Polygamy ≠ Same-Sex Marriage

Last updated on: July 11, 2011 at 6:49 pm by Jeffrey L. Falick

Polygamy ≠ Same-Sex Marriage 2011-07-11T18:49:00-05:00 Jeffrey L. Falick

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The anti-gay crowd often cites the opinion that if gay marriage is legalized then polygamy is next. I always get a little chuckle out of this because usually these folks are also for “biblical” definitions of marriage which, let’s face it, were widely polygamous.

The elimination in the west of polygamy was a response to many social pressures, not the least of which was the recognition (even in the biblical narratives themselves) that such unions are inherently unfair. It’s not that every marriage is inherently equal, but ideally it is a two way agreement. Introducing “sister wives” into a marriage is a recipe for domestic hostility and even violence.

The Iowa organization, “The Family Leader,” has been circulating a statement called “The Marriage Vow,” to Republican candidates for president. Bachmann and Santorum have already signed on. In it there is the erroneous assertion that: “Faithful monogamy is at the very heart of a designed and purposeful order – as conveyed by Jewish and Christian Scripture….”

Uh… not exactly:

A new [Israeli] organization is trying to reinstate polygamy into mainstream Orthodox Judaism, despite it being against the contemporary norm of Jewish law, and prohibited by the state.

Now it may surprise you to learn that Jewish polygamy was only officially banned in the tenth century C.E. by Rabbeinu Gershom of Mainz. The prohibition applied solely to Ashkenazim and was a bone of contention between them and the Sephardim (read A.B. Yehoshua’s excellent “A Journey to the End of the Millennium” for a great fictional take on this). In fact, there were more than a few Sephardic immigrants to Israel who showed up with more than one wife. Moreover, Rabbeinu Gershom’s ban expired over 700 years ago!

Now to be very fair to the vast majority of Orthodox Jews in Israel, this is not an idea they are likely to embrace. There is an inherent understanding that polygamy is not a good idea even if it can be proved to be technically within the bounds of Jewish law.

“This is a distortion and madness,” said Rabbi Ya’acov Bezalel Harrar, the head of Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar’s office.

…The validity of Rabbeinu Gershom’s excommunication ban might have expired, but that doesn’t mean that polygamy is permitted,” Harrar said, noting that in the Even Ha’ezer, the relevant section from the Sephardi equivalent of the Shulhan Aruch, the Tur, it is noted that such a ban on marrying a second woman is desirable.

“No rabbi would permit such a thing,” he said. “This is despicable villainy,” Harrar continued. “I am even less bothered by homosexual relations than such an instance in which a man takes two wives. In a homosexual scenario there are two people who decide to live their life that way. Here a person is putting two women into a conflict.

Hey Iowa! Did you hear that? In the gay “scenario” it’s about two people living their lives together. It has nothing to do with polygamy or as many of your friends loathsomely claim, with pedophilia or bestiality. And the last time I checked, the U.S. Constitution doesn’t give government the right to deny two people the equal right to join their lives in marriage just because they are the same gender.

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