Few things may seem odder to the modern Bible reader than polygamy, the marriage of one person to at least two others at the same time. Though the Bible holds up monogamous marriage as God’s ideal, it never explicitly condemns polygamy. However, we mustn’t fall into the trap of believing that just because something isn’t explicitly condemned in the Bible means that it’s allowed. Polygamy was never God’s intent for humanity, and its practice is, clearly, wrong.Scripture does, in fact, depict the negative consequences of one polygamous marriage after another, from Jacob, Rachel, and Leah, to the disharmony among the wives of the prophet Samuel’s father, to the deadly feuds between King David’s children by multiple women.

In the biblical world, polygamy was primarily practiced in pastoral communities, where households required many hands to run, and so it was desirable to have many children to tend crops and livestock. Polygamy may have been most common in cases where the first wife was unable to conceive, as in the case of Elkanah (1 Sam. 1:2). Polygamy became a status symbol among the wealthy and elites. The poor could not really afford to pay multiple dowries.

The Bible’s first mention of polygamy is in Genesis 4:17-24, in which Cain’s descendant Lamech, living before the Flood, takes two wives. The story of Abraham introduces the concept of a concubine, a woman who may have sexual relations with a man but who is considered of lower status than the primary wife. When Abraham and Sarah failed to conceive a child, Sarah urged Abraham to father an heir with her maidservant, Hagar. Abraham and Hagar’s relationship led to jealousy and conflict after a son, Ishmael, was born (Gen. 16; 21:8-20).

Perhaps the Bible’s most famous incidence of polygamy is that of Jacob, tricked by his father-in-law into marrying his beloved’s older sister as well (Genesis 29:15-30). Jacob’s two wives, Leah and Rachel, competed with each other in childbearing, including giving Jacob their maidservants to bear children with him as well. The actual descendants of this marriage are the Jews and Arabs, whose various rivalries and wars are more than dramatic.

The Law of Moses addresses the question of a man having two wives but only loving one of them (Deut. 25:15-17). It assures that no favoritism will be given to the firstborn son of the better loved wife, mandating that the man’s firstborn son, regardless of which wife bore him, will receive the inheritance due a firstborn son.

By the time of the Babylonian exile, the practice of polygamy had fallen out of common practice amongst the people of Israel, as there is no biblical record of it post-exile. Like slavery (Exod. 21:1-1) and the ancient practice of “an eye for an eye” (see Exod. 21:23-25; compare Matt. 5:38-44), God tolerated it amongst His people, despite it being far from what He had established for them at Creation, until they were ready to deal with it. Jesus taught higher principles of marriage (Matt. 5:27-32; 19:1-12).

Today, polygamy is still practiced by certain tribal societies. Modern missionaries have come up with varying solutions to the dilemma of polygamists joining the church, which includes asking the convert to divorce all but one wife, or, in a move that many believe is more gracious, simply to remain faithful to his wives while not taking on any more. In the end the only form of marriage sanctioned in the Bible is the marriage of one man to one woman.