Well, I have so much running through my head lately and I have been extremely busy, rendering me indecisiveness on what to post about first. However, a topic on a forum (www.homeschoolalumni.org…if you are a home school alumni/graduate, check it out!) got me thinking on a this extremely fascinating topic, so I decided to write about it.
In the United States, polygamy is illegal and divorce is legal. The bible never (to my knowledge) actually directly addresses polygamy, but it does address divorce. It does, however, encourage only having one wife. As clarification, I do not endorse, approve, or advise polygamy! My point is this: in a culture where divorce is extremely common and polygamy not (it’s illegal…oh wait, I already said that), Christians make excuses for divorce (which the Bible directly addresses) but feels very strongly about polygamy (which is not, to my knowledge, directly addressed by the Bible).
Let me present a scenario: A married man gets involved with his secretary at a Christian organization. The secretary was a virgin when this man had her became pregnant. In disgrace and under the usual threats, this man had to decide which “family” he wanted. So, he chose the younger and divorced the first wife with something like six kids. The church, with the view that a man can not have “two wives,” forced the man to choose between his wife and the secretary. This, I believe, is wrong.
Another scenario: A newly saved divorced and re-married man is forced to leave his current wife by the church and return to his first wife (because a man should not have more than two wives…and divorce is wrong?) Does this even make sense!?!
Alright, neither of these scenarios are straight-in-your-face polygamy, but the philosophy behind the churches actions are their beliefs on polygamy.
Now you may be wondering what spurred this conversation in the forum. Let me present to you a less modern scenario that does deal with polygamy…and the church:
“A man married a woman. Later, he married her sister, to, which made everyone happy. Then some missionaries came along, and they got saved. In this story, the missionaries said he couldn’t be a Christian and have two wives, so they forced him to divorce one. After much hard deliberation, the older sister decided to voluntarily leave, in order to cause as little heartache as possible. Well, in the culture that he (the man with two wives) was in, certain work went to the men, and certain work went to the wives. She was getting burdened by all the work, and wanted him to find another wife. She was really glad he chose her sister, since they loved each other and this way got to spend more time together. It was a really happy relationship.”
This last scenario was refering to a Native American family from eons ago. Interestingly enough, the culture described in the scenario is quite similar to the one I grew up in. The only limit a Hmong man had on how many wives he could take was how many he could handle. I don’t recall ever having seen any families with more than one wife truly happy, but my family would not have advised any man to divorce a wife just because he had accepted Christ. Hmong woman generally married in order to have a home, not because of “love” (at least, not the wishy-washy love).
If a man has two wives before he becomes a Christian, should he be forced to divorce one after he becomes a Christian? I do not think so. I wonder why, when the bible is so strong about divorce, Christians are so willing to have a man or woman divorce in order to prevent having “two wives?” Two wrongs don’t make a right.
In case your thinking that these can’t be true scenarios…they are. I got them from people who have seen it happen…several times. My question is: Why?
Now, don’t get me wrong. Divorce is a tough subject, and sometimes it is almost unavoidable. My problem is when people take something the Bible doesn’t say a whole lot about and use it to do something the Bible says God hates!
Well, I think I exhausted my thoughts on this topic….so comment away!
