A very long time ago, in the garden of eden, God set the perfect standard of marriage by giving adam a wife at Genesis 2:22-24.
And God built the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman, and he brought her to the man. Then the man said:“This is at last bone of my bonesAnd flesh of my flesh. This one will be called Woman, Because from man she was taken.” That is why a man will leave his father and his mother and he will stick to his wife, and they will become one flesh
While on earth Jesus supported that same standard of marriage or monogamy by telling his followers at
Matthew 19:4,5
Have you not read that the one who created them from the beginning made them male and female"
Quoting Genesis 2:24, he added
for this reason a man will leave hus father and mother and will stick to his wife.
So what is the issue?
But you may wonder that faithful men of old like David, Abraham, Solomon, Jacob and others married more than one wife.Yes they did, but the bible shows that conflicts and discord happened in this families because of their practice of polygamy.
A quick example is when abram married his wife's servant Hagar, she became pregnant and the bible said she dispised her mistress(Gen 16:1-5).
God's law later told each king to stop multiplying wives for himself.(Deuteronomy 17:17).
He gave this law because the foreign wives may turn the hearts of the kings away from God.
King Solomon is an example that can readily come to your mind. As a king, he disobeyed this law, he married many wifes. The result? 1kings11:5 tells us.
And Solʹo·mon followed after Ashʹto·reth, the goddess of the Si·doʹni·ans, and Milʹcom, the disgusting god of the Amʹmon·ites.
So the practice of polygamy has negative effects as shown in the bible. God's ways are higher than ours, in the past he allowed the practice of polygamy temporarily for important reasons such as improving the growth and population of the nation so that they would survive until the messiah comes. During hard times, this practice helped women to have shelter in time past. But we should have it in mind that this practice was not originated by God. He only tolerated it for a limited time.
As we all know, Jesus is the final authority for all Christians today
That is why when Jesus came to the earth, he supported God's original view of marriage which is monogamy. A man will part ways with his father and mother and stick with his wife (not wifes) then the two of them will become one.
But what do you guys think? Should Christians practise polygamy? Drop your comments below.