman has been left vulnerable, and a family line has been left without an heir.”
Scripture often regulates human realities inside a fallen world without presenting those realities as God’s original design.
This passage does not expand covenantal marriage into a free-for-all. It narrows a specific obligation to a
specific situation: a brother, a deceased brother, a widow, no son, and the preservation of the dead brother’s name.
Here is the part that gets conveniently overlooked, because this “situation” only exists outside of God’s original design
in the first place. Levirate marriage only becomes necessary because death has entered the world.
Widowhood, inheritance vulnerability, family-line preservation, and male-controlled protection systems are all post-Fall realities.
Even if the Law regulates that situation, the situation itself is not Edenic design. In Eden, there is no dead husband.
No widow left exposed. No inheritance crisis. No family line threatened by death. No woman dependent on a male
relative to preserve her security, her place, or her future. So when someone points to Deuteronomy 25 and says,
“See, polygamy works here,” they are already standing in the wreckage and calling the emergency response the design.
No, this is not a permission slip for polygamy. It is not God handing men a holy loophole. It is God placing responsibility
on men inside a patriarchal system that would have otherwise left women exposed, unprotected, and dependent
on the mercy of men who already held the power. And that is exactly the point.
You can argue til you are blue in the face, Scripture does not show God celebrating patriarchy.
It shows Him stepping into the damage patriarchy creates and putting a leash on it.
Once again, this passage does not expand male access. It imposes male responsibility. It is not saying,
“Here is another way to acquire a wife.” It is saying, “You do not get to benefit from a system that leaves women
vulnerable without being held accountable for the harm that system creates.”
And that is where entitlement needs to be named plainly. I don’t care what system you are operating from,
when women require legal protection from male power, the problem is not female vulnerability.
The problem is male entitlement. Who would she need protection from in an Edenic world?
Who would be circling her widowhood, her body, her future, or her inheritance as though grief created opportunity?
Not a husband. Not a brother. Not a protector. An entitled man.
Patriarchy has a long history of giving men power and calling it protection. And women today need to stop
mistaking the cage for covering simply because someone handed us the key and called it biblical.
This is some kind of math I did not learn back in that advanced class in high school. One man
and one woman becoming one flesh, and now we are trying to figure out how to add a few fractions
or maybe a couple decimal places onto one side of it. I might have to pull my “one free call” card for this one.
Is there a mathematician available for this? Perhaps over there… sitting next to the unicorn.
If you squint hard enough, you can make just about anything appear.
Should I stop while I’m ahead? I probably should. But will I? I’ve got my late grandfather’s grin
flashing in my memory, along with the “My young missy” head shake. And there’s just something
in me that has totally lost control. He’s still encouraging me. That’s one thing I know for sure.
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Celibacy vs Polygamy: The False Comparison
Now I have to say, I really do enjoy this one. This retort shows up right on cue, almost as reliably as the
“raging feminist” accusation. The moment polygamy is called into question, in comes the follow-up,
delivered like it is some kind of intellectual mic drop:
“So then, is celibacy a sin? Is singleness a sin?” And just like that, we are supposed to sit back and admire the brilliance of it.
Except… it is not brilliance.
It is a false equivalence.
Or, if we are being a little more honest, it is the kind of comparison you make when the original argument is starting to wobble and you need to toss a red herring across the room so everyone stops looking at the part that is collapsing.
Because comparing celibacy to polygamy is a bit like comparing apples to… car engines. Or better yet, deciding that if you cannot have a cat for a pet, an orca should be a reasonable alternative. That is about how closely these two ideas are related.
They do not even belong in the same category. They are not solving the same problem.
They are not even moving in the same direction.
Let’s break this one down, because this is one of those fallacies that really does get my goat, and apparently my goat has had enough. Scripture does not leave us wondering about this one, so I always question when someone throws it out there. In 1 Corinthians 7:7–8, Paul tells us, “I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do.”
Paul develops this further in 1 Corinthians 7:32–35 by saying, “I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs, how he can please the Lord… I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.”
Jesus affirms this in Matthew 19:12, where we read, “…there are those who choose to live like eunuchs
for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.”
Now that is interesting, isn’t it. Celibacy is not questioned. It is affirmed and named as a gift.
More than that, it is described as a position of undivided devotion.
And I have to admit, I find myself pausing there, wondering if the same could ever be said of polygamy.
Could we describe polygamy as a position of undivided devotion? Scripturally, it is never described that way. Not once.
Celibacy removes relational complexity and frees time, energy, and attention to be directed toward Christ.
One has to wonder if that is exactly what Paul had in mind when he spoke of undivided devotion.
Polygamy does not exactly offer the same arrangement. Celibacy reflects devotion. Polygamy reflects accommodation to brokenness. These are not parallel categories. Not even in the teeniest, tiniest bit.
So no, this is not a clever comparison. It is a deflection. And not a particularly subtle one.
It sounds clever right up until you actually think about it.
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Covenant vs Consumption
At some point, we have to stop chasing fantasies and ask a better question.
Is marriage covenant… or is it a system?
Is sexuality union… or is it access?
These are not small distinctions. They define everything. Scripture is not unclear here.
Covenant does not operate like a subscription service.
When marriage is treated like access, it stops being covenant. And when sexuality is reduced to availability,
it stops being union. It becomes consumption. And we do not need a theological degree to recognise what that looks like. Culture has already built entire industries around men confusing access with intimacy.
Pornography has been preaching that sermon for years.
The only difference is, it does not usually have the audacity to call itself biblical.
The deeper issue here is not whether someone can construct a loophole.
The deeper issue is what they are trying to protect by doing so.
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Final Clarity: The Full Thread of Scripture
We live in a world that’s gotten fairly comfortable with entitlement, and more times than not, we’ve learned
how to dress it up in just enough Scripture to make it sound respectable. Patriarchy didn’t start in the heart of God,
it showed up in the fallout, and we’ve been trying to pass it off as design ever since.
But the thread of Scripture is not nearly that confusing.
Creation reveals the design.
The Fall introduces the distortion.
The Law steps in to contain the damage.
The narratives show us exactly where it leads.
And Christ restores the clarity we keep trying to complicate.
So no, I’m not buying the rebrand.
Polygamy is permitted in practice, regulated in law, exposed in consequence, and corrected by Christ.
And if that sounds a bit too tidy for all the creative math we’ve been doing along the way, well now… that just might be the point.
This tangent was not on my radar. Not even remotely. But lately, my algorithm seems determined to educate me on the subject of polygamy, and judging by the number of confident, Scripture-adjacent arguments circulating, I can only assume I am not the only one being pulled into this particular conversation.
I have come to recognise just how many misleading paths are presented as though Scripture is firmly at the wheel, when in reality, if you look closely enough, you begin to see that something else is doing the driving entirely. I have done a great deal of faith deconstruction, and it is precisely issues like this that once had me ready to walk away from my Bible altogether. And I don’t mean in a passing, thoughtful reconsideration either, but in that turn-your-back, push-it-away, almost visceral kind of rejection that makes you question the entire thing. I would liken it to the kind of response that does not simply create distance, but breeds resentment. Suddenly, what was once held as sacred begins to feel suspect, even offensive. And I can tell you, no one is more surprised than me that I ended up on this side, defending the Gospel. To this day, I still question how my heart didn’t turn to stone through all of it.
If we are going to claim that we follow the Gospel, then we should be able to recognise when something feels just off, even if it has Scripture attached to it. The Gospel does not bend to fit us. If something needs bending, it probably is not the Gospel.
It took me years to understand that what I was reacting to was not Scripture itself, but the way it had been handled, framed, and at times weaponised in ways that caused real harm. And while I am willing to acknowledge that the intent to mislead is not always present, I have been kicked around enough to know that intent does not cancel out impact, and it certainly does not undo the damage that follows.
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Defining the Terms: What Are We Actually Talking About?
Before I even go down this road of mind-blowing creativity masquerading as Gospel possibility, it is only fair that we properly define what it is we are talking about. Now, polygamy, in its simplest definition, is the practice of one person being in a marital or covenantal union with multiple spouses at the same time. The term itself is what is known as an “umbrella” term. In its most basic sense, it is not gender-specific. If we are going to use the word properly, then we are talking about a structure that could move in both directions. One man with multiple wives, or one woman with multiple husbands.
But let’s not get cute with it here. There is no swinging pendulum of equal opportunity in this conjectured argument. Frankly, the definition being defended and the practice being promoted are not quite the same thing.
It is a false equivalence, and a convenient one at that.
On the contrary, what is actually being argued is far more specific. The term is “Polygyny” and it refers to the practice of one man having multiple wives. There’s no shared model here. Just a version that, interestingly enough, only ever seems to benefit one side of the equation.
“Polyandry,” on the other hand, is the term used to describe one woman with multiple husbands. This version rarely makes an appearance in the conversation, which should tell us something. And then, on the very rare occasion, you might hear reference to what is called “Group Marriage,” where multiple men and women are all married to one another.
We have seen this move before, where equality is paraded out front to make everything sound balanced, and then quietly adjusted the moment it actually has to be lived out. Equal on paper. Different where it counts. It is not a new concept. It is the same story women have been handed since the garden, just repackaged and sent back out again.
And that selective silence is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Because once a definition is quietly narrowed in practice but defended broadly in theory, it reveals something about the argument itself. It shows how far we are willing to stretch a word before it starts serving the system more than the truth. And what it often reveals is the quiet influence of patriarchy, not as God’s design, but as a distortion introduced in Genesis 3:16, one that places men in a position of rule and women in a position of bearing it.
The ripple effect of those consequences seeps into everything, including how we read and defend Scripture.
So for the sake of clarity, what is being argued in many of these circles is not polygamy in its full definition, but polygyny, a very specific structure that rarely gets called out for what it is, especially when it benefits the one defining it.
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When Description Becomes Doctrine
Scripture is not a sliding scale of absolutism, no matter how hard we try to make it one.
Your full-size luggage is not fitting into that carry-on sizer, regardless of how loud of a tantrum you pull at the gate.
And just so we are clear, this is not a commentary on how individuals choose to live. What people do in their personal lives is between them and God. I am not here to police anyone’s household, bedroom, or boat. Whatever floats it. Or sinks it.
My writing is not aimed at outside beliefs or other religious systems. I write to confront the ideas, theories, and traditions that masquerade as Christianity, borrow Scripture’s language, and shout loudly enough to sound holy, while quietly dividing, silencing, and driving people away from the Gospel Christ came to reveal.
To be clear, what I am very specifically addressing in this Tangent is not whether this structure appears in Scripture. Of course it does. Many broken structures can be found there. Scripture is honest enough to record humanity’s distortion without mistaking it for God’s design. What I am challenging is the claim that because something is recorded in Scripture, it is therefore endorsed by Scripture.
Those are not the same conversation.
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When Silence Becomes a Sales Pitch
I actually thought the idea of Christianity defending polygamy was a spoof. Like a joke that went a little too far and then no one quite knew how to reel it back in. But no, apparently my assumption was what got labelled “lame.”
How dare I suggest that “one flesh” might actually mean… one.
The responses were predictable enough. A raging feminist at my core, a heretic, jealous, prudish. I believe I have collected a fairly well-rounded list at this point. But the name calling is not new to me. I can take that kind of heat.
This is not exactly my first rodeo, and I am quite comfortable in the kitchen.
And if calling out hypocrisy earns me a few off-coloured labels, I will take them. Add them to the list. Sprinkle in a few more for good measure. It does not change the text, and it certainly does not strengthen the argument.
And truthfully, if the goal is simply to live however one prefers, then by all means, knock yourself out. That is not the issue.
The issue is calling it biblical.
Now, I have learned that when something sounds just biblical enough to feel convincing, yet just off enough to raise a question, it is worth slowing down. Because that is usually where the contortionist do their best work. Not in outright contradiction, but in careful construction, or albeit “re-construction.” A verse here, a phrase there, and before long, something that was never presented as design begins to sound like doctrine. In a roundabout way of course.
And that is where this conversation sits.
There is a narrative being built, one that suggests polygamy is not only permissible, but defensible. That if it is not explicitly condemned in a single line, it must therefore be acceptable. That if God allowed it, He must have endorsed it.
It sounds reasonable on the surface. So does any good sales pitch, if you don’t read the fine print.
This is what theologians call an argument from silence.
And for some, that silence is far more convenient than the clarity found elsewhere in the text.
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The Theology of Technicalities
Personally, one of my favourite arguments from silence is the commandment, “Do not covet your neighbour’s wife.”
Now, if we are going to apply the same logic that seems to be floating around here, that is basically my green light for polyandry, is it not? No mention of husbands, so apparently I have a full runway when it comes to coveting my neighbour’s husband.
I will just pretend I cannot read anything beyond that one line, for the sake of my flesh-induced urges.
Let the record show, I have absolutely no interest in this. But that is exactly the point.
Scripture is not a collection of convenient loopholes waiting to be discovered by the most creative reader.
And I will admit, my sarcastic nature brings a little levity to this. I sort of am chuckling as I write. Although most of what I am thinking is probably better left off the page. I have learned that lesson the hard way.
I mean, most men can’t handle one wife, and here they are advocating for more. All wrapped up in a narrative where women are meant to feel this elevated sense of “security” because they are being “taken care of.”
You know, “tsk, tsk,” it’s their role to be the “helper.”
And no, let’s not confuse that with Hamburger Helper, as though woman was created to round out the meal plan.
Which does leave me with a few practical questions.
What exactly are these men doing for a living? Because if we are going to lean this heavily into tradition and “manhood,” I am assuming these wives are not working outside the home. In today’s economic climate, that is not just impressive,
it is bordering on mythical. Almost unicorn-level rare. Have you seen the price of real estate? Imagine the grocery bill.
The engagement rings… plural, I assume? Or are we working with a single ring on a rotating basis?
Never mind that, what does retirement look like in this arrangement?
Perhaps this lifestyle is reserved for the exceptionally successful. I would love to get my hands on a
copy of those prenups, if there are any floating around. And really, why would there be?
There is absolutely no chance this kind of arrangement could ever go sideways. What could possibly go wrong?
Yes. The sarcasm is real.
And to be fair I’m also picturing the look on my dad’s face and can hear my mom laughing somewhere in the background.
Sure, not a laughing matter perhaps. Maybe I should take this topic a little more seriously you say. And I will.
Just not the kind of serious that reads like a fictional drama or a conveniently rewritten narrative.
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God’s Design Is Not Up for Revision
So let me be very clear about the ground I am standing on. God created them male and female,
and He called the two to become one flesh. That is the design He established. The Fall did not “rewrite” that. It fractured it.
And what we see in polygamy is the outworking of that fracture, shaped and sustained by systems that benefit from it.
And I have no interest in taking what was broken and calling it God’s intention.
That is the line I am not willing to blur.
If we are going to move forward, then we need to be anchored in what God actually established from the beginning.
Genesis 1:26-28
“Let us make mankind in our image… male and female He created them… and He blessed them and said to them,
‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.’”
Genesis 2:24
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
And when that design is later questioned, Christ does not adjust it. He returns to it.
Matthew 19:4–6
“Haven’t you read… that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said,
‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?
So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
That is the starting point. And if we are going to move beyond it, then let’s not pretend we are still standing in it.
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The Original Design
There is very little argument to be made, for or against the existence of biblical polygamy, if we do not first understand God’s design for humanity. And we can hem and haw all we want about it, circle it, poke at it, and try to soften it, but if we choose to sidestep what God actually established, then we also inherit the consequences that come with that decision.
I am fully aware that referencing Genesis 1:27, where God creates both male and female in His image and gives them shared identity, shared commission, and shared dominion, has become something of an eye-roll moment for some.
It gets labelled overused, overplayed, or conveniently set aside altogether.
And I will admit, I find that response more than a little perplexing. The words being dismissed are those of God Himself.
When that verse is minimised, brushed off, or mocked like some sort of convenient escape line,
what is actually being questioned is not interpretation. It is the authority of the One who established it in the first place.
God. Our Father.
Sit with the weight of that for a moment.
Ask yourself if this stance represents the fruit of the Spirit the Gospel calls us to bear?
And more than that, recognise what is actually taking place here. This is not a neutral disagreement.
This is the quiet dismissal of Scripture, carried out through the very people who profess to uphold it.
Yes, interpretation can be discussed. Of course it can. But there are places where Scripture is not vague, not layered, and not open to creative adjustment. There are foundations that do not move simply because they become inconvenient.
And when those foundations are set aside, it is not a difference of opinion.
It is a departure. God gives us free will to stay or to go, to join or to walk away, to submit or to rebel.
But there is no wishy-washy in between where we get to smooth it over on the sly and still pretend it holds.
The Gospel is not à la carte.
A verse here to support what we want. Another there to protect what we have built. A carefully selected line dropped into the conversation as though it settles the matter, while the very foundation it rests on is quietly ignored.
And frankly, I have had just about enough of Scripture being labelled a “silver bullet” the moment it is used to challenge a position. As though pointing to what God established in the beginning is somehow a shortcut, rather than the starting point.
It is a convenient form of deflection by dismissing the weight of the text without ever having to address it.
In the beginning and in the end must agree. That is not a suggestion. That is the standard we have been called to.
Christ was brutally beaten and died for the sins of His children.
Do we actually believe that, or have we reduced it to language we repeat without letting it shape what we accept as truth?
Because if we do believe it, then we must also be clear about what His blood was shed to redeem.
It was not shed to preserve distortion. It was not shed to uphold structures built out of the fallout of the Fall.
It was shed to restore what was established in the beginning.
Is that not what God Himself declared in the Garden? Did He not promise us a way out?
What kind of mess did we create that we needed out of? And when He returns, what does He restore?
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth;
for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away,
and the sea was no more.
I also saw the holy city,
the new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.
Then I heard a loud voice from the throne:
Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity,
and he will live with them.
They will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them and will be their God.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
grief, crying, and pain will be no more,
because the previous things have passed away.
(Revelation 21:1-4 CSB)
Then he showed me the river of the water of life,
clear as crystal,
flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb
down the middle of the city’s main street.
The tree of life was on each side of the river,
bearing twelve kinds of fruit,
producing its fruit every month.
The leaves of the tree are for healing the nations,
and there will no longer be any curse.
The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city,
and his servants will worship him.
They will see his face,
and his name will be on their foreheads.
Night will be no more;
people will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun,
because the Lord God will give them light,
and they will reign forever and ever.
God’s design.
His intention for humanity.
Sons and daughters, created in His image, called into unity.
(Revelation 22:1–5 CSB)
If we do not fully understand what was designed, then we cannot understand what is being restored. And if what is being presented does not align with that, if it does not reflect the redemption the Gospel declares, if it does not point forward to the new heaven and the new earth where that design is fully realised, then it is not something to be entertained, negotiated, or reshaped into something acceptable.
It is to be rejected.
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Allowance Is Not Endorsement
I see this idea thrown around a lot, and I will admit, I do not fully understand how it holds up under even a basic reading of Scripture.
Scripture is filled with accounts of God’s people turning away from Him, and what we consistently see is a Father with a
stretched-out hand, calling them back. If humanity had remained in alignment with God’s design, we would not be here,
you and I, writing, reading, or debating any of this.
One can merely speculate that there would be no Bible written to God’s children to teach them the narrow road, and there would have been no shedding of Christ’s blood on the cross to reconcile us. The truth of the matter is, we would never have been exiled from the Garden, separated from God, and needing a way to get back in.
This claim that “if God allowed it, it cannot be sin” is asinine. Was the beating and crucifixion of Christ not sin?
Scripture tells us He was beaten for the sins of the world. Which sins were those?
And yet, God allowed it.
So what distinction needs to be made here? If everything God allows is righteous, then the cross makes no sense.
What, exactly, are we being redeemed from?
What is defined as sin?
I would personally define sin as anything that separates us from God.
I would define anything that separates us from God as those things that go against His will.
And I would define those things that go against His will to be those things that go against His design.
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The Law: Regulation in a Fallen World
God’s patience with human hardness is not the same thing as God’s approval of human distortion. God called His creation of humanity very good. That was the standard He established before anything was fractured. But we are no longer living there.
We are living in a post-Fall reality, and that matters more than I think we are always willing to acknowledge.
We are not on vacation here. We are outside of the Garden. Outside of the home God created for us.
When we begin to ask what the Law is, or why it exists, we cannot ask that question as though we are still standing in Eden.
We are not. We are standing in exile. Exile. Do we recognise this?
So what is the Law?
The Law is not God rewriting His design. We have been separated from Him and are now living in a fractured reality where death and sorrow lives. And that separation is not a minor detail in the story. It is the defining condition of everything that follows.
And in that place, God does not abandon His children. He meets them in the mess of it. It is God stepping into that broken world and setting boundaries around the damage.
The Law is, quite simply, damage control.
The Law does not read like the language of perfection because it is not being spoken into a perfect world. It is being spoken into a fractured one.
Because if humanity had remained aligned with God’s design, there would be no need for regulation. There would be no need for instruction on how to navigate brokenness, because brokenness would not exist. No need to instruct a people on how to live within the consequences of their own rebellion. But that is not the reality we are living in.
The Law steps into that reality and begins to speak into what is already happening. Not to bless it, but to limit the harm it causes. Because He still loves His sons and daughters, and He still desires to be reconciled to us. I cannot think of a greater example of God’s mercy and grace toward His children than the Law.
And from a daughter’s perspective, I would ask His daughters in particular to pay close attention to this. God repeatedly steps in to protect His daughters from the harm that unfolds within patriarchal systems. He does not remove the system in that moment, but He does not leave them unprotected within it either.
And we need to be clear about why. God has given humanity free will, and with that comes the reality that people can choose whether or not they will live within what He has instructed. And many do not. Many of us have been harmed within those choices, within systems that have taken shape outside of His design.
But we need to understand this fully. God was not, and is not, the creator of those systems.
We see this clearly in passages like Exodus 21:10, where it says, “If he takes another wife, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights,” and again in Deuteronomy 21:15–17, where provision is made to ensure that a son is not stripped of his inheritance simply because he was born to a less-favoured wife.
The Law speaks into situations that already exist and says, if this is happening, then you do not get to neglect her, deprive her, discard her, or erase her child’s inheritance.
These are not commands to take multiple wives. They are instructions for what must not happen when that reality already exists. They are protective in nature and restrictive in action. The presence of a law does not mean the presence of approval.
It means the presence of brokenness.
Why do we have laws today? What is their purpose? Even outside of Scripture, common sense answers that for us. We do not create laws to celebrate what is good and functioning properly. We create laws to restrain what has the potential to cause harm.
We have speed limits not because driving fast is virtuous, but because without boundaries, people get hurt.
We have laws against theft, against violence, against neglect, not because those things are acceptable, but because they exist, and left unchecked, they destroy.
Imagine for a moment that we argued we should be able to drive 200 mph through a school zone. Or better yet, that the presence of a speed limit somehow proves it is acceptable, as long as we stay just under it. Would that make any sense at all?
The law exists because of the risk, not because of the virtue. So to turn around and use that same law as proof of
endorsement is to miss the point entirely. The restriction is not an invitation. It is a boundary.
Yes, you can drive. Just not beyond what was set for protection.
And Scripture is no different. Yes, you can marry. But not outside of what God defined as one flesh.
Scripture makes clear, God is our Mama Bear. He defends, He protects, and He steps into broken situations not to affirm them,
but to guard those who would otherwise be left exposed (Psalm 82:3–4).
So when we ask whether something is acceptable simply because it appears in Scripture, we are yet again asking the wrong question. The better question is why it needed to be addressed at all. The question is not, “Did God allow it?” The question is, “Why did He have to regulate it in the first place?” And once we understand that, why would we argue for behaviours that required regulation under the Law as though they were now permissible? Is that the standard we are aiming for?
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The Outcome: Scripture Shows the Pattern
If the Law shows us that God steps into broken situations to restrain harm, then the narratives show us what that brokenness looks like when it is lived out over time. These are not abstract ideas. These are real families, real consequences, and real fractures that unfold exactly where God’s design has been set aside.
And it does not take a theologian to recognise the pattern. It takes a willingness to read the whole story, not just the parts we prefer. If we are going to argue that polygamy (in the form of polygyny) can exist within God’s design, then we have to be willing to look honestly at what it produces when it is lived out.
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Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar — Division
Abraham is often pointed to as a patriarch of faith (not to be confused with the system of patriarchy), and rightly so. But his household also gives us one of the clearest early examples of what happens when God’s design is stepped outside of.
“He slept with Hagar, and she became pregnant. When she saw that she was pregnant, her mistress became contemptible to her. Then Sarai said to Abram, ‘You are responsible for my suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and when she saw that she was pregnant, I became contemptible to her. May the LORD judge between me and you.’ Abram replied to Sarai, ‘Here, your slave is in your hands. Do whatever you want with her.’ Then Sarai mistreated her so much that she ran away from her” (Genesis 16:4-6).
There is no unity here. There is no peace, no harmony, no sense of covenantal strength.
What we see instead is tension, resentment, blame shifting, and mistreatment. The moment the relationship expands beyond what God designed, the fracture is immediate. It does not take generations to show up. It is there from the start.
And it does not resolve itself with time. It deepens.
“But Sarah saw the son mocking—the one Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham. So she said to Abraham, ‘Drive out this slave and her son, for the son of this slave will not be a coheir with my son Isaac!’ This was very distressing to Abraham because of his son. But God said to Abraham, ‘Do not be distressed about the boy and about your slave. Whatever Sarah says to you, listen to her, because your offspring will be traced through Isaac’” (Genesis 21:9-12).
What began as tension becomes division. What began as a workaround becomes expulsion. A woman and her child are sent away. And while God, in His mercy, cares for Hagar and Ishmael, the situation itself is not redeemed within the household.
It is separated from it.
Is this a picture of covenantal unity? Or is this the cost of stepping outside of it?
We have seen this pattern before. Lines get messy, loyalties start pulling in different directions, and suddenly people are comparing notes, comparing worth, and trying to find their place in something that was never designed to hold that many moving parts. It is the kind of situation where people start keeping score, even if they pretend they are not, and someone always ends up carrying the weight of being less than.
Is this God’s design? Is this what we have been called to? Or is this exactly what happens when design is ignored, where division, jealousy, and expulsion are not the exception but the outcome? And are we really prepared to call that anything other than sin? Scripture clearly does not hide the sin. It does, however, record the result of it.
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Jacob, Leah, and Rachel — Rivalry
If Abraham’s household shows us division, Jacob’s shows us what happens when that division is lived out over time.
“So Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah… When the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb;
but Rachel was barren” (Genesis 29:30–31).
Right from the beginning, the imbalance is front and centre. One daughter is loved. One daughter is not.
And that difference does not stay quiet or resolve itself. It sets the tone for the story that follows.
“When Rachel saw that she was not bearing children for Jacob, she envied her sister. ‘Give me children,’ she told Jacob,
‘or I will die!’ Jacob became angry with her” (Genesis 30:1–2).
Jealousy does not take long to show up, and it does not stay contained. It spills into desperation, into anger,
and into a household where nothing feels settled and no one feels secure.
“During the wheat harvest, Reuben went out and found some mandrakes… Rachel said to Leah, ‘Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.’ But she said to her, ‘Isn’t it enough that you have taken my husband? Now you also want my son’s mandrakes?’… So Jacob slept with Leah that night” (Genesis 30:14–16).
And this is where it becomes almost painfully transactional. Affection is negotiated, access is bargained for, and intimacy starts to look like something being scheduled, traded, and sorted out depending on who has the upper hand that day. It starts to read less like a marriage and more like an agreement being worked out on the fly.
What I personally find interesting about this story is the fact that God saw that Leah was being rejected, and He stepped in.
Not because the structure itself was right, but because someone within it was being harmed. That alone should stop us from mistaking God’s intervention for God’s endorsement.
Once again, it is not unity that takes shape, but jealousy, competition, and the kind of emotional fracture that leaves no one untouched. I have a hard time believing one flesh was ever meant to involve bargaining for your turn.
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David — Family Disorder
If Jacob’s household shows us rivalry, David’s shows us what happens when that rivalry is left to grow unchecked.
I have to admit, I love this story, and probably not for the reasons one might expect. Because here we have David, a man described as being after God’s own heart, and yet living within a structure that clearly steps outside of God’s design. That contradiction should make us slow down and pay attention.
God said this about David long before Bathsheba, long before the unraveling of his household. It speaks to his heart toward God, not to the perfection of his life. Yet so many, eager to make a case for polygamy and other distortions, use David as though his standing with God validates his actions. It does not. And I’d like to call out the falsity of that claim.
There is so much more going on here.
If we are going to use David as a model, then we do not get to pick and choose which parts of his story we are willing to acknowledge. There is no denying that what unfolds in his family is anything but reflective of design.
And really, does calling someone righteous translate into a permission slip? That is a false equivalence, is it not?
Second Book of Samuel 11:2–4 tells us that David took Bathsheba and slept with her, while her husband was away at war.
The text does not present this as righteous. It presents it as abuse of power (I have a different word for it).
The fact that this is a sin is pretty self explanatory I would hope. Regardless, David doesn’t stop there.
Second Book of Samuel 11:14–15 shows David arranging for Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah to be placed on the front lines so that he would be killed. And when the prophet confronts him, Scripture does not soften it.
“Why have you despised the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes?
You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own” (2 Samuel 12:9).
God calls it what it is. Evil.
There are consequences that follow, including the death of the child (2 Samuel 12:14–18), and yet even within that, David’s position before God is not used to excuse his actions. It is used to call him to repentance. And that is the point.
David’s story is not a validation of his choices. It is a record of both his failure and the consequences that followed.
So if we are going to appeal to David, then we must be willing to take the whole account. Simply calling a man righteous does not make his actions righteous. You do not get to borrow the title and ignore the consequences.
Second Book of Samuel 13:1–14 records one of the most disturbing moments in Scripture, where Amnon, David’s son, violates his half-sister Tamar. What unfolds here is not subtle. It is not hinted at. It is recorded plainly, and it forces us to sit with the reality of what has taken root inside this family.
“In the course of time, Amnon son of David fell in love with Tamar… he forced her and lay with her.”
Call this what it is. This is not just dysfunction. This is violation (again, I have another word for this). This is precisely what happens when disorder is allowed to take root inside a structure that was never meant to carry it. And also pay careful attention, because just like David had violated Bathsheba in his own family home, likewise, Amnon violated Tamar within the home.
But it does not stop there.
Perhaps just as telling is what follows. There is no immediate justice. There is no swift correction that restores order.
The fracture is allowed to sit, and when fracture is left unaddressed, it rarely stays quiet.
Second Book of Samuel 13:28–29 shows us exactly what happens next, when Absalom, Tamar’s brother, takes matters into his own hands and has Amnon killed. “Absalom’s servants did to Amnon what Absalom had ordered… then all the king’s sons got up, mounted their mules and fled.”
Violation turns into retaliation and pain does not resolve itself, it multiplies. And still, it does not end.
Second Book of Samuel 15:10–14 reveals the next layer, where Absalom rises up in rebellion against his own father, turning the fracture of the family into the fracture of the kingdom itself. “Absalom sent secret messengers throughout the tribes of Israel… ‘As soon as you hear the sound of the trumpets, then say, “Absalom is king in Hebron.”’ … Then a messenger came to David, saying, ‘The hearts of the people of Israel are with Absalom.’”
This is where the weight of it becomes unavoidable. This is not simply a difficult family dynamic. This is chaos, violence, and the complete breakdown of family order. And again, we are left with the same question. Is this God’s design?
Is this what we have been called to?
The fracture moves from the family into the kingdom, and what begins in the home has a way of refusing to stay there,
no matter how much we would prefer to keep it contained. And quite honestly, it doesn’t take a genius to figure this one out.
You can pull from psychology, from counsellors, from authors, from study after study, and they will all tell you the same thing in different language, that what is left unresolved does not disappear, it transfers. It shows up again in the next relationship,
and the next, and before long it is not just a moment, it is a pattern. It moves from one relationship to the next,
from one generation to the next, until what should have been a place of safety becomes a place of instability.
The names may change, the roles may shift, but the outcome has a way of staying remarkably consistent.
This is not the inheritance Scripture speaks of. Proverbs 13:22 reminds us that “A good person leaves an inheritance to their children’s children…” and whatever is unfolding here, this is not that.
When we think of inheritance, we tend to default straight to finances, to bank accounts, to assets and what can be measured or divided on paper. But I would argue there is an inheritance far more significant than anything that shows up in a will. From addictions to relational breakdown, from insecurity to identity confusion, from patterns of control to cycles of neglect, this is the kind of inheritance that is passed down when fracture is left unaddressed. It is the quiet handing off of confusion, instability, divided loyalties, and wounds that were never dealt with, only absorbed and carried forward. This is the kind of inheritance that no one wants to admit or name, but everyone feels. Are we really prepared to call this transfer anything other than sin?
Scripture certainly does not pretend it is harmless.
Exodus 20:5 lays it out plainly, “…punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation…” and this is often misunderstood. This is not God arbitrarily reaching down and punishing children for something they did not do. It’s Him telling us that unaddressed brokenness has a way of repeating itself if nothing interrupts it. And that is exactly what we see here.
Once again, what unfolds is not unity.
And some of us may want to pridefully deny that, but as my mom would say, “the proof is in the pudding.” Patterns do not lie.
If addiction runs generationally in a family, it does not correct itself simply because time has passed. It changes when someone makes the decision to confront it and stop it, quite literally. The same is true of any pattern that has taken root. It does not dissolve on its own. It has to be broken. And that is not easy work. It is costly, it is often unseen, and it rarely comes with recognition.
Future generations may never know your name or the moment you chose to turn it around,
but they will live in the freedom that came from it.
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Solomon — Spiritual Compromise
If David’s household shows us how fracture erupts into chaos within the family and plays out in legacy, Solomon’s shows us where that same fracture ultimately leads when it is left unchecked. It moves deeper, until what began as relational disorder becomes spiritual compromise. And once again, God warned us of this.
First Book of Kings 11:1–3 does not soften the reality:
“King Solomon loved many foreign women in addition to Pharaoh’s daughter: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, ‘You must not intermarry with them, because they will turn you away from me to their gods.’ Solomon was deeply attached to these women and loved them. He had seven hundred wives who were princesses and three hundred who were concubines…”
This is not a small deviation, and wow, could I pull some comments from the peanut gallery here. But alas, I will contain my tongue. Mostly. What I do want to address is the argument from silence that tends to show up here. No, God saying, “Do not intermarry,” is not code for, “Go ahead and collect wives, just make sure they are from the right group.”
I mean, come on people, this is excess layered upon excess, justified over time until it no longer even registers as departure.
It is not even on the map anymore. What begins as allowance in a fallen world becomes, in practice, something that feels normalised, even defensible, if you are determined enough to dress it up that way. And personally, I think the more revealing question is why anyone is so committed to dressing it up at all.
But thankfully, Scripture does not leave us to guess where it leads.
First Book of Kings 11:4 makes it plain: “When Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away to follow other gods.
He was not wholeheartedly devoted to the LORD his God, as his father David had been.”
And there it is. A divided heart. A turning away.
Once again, what began in the home, what showed itself in rivalry and chaos, now reaches its fullest expression in idolatry.
The very thing Israel was called to guard against becomes the outcome of a life shaped by compromise.
And this is where the weight of it settles.
It’s hard to see past the egregious entitlement here, but this is not simply about numbers or arrangements or structures that can be debated on paper. This is about direction. This is about what shapes the heart over time. What we allow, what we justify, what we build our lives around, it does not stay contained to some box we have built. It forms us.
And let’s not kid ourselves, it does not take seven hundred wives for this to happen. It takes divided loyalty. It takes compromise that is left unchecked. It takes a willingness to live just outside of design long enough that it begins to feel normal.
Again, is this God’s design? Is this what we have been called to?
Or is this exactly what happens when design is ignored, where compromise does not remain small but eventually reshapes the heart itself? And like a broken record, once again, what we see is not unity.
It is a divided heart, idolatry, and the slow unraveling of what was meant to remain wholly devoted.
And it becomes very difficult to look at this and call it anything other than sin.
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There is not a single Scriptural account where polygamy produces covenantal unity.
Not one.
What is interesting is that the argument rarely stands on one leg for very long.
When one angle starts to fall apart, another quickly takes its place.
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The “Unmarried Woman” Argument
So let’s deal with one of the more creative little workarounds making the rounds, the idea that if
she is not another man’s wife, then she is somehow available. I mean, apparently covenant
now operates on a vacancy system.
No ring, no problem. No husband, no boundaries. Just a wide open runway and a green light
dressed up as biblical reasoning. (Whoopsie, I left my ring at home, ignore the tan line…)
And I have to say, it is impressive in a very specific way. Add a few statistics about how many
more women there are than men and, hypothetically speaking, you have yourself a perfectly
reasonable argument. And naturally, God’s kingdom has always been governed by population
ratios, has it not?
But let’s slow that down for just a moment and remember how God actually defined covenantal
marriage. Genesis 2:24 very clearly states, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” I mean, it was only God declaring
that. I am sure He would not mind if we adjusted the math a little. One could probably mean
two… or three… or four… maybe even a few. And depending on which uncle you ask, “a few”
might apparently mean eight. Which is funny when you are a kid. Less funny when grown men
try to do the same thing with covenant.
And that is where this argument begins to fall apart. Matthew 5:28 tells us Jesus does not
operate within that framework at all: “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully
has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
So whatever this system is that tries to define sexual ethics by availability, Jesus dismantles it
entirely. He does not ask who she belongs to. He addresses what is happening within you. And
just like that, the argument from silence collapses, along with the long parade of kings who
gathered wives to build influence and secure status, as though consolidating power ever
qualified as spiritual guidance. Jesus does not play that game.
And Paul reinforces that same singularity in marriage. 1 Corinthians 7:2: “But because sexual
immorality is so common, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.”
And let’s not miss what Paul is actually addressing there. The word used is porneia, a broad
term that covers sexual activity outside of the covenant God established. Not just adultery in the
technical sense. Anything that steps outside of the one-flesh design and then tries to justify it after the fact.
His own. Her own. Not shared. Not rotating. Not negotiated.
So when sexual ethics are reduced to “she wasn’t married,” what is actually being revealed is
not a deeper understanding of Scripture, but a complete redefinition of it. Covenant becomes
conditional, boundaries become negotiable, and what was designed to reflect unity is quietly
reframed to accommodate desire. Reducing sexual ethics to availability does not exactly elevate
the polygamy conversation. If anything, it does a very effective job of exposing it for what it is.
What I find particularly interesting about this patriarchal entitlement claim is that Paul, the
disciple so often quoted out of context to keep women nicely tucked into “quiet” little boxes,
actually addresses this outright and without any need for creative interpretation. And while other
Scriptures are dissected, debated, and conveniently reshaped, this one simply refuses to
cooperate, aligning plainly with the Gospel’s message of one flesh, one to one, each man to his
own wife and each woman to her own husband.
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Only a Sin If It’s Your Brother’s Wife?
If the last section made the case that polygamy is fair game so long as the woman isn't married,
this one steps a little further down the same hallway and into a different room.
I'll call this one the exception clause.
The reasoning runs something like this. Scripture—primarily Leviticus 18 and 20—names a handful of
women a man cannot have: mother, daughter, sister, aunt, daughter-in-law, neighbour's wife, brother's wife.
The named is the limit. Whatever isn't on the list, by quiet implication, must be on the menu.
Exodus 20:17, "do not covet your neighbour's wife," gets the same treatment.
The issue, they will say, is taking another man's wife, not having more than one wife yourself.
Even the elder qualification, "husband of one wife," gets filed under "preference" rather than "instruction,"
even though, if you sit with it for two seconds, it is a restriction against polygamy, not a workaround for it.
And while we’re here, the Law itself is not written like a fine-print contract waiting to be exploited.
It works through covenantal categories, kinship boundaries, and moral logic, which
tells you something about how much weight to give an argument built on what is not named.
The whole framework is built on a category error. Adultery and marriage are not the same conversation.
An exception in one is not a permission slip for the other. But that is exactly the move being made:
an exception clause in adultery law is treated as an open door for polygamous marriage.
And underneath all of it is the same question wearing a slightly different outfit.
What can I get away with if it isn't explicitly named?
So let's take a look at one version of this loophole, because this one tends to sound a little more
"biblical" on the surface. It runs through Leviticus 18:16 and 20:21, which instruct, "do not have
sexual relations with your brother's wife." The argument goes that the only explicit sexual or
marital restriction tied to polygamy is your brother's wife, and even that has its levirate exception.
So outside of that narrow case, multiple wives aren't actually condemned.
The reasoning follows that if she is not your brother's wife, the category somehow opens up.
Don't you just love the creativity? This classification thing is pure gold.
Right.
And the quiet assumption being made is… what, exactly?
That she only belongs to someone if she is already someone’s wife? That covenant is defined by possession?
That if she is not “your brother’s wife,” then the category somehow opens up?
Reclassification at its finest.
And so, while we are at it, who exactly is this “brother” stepping in to take care of his “brother’s wives”?
Is he on standby somewhere? On call? Rotating schedule? Do we send him a calendar invite?
Calendly works pretty well. Let’s just go ahead and slot him in for next Monday…
Oh. He doesn’t have a brother.
Well now, that complicates things, doesn’t it.
Now watch what's happening with the definitions, because this is where it gets interesting. Here,
in this prohibition, "brother" is treated as blood and only blood. Narrow, specific, and literal.
So narrow that, as we just saw, our man may not even have one.
And just like that, the rule has nothing to say about him.
But step into any other room of the church and the vocabulary stretches without breaking a sweat.
"Sister in Christ." "Brothers in the faith." Spiritual family.
It becomes beautifully convenient when the conversation calls for it.
Come on, people.
The pattern is hard to miss once you see it. Whichever definition expands male access or
extends male authority, that is the one that wins. "Brother" stays blood when blood keeps the
prohibition small. "Sister" becomes spiritual when spiritual widens the field of women subject to
male oversight. Selectively defined when it becomes useful. Useful, that is, to a very particular party.
And this is usually where someone reaches for the levirate marriage passage (the practice of a
man marrying his deceased brother's widow), as though it somehow supports the expansion.
It does not, in case you’re wondering.
Deuteronomy 25:5–6 reads, “If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son,
his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a
brother-in-law to her. The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother…”
Well, that is rather inconvenient for the argument, isn’t it? Because Deuteronomy 25 is not dealing with a man collecting
wives under the banner of biblical freedom. It is dealing with death, widowhood, inheritance, family obligation, and the preservation of a deceased brother’s name. In other words, this is not a passage about male access.
It is a passage about legal responsibility.
Brothers, if your brother dies without a son, there is a responsibility placed on you, and funny enough,
it does not seem to come with a checklist of personal preferences. Age, circumstance, attraction, convenience, desire…
none of that appears to be the point. The point is not, “Look, another woman is available.”
The point is, “A woman has been left vulnerable, and a family line has been left without an heir.”
Scripture often regulates human realities inside a fallen world without presenting those realities as God’s original design.
This passage does not expand covenantal marriage into a free-for-all. It narrows a specific obligation to a
specific situation: a brother, a deceased brother, a widow, no son, and the preservation of the dead brother’s name.
Here is the part that gets conveniently overlooked, because this “situation” only exists outside of God’s original design
in the first place. Levirate marriage only becomes necessary because death has entered the world.
Widowhood, inheritance vulnerability, family-line preservation, and male-controlled protection systems are all post-Fall realities.
Even if the Law regulates that situation, the situation itself is not Edenic design. In Eden, there is no dead husband.
No widow left exposed. No inheritance crisis. No family line threatened by death. No woman dependent on a male
relative to preserve her security, her place, or her future. So when someone points to Deuteronomy 25 and says,
“See, polygamy works here,” they are already standing in the wreckage and calling the emergency response the design.
No, this is not a permission slip for polygamy. It is not God handing men a holy loophole. It is God placing responsibility
on men inside a patriarchal system that would have otherwise left women exposed, unprotected, and dependent
on the mercy of men who already held the power. And that is exactly the point.
You can argue til you are blue in the face, Scripture does not show God celebrating patriarchy.
It shows Him stepping into the damage patriarchy creates and putting a leash on it.
Once again, this passage does not expand male access. It imposes male responsibility. It is not saying,
“Here is another way to acquire a wife.” It is saying, “You do not get to benefit from a system that leaves women
vulnerable without being held accountable for the harm that system creates.”
And that is where entitlement needs to be named plainly. I don’t care what system you are operating from,
when women require legal protection from male power, the problem is not female vulnerability.
The problem is male entitlement. Who would she need protection from in an Edenic world?
Who would be circling her widowhood, her body, her future, or her inheritance as though grief created opportunity?
Not a husband. Not a brother. Not a protector. An entitled man.
Patriarchy has a long history of giving men power and calling it protection. And women today need to stop
mistaking the cage for covering simply because someone handed us the key and called it biblical.
This is some kind of math I did not learn back in that advanced class in high school. One man
and one woman becoming one flesh, and now we are trying to figure out how to add a few fractions
or maybe a couple decimal places onto one side of it. I might have to pull my “one free call” card for this one.
Is there a mathematician available for this? Perhaps over there… sitting next to the unicorn.
If you squint hard enough, you can make just about anything appear.
Should I stop while I’m ahead? I probably should. But will I? I’ve got my late grandfather’s grin
flashing in my memory, along with the “My young missy” head shake. And there’s just something
in me that has totally lost control. He’s still encouraging me. That’s one thing I know for sure.
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Celibacy vs Polygamy: The False Comparison
Now I have to say, I really do enjoy this one. This retort shows up right on cue, almost as reliably as the
“raging feminist” accusation. The moment polygamy is called into question, in comes the follow-up,
delivered like it is some kind of intellectual mic drop:
“So then, is celibacy a sin? Is singleness a sin?” And just like that, we are supposed to sit back and admire the brilliance of it.
Except… it is not brilliance.
It is a false equivalence.
Or, if we are being a little more honest, it is the kind of comparison you make when the original argument is starting to wobble and you need to toss a red herring across the room so everyone stops looking at the part that is collapsing.
Because comparing celibacy to polygamy is a bit like comparing apples to… car engines. Or better yet, deciding that if you cannot have a cat for a pet, an orca should be a reasonable alternative. That is about how closely these two ideas are related.
They do not even belong in the same category. They are not solving the same problem.
They are not even moving in the same direction.
Let’s break this one down, because this is one of those fallacies that really does get my goat, and apparently my goat has had enough. Scripture does not leave us wondering about this one, so I always question when someone throws it out there. In 1 Corinthians 7:7–8, Paul tells us, “I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do.”
Paul develops this further in 1 Corinthians 7:32–35 by saying, “I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs, how he can please the Lord… I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.”
Jesus affirms this in Matthew 19:12, where we read, “…there are those who choose to live like eunuchs
for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.”
Now that is interesting, isn’t it. Celibacy is not questioned. It is affirmed and named as a gift.
More than that, it is described as a position of undivided devotion.
And I have to admit, I find myself pausing there, wondering if the same could ever be said of polygamy.
Could we describe polygamy as a position of undivided devotion? Scripturally, it is never described that way. Not once.
Celibacy removes relational complexity and frees time, energy, and attention to be directed toward Christ.
One has to wonder if that is exactly what Paul had in mind when he spoke of undivided devotion.
Polygamy does not exactly offer the same arrangement. Celibacy reflects devotion. Polygamy reflects accommodation to brokenness. These are not parallel categories. Not even in the teeniest, tiniest bit.
So no, this is not a clever comparison. It is a deflection. And not a particularly subtle one.
It sounds clever right up until you actually think about it.
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Covenant vs Consumption
At some point, we have to stop chasing fantasies and ask a better question.
Is marriage covenant… or is it a system?
Is sexuality union… or is it access?
These are not small distinctions. They define everything. Scripture is not unclear here.
Covenant does not operate like a subscription service.
When marriage is treated like access, it stops being covenant. And when sexuality is reduced to availability,
it stops being union. It becomes consumption. And we do not need a theological degree to recognise what that looks like. Culture has already built entire industries around men confusing access with intimacy.
Pornography has been preaching that sermon for years.
The only difference is, it does not usually have the audacity to call itself biblical.
The deeper issue here is not whether someone can construct a loophole.
The deeper issue is what they are trying to protect by doing so.
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Final Clarity: The Full Thread of Scripture
We live in a world that’s gotten fairly comfortable with entitlement, and more times than not, we’ve learned
how to dress it up in just enough Scripture to make it sound respectable. Patriarchy didn’t start in the heart of God,
it showed up in the fallout, and we’ve been trying to pass it off as design ever since.
But the thread of Scripture is not nearly that confusing.
Creation reveals the design.
The Fall introduces the distortion.
The Law steps in to contain the damage.
The narratives show us exactly where it leads.
And Christ restores the clarity we keep trying to complicate.
So no, I’m not buying the rebrand.
Polygamy is permitted in practice, regulated in law, exposed in consequence, and corrected by Christ.
And if that sounds a bit too tidy for all the creative math we’ve been doing along the way, well now… that just might be the point.