Jehovah’s Witnesses’ views on polygamy (a man has several wives)
Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that God’s original purpose for marriage was monogamy, based on the creation account in which one man and one woman were united. Although polygamy was common among God’s servants in the Old Testament, Jehovah’s Witnesses view it as a practice that God tolerated temporarily because of people’s “hardheartedness.” They believe that Jesus restored monogamy as the standard for Christians, citing Matthew 19:4-6, where Jesus quotes the account of creation and emphasizes that “the two shall be one flesh.” Therefore, Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Christians today should practice monogamy.
What the Bible Actually Says
The Bible contains several examples of polygamy among God’s servants, such as Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon. The fact that a man had several wives was allowed under the law of Moses (e.g., Genesis 21:15-17 and Isaiah 4:1). In the New Testament, there are no explicit prohibitions against polygamy for all Christians. However, there is a requirement that ministerial servants and elders be “one woman’s husband” (1 Corinthians 1:1). —1 Timothy 3:2, 12; Titus 1:6). If the Bible meant that it was generally forbidden for all Christian men to have multiple wives, then it would be unnecessary to specify this specifically for ministerial servants and elders.
Some claim that Jesus, in Matthew 19:5, introduced a prohibition against polygamy when he quoted Genesis 2:24: “Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother and will stick to his wife, and the two will be one flesh.” However, it is important to note that this passage is a quotation from Genesis 2:24, at a time when we know that polygamy was permitted. It is therefore unlikely that the statement in Matthew 19:5 was intended as a prohibition against polygamy, just as the original wording of the quotation did not prohibit polygamy in earlier times.
Rather, the point of the verse seems to be that when a man marries, he should establish a separate household with his wife, regardless of whether he has one wife or several. The fact that the word “wife” appears in the singular (γυναῖκα) does not exclude the possibility that a man may have multiple wives. The Bible often uses singular forms in a general sense. For example, Exodus 21:28 says that “if a bull gores a man or a woman,” but this does not mean that a bull can gore only one person in total.
Others may argue that the Bible provides some negative examples of the consequences of polygamy and therefore it is not good for Christians. Although challenges may arise with polygamy, this argument will not be tenable because the negative statements are being made at a time when we know for certain that polygamy was permitted by Jehovah and therefore Jehovah cannot have meant by these examples that they were doing something wrong by having multiple wives. Paul also mentioned some negative effects of marriage, but that did not mean that he imposed a ban on marriage (1 Corinthians 7:28, 32-35). The point of mentioning challenges that we see in e.g. 1. Genesis 29-30 about Jacob who was married to Rachel and Leah or the rules given in Genesis 29-30. Genesis 21:8-14 to those who had multiple wives is not a negative view of polygamy but shows that challenges can arise that need to be dealt with in these areas as well as in all other areas of life.
Why Biblical Polygamy Only Applies to Men
The Bible leaves no room for a woman to have multiple husbands at the same time. Romans 7:2 says: “A married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that bound her to her husband.” This shows that marriage legally and morally binds a woman to one husband, and that she can only enter into a new marriage if he dies. In the same way, 1. 1 Corinthians 7:39: “A wife is bound as long as her husband lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry whomever she wants, as long as it is done in the Lord.” The last Bible text excludes the woman from remarrying before the man she is married to is dead. This statement makes polyandry impossible. Incidentally, the Bible has no examples of cases where the woman was married to several men.
Why does the Bible allow men to have multiple wives but not the other way around? One possible explanation may be that in biblical times, men were the breadwinners, and a man’s ability to provide for several wives provided security for women and children. If a woman has several husbands, it can create uncertainty about who the father is. DNA tests were not invented at that time, and such testing is impractical anyway, and perhaps inaccessible to many even today. Polyandry would mean that several men shared responsibility for the same woman and her children, which would create ambiguity around breadwinners, who was the father, and challenges with inheritance, contrary to the Bible’s guidelines. It is possible that differences in the biological nature of the sexes also play a role. Not least, there is a significant difference in a man’s ability to have several children at the same time if he has several wives, while women have to complete their pregnancy before she can start a new one.
Polyandry is extremely rare historically. There are a few examples (e.g., among Tibetan groups in the Himalayas), but that is the exception, not the rule. Polygamy has been widely accepted in much of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, including in biblical communities. This shows that historically there has been wide acceptance of polygyny (a man has several wives) but not polyandry (a woman has several husbands).
This chapter is not an expression of personal opinions. The chapter is also not intended to speak in favor of choosing polygamy but aims solely to analyze what the Bible teaches on the subject. Whether a man chooses to have one or more wives is up to the individual person within the laws of the country where he lives.
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