CAPITALIST IN MARKETS, COMMUNIST IN MARRIAGE: BIBLICAL POLYGYNY LAW REBUTTAL TO BEN SHAPIRO'S VIEWS

Written by Abraham JF Kilian, LL.B., LL.M.

Abstract

This article offers a juristic, textual, and historical rebuttal to Ben Shapiro’s recent denunciation of biblical polygyny. Shapiro, a lawyer by training, defends free-market principles in economics while simultaneously upholding a monogamy-only marital model rooted not in Torah but in Roman civil tradition and medieval rabbinic policy. This study evaluates his position through the four pillars of legal hermeneutics—statutory analysis, constitutional structure, case precedent, and historical jurisprudence—treating Scripture as a legal corpus rather than as a repository of cultural sentiment.

First, a textualist and originalist reading of the black-letter law demonstrates that Torah regulates polygyny (Exod 21; Deut 21; Deut 25), presupposes its legitimacy, and at points commands it (levirate marriage). Genesis 2:24 functions as constitutional ideal language, not a numerical statute. Second, prophetic and narrative jurisprudence—most notably God’s own gift of multiple wives to David (2 Sam 12:8) and the polygynous ancestry of Israel—reinforces the legality of plural households. Third, the New Testament neither prohibits polygyny nor mandates dissolution for converts, and Christ’s covenantal bond with multiple churches provides a structurally polygynous typological analogue.

Historically, Second Temple Judaism, early Christianity, and non-Christian Near Eastern societies regarded regulated polygyny as lawful, while exclusive monogamy as a universal mandate emerges primarily from Greco-Roman legal norms and medieval Ashkenazi policy. Demographically, the monogamy-only, no-fault systems defended by Shapiro correlate with declining fertility and diminished household resilience.

The article concludes that polygyny is biblically legal, theologically coherent, and jurisprudentially defensible, whereas the monogamy-only framework represents a later cultural imposition rather than divine statute.

Introduction

Few topics spark such sudden convergence between theology, law, media, and public discourse as the renewed American debate over polygyny. What began as a pastoral disclosure—Pastor Rich Tidwell openly acknowledging that he is married to more than one wife—has now reached millions through a viral Protestant article and widespread social commentary. Into this unexpected storm stepped one of America’s most visible Jewish lawyers and conservative commentators, Ben Shapiro, offering a confident denunciation of the practice.

That denunciation has shifted the conversation from the realm of pastoral curiosity into the arena of legal argument. And if a lawyer has entered the field, then a lawyer must answer.

For decades, polygyny has been relegated to the margins of Western Christian thought—treated as culturally obsolete, morally messy, or legally irrelevant. These dismissals, however, have rarely been grounded in a careful textualist reading of Scripture or a juristic analysis of biblical law. Modern discomfort has too often been sanctified as doctrine, while ecclesial tradition has been elevated above the written code. What we now witness is not an aberration but an overdue reckoning: inherited assumptions meeting textual authority under the scrutiny of public debate.

At the heart of this article lies a simple legal thesis: This study evaluates Shapiro’s monogamy-only position through the four pillars of legal hermeneutics—statutory analysis, constitutional structure, case precedent, and historical jurisprudence.

Only after this framework is understood do my credentials matter. I write not as an armchair commentator but as a practitioner trained in multiple legal systems—a graduate of the LL.B program at the University of South Africa and the LL.M (Osgoode Hall), with professional experience in South Africa and Canada, jurisdictions steeped in legal pluralism, customary marriage systems, and covenantal structures. My approach is therefore forensic: Scripture is treated as a legal corpus, not as inspirational literature. (Osgoode Hall vs Harvard)

Before advancing my argument, the strongest monogamy-only position deserves articulation. Advocates maintain that Genesis 2:24 presents a creational ideal of two becoming “one flesh,” later affirmed by Jesus, and that this foundational pair-bond represents not merely the first marriage but the intended norm. They argue that polygyny, while tolerated in the Old Testament, reflects human fallenness rather than divine design, and that Christian ethics should therefore prioritize the Edenic pattern. This view deserves serious engagement, and part of the purpose of this article is to examine whether that claim withstands legal-textual scrutiny.

When that scrutiny is applied, it becomes evident that Shapiro’s repudiation of polygyny does not rest on Torah, prophetic jurisprudence, or apostolic instruction, but on post-biblical rabbinic policy and the long shadow of Greco-Roman marital norms. His position is legally inconsistent, selectively textual, methodologically confused, and philosophically contradictory. A defender of free markets in the economic sphere, Shapiro inadvertently embraces the logic of central planning in the marital sphere—mandating forced monogamy while otherwise championing competition, voluntary exchange, and liberty.

The biblical text itself demands a legal reckoning. Scripture does not merely tolerate polygyny; it regulates it (Exod. 21:10), protects rights within it (Deut. 21:15–17), presupposes it in inheritance law (Deut. 25), and in specific circumstances commands it (levirate marriage). The patriarchs practiced it with divine approval, the monarchy institutionalized it, the prophets assumed it, and the early church never prohibited it. A legal code that regulates a practice cannot, by definition, be understood as prohibiting it.

This debate matters urgently. The Western world faces unprecedented demographic collapse, plummeting fertility, declining marriage rates, and social fragmentation. In contrast, communities that allow or normalize polygyny—most notably within the Islamic world—are expanding demographically and maintaining multi-generational household structures. Meanwhile, Christian and Jewish communities increasingly cling to marriage norms rooted not in Scripture but in Greco-Roman aesthetics and Victorian sentiment.

This article therefore enters the arena as a legal treatise, not a cultural polemic. It evaluates Shapiro’s claims not through the lens of tradition or sentiment, but through the statutory commands of Moses, the precedents of the patriarchs, the constitutional judgments of the prophets, the jurisprudence of the apostles, and the long arc of historical legal practice.

What follows proceeds in five movements:

1. Legal method—how Scripture must be interpreted as law.

2. Economic and legal analysis—why forced monogamy mirrors central planning.

3. Textualist exegesis—what the black-letter law actually says.

4. Historical jurisprudence—how Jewish and Christian communities understood marriage.

5. Legal verdict—a systematic evaluation of Shapiro’s position.

If we are to judge marriage as God defines it, we must judge it as lawyers: by the law, the evidence, and the canons of interpretation. Anything less is not fidelity—it is malpractice.

II. Legal Methodology: How a Lawyer Reads Scripture

Any legal system—ancient or modern—rises or falls on its interpretive method. Judges, lawyers, and scholars do not merely read a text; they interpret it according to disciplined canons that preserve coherence and jurisdictional integrity. If Scripture is invoked as legal authority, it must be interpreted as law—not sentiment—and evaluated with the same hermeneutical rigour applied to any constitutional corpus. This section sets out the method required to assess whether Ben Shapiro’s rejection of polygyny reflects the law of God or a later cultural overlay.

To begin, the hierarchy of biblical legal authority may be summarized as follows:

Biblical Legal Hierarchy (for Juristic Interpretation)

1. Constitution: The Decalogue

2. Statutes: Torah commandments

3. Case Law: Historical narratives

4. Judicial Review: Prophets

5. Appellate Clarification: New Testament writings

This architecture must govern every interpretive move.

A. Scripture as a Legal Corpus

1. The Decalogue as Constitution

The Ten Words (Exodus 20) operate as Israel’s constitutional charter—supreme governing principles analogous to a modern constitutional preamble. Loyalty to the divine sovereign, sanctity of life, marital fidelity, and prohibitions against theft, perjury, and covetousness form the controlling constitutional norms. All statutory interpretation flows from this foundation.

2. Torah as Statute and Regulatory Code

The Torah constitutes the statutory framework of ancient Israel, comprising civil, criminal, administrative, and marital law. As scholars such as Bernard S. Jackson have demonstrated, Torah law displays sophisticated internal coherence, functioning not as folklore but as a genuine legal system with definable rights and obligations. Marriage law—including polygyny—is situated within this statutory corpus and must be treated with the same legal seriousness as any other enforceable provision.

3. Prophets as Judicial Review

The Prophets serve as the constitutional review mechanism. Their task is not legislative innovation but adjudication—assessing Israel’s fidelity to the law already delivered. When Hosea or Jeremiah accuse Israel of “adultery,” they invoke covenantal legal categories. Their oracles reveal how God Himself interprets His own statutes.

4. Writings as Case Law

The Writings preserve jurisprudential precedent. They document how statutory norms operated in practice and how God evaluated the conduct of kings, judges, and households. When God gives David his master’s wives (2 Sam. 12:8) or when Jehoiada gives two wives to Joash (2 Chron. 24:3), these are not incidental details—they are recorded legal precedents that clarify the law’s application.

5. New Testament as Appellate Clarification

The New Testament functions as the appellate interpretive layer. Christ reaffirms and clarifies the law (Matt. 5–7), and the apostles extend it into new cultural settings. Crucially, no apostolic ruling overturns the statutory legitimacy of polygyny. No decree mandates dissolution of plural marriages; no epistle redefines adultery; no council forbids covenantal plurality. The appellate court does not reverse the statute.

Together, these components form a coherent legal architecture requiring disciplined interpretation.

B. The Three Pillars of Biblical Legal Interpretation

1. Textualism — What Does the Text Say?

Textualism grounds interpretation in the words of the text. It aligns with Jewish peshat method and modern judicial textualism. Under textualism:

• language controls meaning,

• grammar constrains interpretation,

• and regulation without prohibition creates a presumption of lawful permission.

Monogamy-only interpreters frequently appeal to Genesis 2:24 as a universal numerical restriction. However, the verse functions as constitutional ideal language describing covenantal unity—not as a statute governing marital arithmetic.

Applied to marriage law:

• Exodus 21:10 regulates multiple wives,

• Deuteronomy 21:15–17 protects inheritance in polygynous households,

• God Himself confers multiple wives as blessing (2 Sam. 12:8).

A textualist reading cannot classify polygyny as inherently immoral without contradicting the statutory provisions as written.

2. Originalism — What Did It Mean to the Original Legal Community?

Originalism anchors meaning in the socio-legal context of the law’s first hearers. If ancient Israel regarded polygyny as lawful—and all evidence indicates they did—later interpreters lack jurisdiction to criminalize it retroactively.

Originalism demonstrates:

• regulated polygyny was accepted and normal,

• no Second Temple source condemns it,

• Greco-Roman monogamy was culturally foreign,

• rabbinic prohibitions arose a millennium later.

As Rambam emphasizes in Mishneh Torah, a command must be understood as the original community understood it, or interpretation becomes anachronistic.

3. Precedent — How Was It Applied?

Legal systems rely on precedent to establish interpretive norms. Biblical case law is consistent:

• Abraham, Jacob, Gideon, Elkanah, David, Solomon, and Joash all maintained lawful plural households,

• God either blesses, regulates, or affirms these arrangements,

• Even God depicts Himself as husband to multiple covenant partners (Jer. 3:6–14).

Under precedent, one cannot condemn as immoral what the lawgiver repeatedly affirms.

C. Regulation vs. Prohibition

In statutory interpretation, regulation without prohibition creates a presumption of legality. This principle appears in administrative law, criminal law, and the Restatement (Second) of Contracts. If a legislature intends to forbid conduct, it prohibits it; if it regulates conduct, it acknowledges its legitimacy.

Applied to Scripture:

• Exodus 21:10–11 regulates plural marital rights,

• Deuteronomy 21:15–17 regulates inheritance within a polygynous household.

A legal system cannot simultaneously regulate and prohibit the same act.

A concise analogy suffices:

“If the law states, ‘When a person owns two firearms, they must be stored separately,’ no lawyer interprets this as a ban on firearm ownership.”

The claim that regulation implies divine disapproval fails under textualist scrutiny.

D. The Burden of Proof

The burden of proof rests on the party asserting prohibition. Shapiro must therefore demonstrate either:

1. an explicit statutory ban, or

2. an appellate (prophetic or apostolic) ruling overturning the statute.

No such prohibition exists.

Where the law is silent, liberty prevails.Where the law regulates, legitimacy is established.Where precedent affirms, the norm is settled.

And Genesis 2:24 cannot bear the weight of prohibition, as it describes covenantal unity—not numerical exclusivity.

With the interpretive method established—textualism, originalism, precedent, and the presumption of legality—we may now turn to the statutory and precedential evidence itself.

III. The Legal Case Against Forced Monogamy

(Capitalist Economics vs. Command-and-Control Sexual Ethics)

Few ironies in modern conservative thought are sharper than the contrast between Ben Shapiro’s fierce defence of economic capitalism and his equally fierce insistence on legally enforced monogamy. In economics he champions free competition and voluntary exchange; in marriage he endorses a framework that mirrors centralized planning, artificial scarcity, and state-managed allocation.

This tension is not merely philosophical—it is jurisprudential. When viewed through market theory, antitrust principles, and contractual liberty, forced monogamy appears not as a biblical mandate but as an ideological structure built on the very collectivist assumptions Shapiro rejects elsewhere. This argument does not denigrate monogamy itself—Scripture honours it. The critique is aimed at elevating monogamy from permissible to mandatory, a move Scripture never authorizes.

A. Shapiro’s Contradiction: Capitalist in Markets, Central Planner in Marriage

In Shapiro’s economic worldview, markets flourish through free competition, differentiation, and voluntary choice. But in marriage his framework inverts:

• scarcity must be artificially corrected,

• competition suppressed,

• outcomes equalised by legal design.

This mirrors the Greco-Roman marital model—not biblical law. By contrast, Scripture:

• safeguards women’s rights (Exod. 21:10–11),

• regulates male obligations,

• and limits arbitrary dismissal.

Forced monogamy operates as an egalitarian allocation system: each man receives “one wife only,” regardless of consent or capability. This suppresses female agency, since a woman may not covenant with a man she deems superior if he already has a wife—even if all parties consent.This is not free-market logic; it is sexual central planning dressed in respectability.

B. Legal Parallels in Secular Jurisprudence

1. Monogamy as State-Imposed Monopoly

In antitrust law, a monopoly excludes lawful competitors. Under monogamy-by-law, the state grants each man a monopoly over one woman and criminalizes any additional covenants—even where all parties seek them.

2. Monogamy as Central Planning

Central planning manages distribution by decree. In marriage, monogamy-only systems dictate the permissible “supply” of spouses and criminalize alternatives—contrary to Torah’s decentralized household law.

3. Restriction of Contractual Liberty

Contract law rests on voluntary consent. Forced monogamy criminalizes multi-party covenants that Torah explicitly regulates and, in defined cases, commands.

4. The State as Moral Distributor

The state becomes the arbiter of relational quantity and configuration, not merely a protector against abuse or coercion.

C. Polygyny as a Free-Market Model of Covenant

1. Female Covenant Agency (Isaiah 4:1)

Isaiah 4:1 portrays women initiating covenant, requesting legal incorporation, and even waiving economic support—clear evidence of voluntary, agency-driven choice. A forced-monogamy regime would prohibit precisely what Isaiah assumes as lawful.

2. Merit-Based Covenant Eligibility

Scripture burdens polygynous husbands with higher obligations—equal provision, equal conjugal rights, just inheritance. Only capable men qualify. Far from sexual indulgence, biblical polygyny functions like merit-based covenant expansion.

3. Voluntariness, Not Coercion

Polygyny is never universally mandated, never imposed on unwilling women, and never bureaucratically allocated.Forced monogamy, however, criminalizes consensual covenantal arrangements and inserts state power where Scripture leaves liberty.

4. Covenantal Contracts as Market Transactions

Biblical narratives (Boaz, Jacob, David) present marriage formation as negotiated, voluntary, and family-mediated—aligning with decentralized, rights-based covenant markets.

D. Why Shapiro’s Model Functions as Egalitarian Central Planning

1. Mandated Equal Outcomes

Forced monogamy ensures every man has an equal theoretical opportunity at one wife—regardless of merit. This is outcome levelling, not biblical justice.

2. Suppressing Female Agency

Women who prefer to join a proven household are barred from doing so. The law forces them toward inferior marital options or permanent singleness.

3. Criminalizing Covenant Competition

Polygyny’s illegality punishes not harm but success—when capable men attract willing covenant partners. This mirrors anti-competitive regulation aimed at protecting weaker firms.

4. Redistribution of Marital Opportunities

Prohibiting additional covenants redistributes women away from high-value men toward lower-value men. It is redistributive policy transplanted from economics into family law.

Summary of Section III

Shapiro’s opposition to polygyny does not arise from Torah, from Jewish constitutional tradition, or from coherent legal method. It arises from an ideological commitment to enforced marital egalitarianism—collectivist in structure, anti-competitive in effect, and inconsistent with the free-market principles he defends elsewhere.

Monogamy is good. Polygyny is also lawful. What is not lawful is outlawing what God regulated and institutionalising a Roman-style marital-command-economy, which Scripture never enacted.

IV. Biblical Polygyny Law: What the Text Actually Says

If Scripture is treated as a legal corpus—and not as an anthology of inspirational reflections—then the first duty of the legal interpreter is to identify what the law actually says. Not what cultural sensibilities wish it said; not what later religious traditions imposed upon it; not what Greco-Roman custom assumed; but what the black-letter text, its constitutional framework, and its case precedents articulate as binding.

The biblical marital code is a regulatory regime, not a speculative ideal. It contains enforceable rights, obligations, prohibitions, and permissions. And when read with the precision of statutory interpretation, one conclusion emerges with consistent clarity: polygyny is regulated, assumed, at times commanded in specific circumstances, and never categorically prohibited. Regulation confirms permission, even if it does not mandate frequency or universal practice.

To demonstrate this, we proceed as any lawyer would—moving in order from statutes, to constitutional structure, to jurisprudential precedent, and finally to the appellate-level clarification of the New Testament.

A. Black-Letter Law: Polygyny Regulated, Never Banned

A textualist interpreter begins with the black-letter statutes: provisions whose legal force is normative across the covenant community. These passages do not merely acknowledge polygyny—they regulate it. As established in Section II, regulation without prohibition creates a presumption of legality, even if the practice is not commanded in all cases.

1. Exodus 21:10 — Codifying the Rights of Multiple Wives

“If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish the food, clothing, or marital rights of the first.” (Exod. 21:10)

This statute appears in a context detailing obligations of husbands toward wives, particularly maidservants elevated to full covenantal status. The phrasing “if he takes another wife” is conditional and regulatory, not prohibitory. It instructs the husband how to behave when he enters a plural marital arrangement.

Three legally enforceable rights are enumerated:

1. food

2. clothing

3. conjugal rights

This statute demonstrates that:

• the law anticipates plural marriage as normal;

• it protects first wives from diminished care;

• it imposes enforceable duties on the husband;

• it treats plural marriage as a structure capable of righteousness.

A legal system seeking prohibition would not legislate ethical performance.

2. Deuteronomy 21:15–17 — Inheritance Law Built on Polygyny

“If a man has two wives…” (Deut. 21:15)

This statute governs inheritance disputes within a polygynous household. The law prohibits disinheriting the rightful firstborn based on maternal preference.

Jurisprudential consequences:

• unlawful unions receive no protective statutory framework;

• polygyny does—because it is lawful;

• the lawgiver regulates justice within the structure rather than dismantling it.

Were polygyny immoral, this law would not exist.

3. Deuteronomy 25:5–6 — Levirate Marriage and Commanded Polygyny

The levirate statute is decisive:

“Her husband’s brother shall go in to her… and raise up offspring for his brother.”

Where the surviving brother is already married, the law commands him to take the widow as a second wife unless she invokes halitzah.

Implications:

• Torah can require entry into a polygynous union.

• A system cannot both mandate and forbid the same act.

• The obligation is situational, not universal.

Polygyny is commanded in specific covenantal circumstances and therefore cannot be intrinsically sinful.

B. Constitutional Mandate: Genesis 1:28

The proto-constitutional command is given in Genesis 1:28:

“Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth…”

This is not poetic flourish but a constitutional directive. Marital norms must harmonize with it.

1. Fruitfulness as Foundational

The creation mandate reveals marriage’s telos: generational continuity. A marital architecture that structurally suppresses fertility must justify itself against this norm.

Faithful monogamy fulfills the mandate; forced monogamy does not inherently do so.

2. Polygyny and Fruitfulness

Scripture and demographic history reveal polygyny’s fruitfulness-enhancing function:

• Jacob’s twelve sons;

• Elkanah’s household continuity;

• Israel’s national formation;

• higher fertility in societies practicing lawful, regulated polygyny.

The point is not universal polygyny but the insufficiency of monogamy-only regimes that pair legal constraint with anti-natalist practice.

C. Case Law: Narratives Establishing Precedent

Narratives do not establish doctrine by anecdote but clarify jurisprudence through precedent. Every explicit case of polygyny appears as lawful, protected, or blessed.

1. David (2 Sam. 12:7–8)

God Himself claims to have given David multiple wives and states He could have given more. The sin was adultery, not polygyny.

2. Jacob

Israel’s twelve tribes arise from a polygynous household. To condemn the structure is to condemn Israel’s very genesis.

3. Joash (2 Chron. 24:2–3)

Jehoiada the righteous priest “gave him two wives,” and this period is marked by righteousness.

4. Leah’s “Wages” (Gen. 30:18)

The narrative frames her additional children in a polygynous context as divine compensation.

5. Ruth 4:11

The elders bless Ruth with the example of Rachel and Leah—the co-wives who built Israel.

6. Solomon’s Abuse

The condemnation targets idolatry and foreign alliances, not numerical pluralism per se.

The case law is unanimous: plural marriage is lawful; idolatrous, politically weaponized accumulation is not.

D. New Testament Precedent and Christ’s Use of Genesis

1. Genesis 2:24 in Jesus’ Teaching

Jesus addresses divorce, not marital arithmetic. The Genesis narrative provides the paradigm of covenanted fidelity, not a statutory ban on plural households regulated later.

No corrective legislation appears.

2. Christ Betrothed to Multiple Churches

One Husband, multiple covenant partners:

• Revelation 2–3

• Eph. 5

• 2 Cor. 11:2

This typology is structurally polygynous. Scripture does not use immoral structures to describe Christ.

3. “Husband of One Wife”

The idiom mias gynaikos andra denotes moral fidelity, not arithmetic limitation. Greek has other terms for numerical exclusivity; Paul did not use them.

4. No Apostolic Commands for Dissolution

Neither Jesus nor the apostles command polygynous converts to divorce. Silence where correction is necessary implies acceptance or toleration.

On the face of the text, the case is settled: polygyny is regulated, lawful, and in defined instances commanded within biblical law. Yet good jurisprudence never ends with statutes alone. The next question, essential to any mature legal analysis, is how the covenant community closest to the text—ancient Israel, Second Temple Judaism, and the early Church—actually applied these laws in lived practice. To follow the evidence faithfully, we now turn from the written code to the long arc of Jewish and Christian legal history.

Summary of Section IV

The textualist analysis yields a coherent set of conclusions:

• Black-letter law: Torah regulates polygyny and in defined cases (levirate) commands it; there is no categorical prohibition.

• Constitutional framework: The creation mandate prioritizes fruitfulness; polygyny can serve that mandate, while forced monogamy plus anti-natalist practice undermines it.

• Case law: The narratives of Abraham, Jacob, David, Joash, and others establish precedent for lawful polygynous households, while Solomon’s excess is condemned on Deuteronomic grounds of idolatry and royal abuse—not mere plurality.

• Appellate clarification: Jesus reaffirms covenant permanence, not monogamy-only arithmetic; the apostles neither ban polygyny nor require its dissolution; New Testament imagery freely employs structurally polygynous metaphors for Christ and the churches.

Taken together, the statutes, constitutional principles, precedents, and appellate witness all point in the same direction: polygyny is a lawful, regulated, and contextually commanded marital form within biblical jurisprudence, while monogamy is honoured as a valid configuration but never elevated to an exclusive statutory norm.

V. Historical Jurisprudence: Jewish, Christian, and Greco-Roman Law

The weight of legal history offers indispensable clarity to any argument concerning biblical marriage. Scripture is not interpreted in a vacuum; its norms were lived out within Israel, transmitted through post-biblical Judaism, received and debated in early Christianity, and eventually forced into dialogue—and collision—with Greco-Roman marital ideology.

A sober historical account shows that the modern Western insistence on exclusive monogamy as a universal norm is not the product of Torah, nor of the apostolic age, but of Roman cultural dominance, ecclesiastical politics, and medieval policy. The historical record, when read juristically, supports the textualist conclusion: polygyny was lawful throughout the biblical and post-biblical Jewish world, widely tolerated or accepted in early Christianity, and only later constrained under Greco-Roman influence.

To understand how contemporary voices such as Ben Shapiro arrive at a monogamy-only position, we must trace the legal development of marriage from its biblical roots through its Romanisation.

A. Jewish Precedent

1. Josephus: “Ancient Practice… to Have Many Wives at the Same Time”

Flavius Josephus, writing in the first century CE—contemporary with the apostles and an eyewitness of Second Temple Judaism—provides a direct window into Jewish marital practice. In Antiquities 17.1.2, he notes:

“For it is the ancient practice among us to have many wives at the same time.”

This statement, offered matter-of-factly, reveals that:

• Polygyny was a normal and recognised Jewish practice in the first century.

• It was described as “ancient practice,” not an abuse or fringe innovation.

• Jesus and the apostles ministered in a legal culture where polygyny existed as a lawful, uncontested option.

There is no record of Christ or the apostles issuing a categorical rebuke of this practice as such.

2. Talmudic and Pre-Talmudic Evidence

The Mishnah and Talmud preserve extensive discussions of plural households, consistently in a regulatory—not prohibitory—mode:

• Ketubot addresses obligations of support and rights of wives, including where more than one wife is present.

• Yevamot treats levirate marriage in detail, which presupposes the possibility of polygyny.

• Other tractates mention multiple wives as a background social fact.

Crucially:

• No early rabbinic source issues a blanket ban on polygyny.

• The halakhic discourse centres on how plural marriages are to be managed justly, not whether they are intrinsically unlawful.

The legal environment of late Second Temple and early rabbinic Judaism therefore aligns with the biblical statutes: plural marriage is regulated, not abolished.

3. Rabbi Gershom’s Ban (c. 1028 CE): Policy, Not Torah

Around the early 11th century, Rabbi Gershom of Mainz issued a communal decree (takkanah) against polygyny for Ashkenazi Jews. This ban is pivotal for understanding later Jewish monogamy:

• It was a communal ordinance, not a claim that Torah had suddenly changed.

• It arose in Christian Europe, where Church and civil authorities strongly opposed polygyny.

• It was framed as a pragmatic adaptation to surrounding legal and social pressures, not as a new revelation about the moral status of polygyny.

Traditionally, the ban was often described as time-limited (roughly a millennium) and geographically constrained:

• It applied to Ashkenazi communities in Christian lands.

• It never bound Sephardi or Yemenite communities in the same way.

• Many authorities treated it as a local measure rather than universal Jewish law.

In other words, medieval European Jewish monogamy is a defensive policy choice under Christian scrutiny, not an exegetical discovery that Torah forbade polygyny all along.

4. Sephardi and Yemenite Practice

Outside Christian Europe, Jewish communities continued polygyny into the modern period:

• Yemenite Jews practised polygyny openly into the 20th century and resisted attempts to abolish it.

• Many North African and Middle Eastern (Sephardi/Mizrahi) communities retained polygynous practice until modern state laws, influenced by Western norms, curtailed it.

• These communities never understood Rabbi Gershom’s ban as binding upon them.

The historical pattern is therefore clear:

• Jewish law and practice permitted polygyny from the biblical era through late antiquity.

• A regional medieval ban in Christian Europe restricted it for prudential reasons.

• Global, permanent monogamy-only “Judaism” is a relatively recent and regionally shaped phenomenon.

  
  

B. Christian Precedent

Popular Christian memory often assumes that the Church has “always” condemned polygyny as inherently immoral. The sources tell a more nuanced story. Early Christian thinkers wrestled with polygyny as a biblically sanctioned institution—lawful in itself, even if not ordinarily practised in their own cultural context.

1. Augustine: Lawful Then, Not Sinful

Aurelius Augustine (354–430 CE), one of the foundational theologians of Western Christianity, explicitly affirmed the legitimacy of the patriarchs’ polygyny. In De Bono Coniugali (The Good of Marriage), he observes in substance:

• What God permitted to the ancients was not sin, because God had issued no prohibition at that time.

• The patriarchs’ polygyny served the ends of procreation and covenant building, and thus could be undertaken chastely, in line with natural law and divine purpose.

• Conversely, a monogamous husband could still sin deeply if he used his single wife merely for lust.

For Augustine:

• The moral category hinges on intent and obedience to God’s purposes—not on numerical limitation.

• Polygyny was a lawful form of marriage in its time, even if no longer socially practised under Roman civil constraints.

He does not recast Old Testament polygyny as “embarrassing” or intrinsically immoral; he treats it as righteous in its proper context.

2. Luther: “I Cannot Forbid…”

Martin Luther, the fountainhead of Protestant reform, reached a similar conclusion under pressure of concrete pastoral questions. When Landgrave Philip of Hesse sought counsel regarding taking a second wife, Luther wrote (in essence):

“I confess that I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict Scripture.”

Luther’s hesitations were political and pastoral—fear of scandal and disorder—not textual. His admission underscores the core point: no clear biblical text forbids polygyny as such; opposition stems from other considerations.

3. Milton, Madan, and Later Protestant Voices

Several later Protestant writers pressed this line of reasoning:

• John Milton argued that Church tradition could not overturn what God had not prohibited.

• Martin Madan in Thelyphthora produced an extensive defence of polygyny’s biblical lawfulness.

• Modern writers (e.g. Tom Shipley and others) have revived these arguments, emphasising the continuity of Scripture’s legal structure.

While many Christian leaders chose not to encourage polygyny in their own contexts, a recurring theme remains: Scripture does not supply a clear prohibition. Where restrictions appear, they arise from prudential or political reasoning, not exegesis of Torah.

C. Greco-Roman Influence

Here we reach the decisive pivot. If biblical and early Jewish practice permit polygyny, and early Christian thinkers acknowledge its lawfulness, where does strict monogamy-only ideology originate?

The answer lies not primarily in Moses or Paul, but in Rome.

1. Roman Monogamy as Cultural and Legal Framework

Classical Roman law prized formal monogamy, chiefly for reasons of:

• Inheritance management – limiting legitimate heirs to protect estates.

• Political stability – avoiding complex kinship alliances that might threaten the Republic or Empire.

• Paternal control – maintaining authority over women’s sexuality and reproduction.

When Christianity moved from persecuted sect to imperial religion, Roman civil law exerted enormous pressure on ecclesial norms. To maintain harmony with imperial legal structures, Christian leaders increasingly:

• Treated Roman monogamy as the civil default.

• Framed departures from it as irregular or scandalous.

• Allowed Roman policy concerns to drive doctrinal tightening.

Over time, this produced a fusion: biblical language about fidelity and covenant permanence was read through a Roman monogamy lens, and plural marriage—though lawful in earlier Jewish and Christian understanding—became politically and canonically disfavoured.

2. De Jure Monogamy, De Facto Plurality

It is important to distinguish law on the books from life on the ground. Roman “monogamy” was frequently:

• Accompanied by concubinage, slave sexual access, and prostitution.

• Combined with serial divorce and remarriage.

• Tolerant of male sexual double standards.

In practice, elite Roman men often enjoyed multiple sexual partners while retaining a single legally recognised wife for inheritance and status. This pattern echoes, in many later Christian societies, as:

• A legal insistence on monogamy,

• alongside mistress culture, prostitution, and serial monogamy.

By contrast, biblical polygyny brings plurality into the light of law:

• Wives receive rights of provision and protection.

• Children receive clear inheritance status.

• The husband is bound by enforceable duties.

From a jurisprudential standpoint, Torah-regulated polygyny is more protective of women and children than Roman “monogamy” combined with tolerated sexual pluralism.

Conclusion of Section V

Viewed through the lens of historical jurisprudence, the trajectory is unmistakable:

• Judaism: From the patriarchs through the Second Temple period and beyond, polygyny is treated as lawful and is actively regulated; a regional medieval ban arises under Christian pressure, not from new exegesis.

• Christianity: Early theologians acknowledge the moral legitimacy of Old Testament polygyny; later restrictions reflect deference to Roman civil law and evolving ecclesiastical policy, not a discovered biblical prohibition.

• Greco-Roman Law: Formal monogamy functions as a tool of inheritance control and social management, while practical plurality persists through concubinage and serial unions.

Modern Western monogamy-only ideology is therefore best understood as a Romanised, canon-law inheritance, not as the straightforward continuation of biblical jurisprudence.

When Ben Shapiro presents exclusive monogamy as “the” biblical and Jewish tradition, he is, whether knowingly or not, defending a model shaped significantly by pagan Roman legal priorities and medieval survival strategies, rather than by the unmodified statutes of Moses or the lived legal practice of Israel in Scripture.

This historical backdrop reinforces the core thesis of this article:Text, law, and history converge in recognising polygyny as a lawful, regulated marital form within biblical jurisprudence, while monogamy remains a valid option—never the sole norm imposed by divine statute.

VI. Legal Rebuttal to Ben Shapiro: A Lawyer’s Analysis

Ben Shapiro is not merely a political commentator; he is trained as a lawyer. That training carries certain methodological expectations: proper classification of authorities, consistent use of text and precedent, clear jurisdictional boundaries, and a disciplined distinction between policy preferences and binding law.

In his critique of polygyny, however, Shapiro abandons the very canons of legal reasoning he otherwise defends. In the economic arena, he champions textual rules, market liberty, and suspicion of central planning; in the marital arena, he appeals to post-biblical policy, Roman norms, and modern discomfort while treating them as if they were equivalent to the law of Moses.

This section does not attack Shapiro as a person, nor deny that he rightly opposes exploitation, abuse, and sexual chaos. It simply evaluates his argument the way any appellate court would: by testing its sources, method, and internal coherence. On that standard, his case fails.

What follows is a structured legal critique of six foundational errors.

A. Legal Fallacy #1: Category Error

Shapiro blends rabbinic policy, biblical statute, Greco-Roman custom, and contemporary moral intuition as though they belong to the same tier of authority. In any serious legal system, such conflation would be fatal.

Courts distinguish sharply between:

• constitutional text and cultural sentiment,

• statutes and commentary,

• binding precedent and obiter dicta,

• regulatory policy and enforceable commands.

By contrast, Shapiro effectively collapses at least five categories:

1.     Biblical Law (Torah) – binding covenant statute.

2.     Prophets & Writings – constitutional review and case law.

3.     Rabbinic Ordinances – post-biblical policy responses.

4.     Greco-Roman Marriage Norms – surrounding cultural practice.

5.     Personal Moral Intuition – contemporary ethical preference.

He then treats them as interchangeable supports for a monogamy-only rule. For example, he:

• implicitly treats Rabbi Gershom’s 11th-century ban as if it carried Sinai-level authority;

• reads Roman monogamy norms back into biblical “tradition”;

• allows modern discomfort with polygyny to function as an unwritten override of explicit statutes.

A minimally coherent legal method requires jurisdictional sorting. Biblical marriage law is governed first by Torah, then interpreted by prophets and narrative precedent—not by medieval edicts or Roman moral policy. Shapiro’s argument is unstable from the outset because it never establishes a proper hierarchy of sources.

B. Legal Fallacy #2: Appeal to Non-Binding Authority

Shapiro’s reliance on Rabbi Gershom’s medieval decree exemplifies an appeal to non-binding authority as though it were foundational law.

Rabbi Gershom’s ban on polygyny (c. 1020–1040 CE):

• was a regional communal ordinance for Ashkenazi Jews,

• arose in a Christian Europe where civil and ecclesiastical powers opposed polygyny,

• was framed as a prudential adaptation to external pressures,

• was not derived from a claim that Torah had changed or always forbade polygyny.

In contemporary legal terms, it resembles a local bylaw, not a constitutional amendment.

Moreover:

• Sephardi and Yemenite Jews did not historically accept it as binding;

• many such communities continued polygyny well into the modern era;

• even among Ashkenazim, its scope, duration, and present applicability are contested.

To invoke Gershom’s ban against Torah’s polygyny statutes is analogous to arguing that a municipal zoning rule silently overturns an explicit constitutional provision. At most, it is a policy precedent explaining how a community navigated Christian dominance, not a basis for declaring biblical polygyny immoral or unlawful.

C. Legal Fallacy #3: Selective Textualism

Shapiro’s treatment of Scripture employs textualism when it appears to support monogamy, and abandons it when it does not.

He reads Genesis 2:24 (“a man… cleaves to his wife”) as:

• numerically exclusive,

• universally prescriptive,

• determinative of marital arithmetic.

Yet he does not apply the same strict textualist method to equally clear legal texts:

• Exodus 21:10 – regulates the rights of an existing wife when “he takes another.”

• Deuteronomy 21:15–17 – legislates inheritance in a two-wife household.

• Deuteronomy 25:5–6 – requires levirate marriage, which frequently produces polygyny.

• 2 Samuel 12:7–8 – records God Himself as giving David multiple wives and expressing willingness to give more.

A genuine textualism must embrace the entire statutory corpus, even where it jars with later sensibilities. To absolutize a pre-Sinai narrative description while effectively sidelining direct covenant legislation is not legal interpretation; it is policy advocacy cloaked in selective citation.

D. Legal Fallacy #4: Misunderstanding Regulation

Shapiro frequently suggests that God “tolerated” but never “approved” polygyny, as if regulation could be detached from legal legitimacy. This misunderstands a basic canon of statutory interpretation: regulation presupposes permission unless accompanied by explicit prohibition.

In modern law:

• traffic codes regulate driving but do not criminalise driving per se;

• environmental statutes regulate emissions but do not prohibit all emissions;

• corporate rules regulate mergers without banning mergers outright.

Likewise, in Torah:

• Exodus 21:10–11 regulates plural marital duties;

• Deuteronomy 21:15–17 regulates inheritance among sons of two wives;

• Deuteronomy 25:5–10 regulates, and in context commands, levirate unions that frequently require polygyny.

These are not grudging footnotes; they are substantive statutory provisions. A sovereign who drafts detailed protections and obligations for a specific contractual form is legislating its lawful use, not quietly signalling its moral illegitimacy. To treat regulation as a mark of disapproval is to invert ordinary legal reasoning.

E. Legal Fallacy #5: Misuse of Case Law

Another frequent move is the argument that “polygyny never worked well in the Bible,” as if narrative difficulty could retroactively outlaw a legally recognised institution.

But in jurisprudence:

• Hard cases do not invalidate the legality of the underlying institution.

• Marital conflict in case law does not erase the lawfulness of marriage.

• Abuse of a contract does not nullify the contract type itself.

If one applied Shapiro’s standard consistently:

• Adam and Eve’s catastrophic fall would count against monogamy.

• Abraham and Sarah’s conflict over Hagar would suggest banning single-woman surrogacy or even monogamy.

• Isaac and Rebekah’s favouritism, Jacob’s family strife, and Hosea’s marriage would argue for abolishing marriage altogether.

By contrast, the positive case law surrounding polygyny is substantial:

• Israel’s twelve tribes arise from Jacob’s polygynous household.

• God describes multiple wives given to David as His own gift (2 Sam. 12:7–8).

• Jehoiada arranges two wives for Joash, and the chronicler notes he did what was “right in the eyes of the LORD” (2 Chron. 24:2–3).

• The elders of Bethlehem bless Boaz through the imagery of Rachel and Leah, co-wives who “built up the house of Israel” (Ruth 4:11).

Selecting only conflict scenes to indict polygyny while ignoring positive or neutral precedents is not a principled reading of case law.

F. Legal Fallacy #6: Historical Revisionism

Finally, Shapiro portrays exclusive monogamy as the continuous, original “Jewish tradition,” when the historical record shows a different trajectory.

As already demonstrated:

• Ancient Israel practiced polygyny for centuries under Torah.

• First-century Jews, according to Josephus and rabbinic sources, still recognised it as lawful.

• Early Christian thinkers such as Augustine acknowledged its moral legitimacy in its proper context.

• Systematic prohibitions arise predominantly after Christianity is entangled with Roman law and imperial policy.

• Rabbinic bans such as Rabbi Gershom’s emerge in Christian Europe, under monogamy-only civil frameworks.

In other words:

• The biblical and early post-biblical pattern is legal polygyny plus regulation.

• The later European pattern is Roman formal monogamy combined with de facto pluralism (mistresses, concubinage, serial remarriage).

To treat the medieval, Romanised pattern as the “original” and to read it back over the biblical record is a form of historical anachronism. It confuses what later communities chose under pressure with what God legislated in Torah and presupposed in Scripture.

Conclusion of Section VI

Measured by the standards of legal analysis Shapiro himself espouses in other fields, his argument against polygyny does not hold:

• It misclassifies sources and fails to establish a hierarchy of authority.

• It elevates non-binding policy (Gershom, Roman law) over covenant statute.

• It practises selective textualism, absolutising Genesis 2:24 while sidelining clear polygyny-regulating statutes.

• It misunderstands that regulation presumes permission, not quiet condemnation.

• It misuses case law, treating narrative difficulty as if it overturns legal validity.

• It rests on a historically revisionist account of Jewish and Christian marital practice.

The result is an argument that is rhetorically confident but jurisprudentially unsound. Shapiro defends, not the unaltered legal tradition of Moses, the prophets, and the apostles, but a Romanised and medievally reinforced model of marriage that later communities adopted for their own reasons.

A lawyer committed to textualism, originalism, and coherent precedent cannot, with integrity, treat such a model as if it were identical with biblical law.

VII. Demographic and Policy Considerations

A legal and civilizational case for revisiting polygyny

The preceding sections have argued that polygyny is biblically lawful and historically rooted in Jewish and Christian jurisprudence. This section shifts to policy: what are the demographic and civilizational consequences of banning a marital form that Scripture regulates and, in defined cases, commands?

The claim here is not that every man should practice polygyny, nor that monogamy is defective as such. Rather: in a context of severe demographic decline, the categorical prohibition of polygyny removes one of the few covenantal mechanisms Scripture provides for population resilience, widow and orphan protection, and household stability.

A. Fertility Decline as a Legal and National Concern

“Demography is destiny” is not merely a slogan; it reflects the hard reality that legal systems, pension structures, and national security depend on replacement-level fertility. Modern Western states are consistently below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman. In many jurisdictions, the trend is downward, not stabilising.

From a legal-policy perspective, this creates cascading pressures:

• shrinking tax base vs. expanding social welfare obligations,

• aging populations with insufficient younger caregivers,

• military recruitment challenges and reduced strategic capacity,

• increasing reliance on immigration to offset native decline.

Biblical law anticipated demographic fragility. The marital architecture of Torah—creation mandate, levirate duty, regulated polygyny—was designed to preserve lineage, protect land tenure within clans, and ensure that tribal military capacity remained robust.

A striking example appears in 1 Chronicles 7:4:

“With them, by their generations, according to their fathers’ households, were 36,000 troops for war, for they had many wives and sons.”

Here the text explicitly links military capacity to family structure: “many wives and sons” are not a private indulgence but a public asset, producing a large pool of men “ready for war.” In other words, biblical narrative understands plural marriage as one legitimate mechanism for sustaining national strength.

Modern Western regimes have not merely neglected this mechanism; they have legally abolished it, while simultaneously embracing policies (no-fault divorce, late marriage, contraceptive norms) that suppress fertility. Whatever one concludes theologically, it is difficult to deny that this legal architecture runs counter to the demographic instincts of biblical law.

B. Comparative Fertility and the Islamic Example

Global demographic data, including widely cited projections by major research bodies, consistently indicate that Muslim-majority populations will outpace Western and many Jewish populations in relative growth over the coming decades. The drivers are complex—religiosity, family norms, economic factors—but fertility is central.

In many Muslim societies:

• fertility rates remain significantly above replacement;

• polygyny is legally permitted and socially recognised;

• family structures are oriented toward larger households and intergenerational continuity.

Correlation is not causation, but from a policy perspective, two facts can be held together:

1. Communities that permit polygyny within a religious-legal framework often exhibit higher fertility and stronger extended-family networks.

2. Western societies that prohibit polygyny and normalise no-fault divorce, delayed marriage, and low-fertility ideals face accelerating demographic contraction.

Shapiro and others rightly express concern about an “Islamic demographic advantage” and the weakening of Western religious communities. Yet they simultaneously defend a monogamy-only, no-fault divorce regime that structurally depresses marriage formation and childbearing among their own constituents.

It is not being argued that polygyny alone explains the differential, nor that adopting it would magically reverse decline. The more modest—and legally relevant—claim is that a system which both bans polygyny and erodes monogamous stability is deliberately discarding one of Scripture’s tested tools for demographic resilience.

C. Polygyny as a Pro–Household, Pro–Civilisation Institution

Within a biblically regulated framework, polygyny functions as more than a private preference. It operates as a social institution with several potential policy benefits.

1. Addressing Distorted Marriage Markets

Contemporary data and social observation converge on several trends:

• a significant proportion of men are effectively “unmarriageable” (due to instability, immaturity, or economic fragility),

• high-achieving, religiously serious women outnumber men with comparable character and commitment,

• many women report difficulty finding a husband they respect enough to follow.

In a forced monogamy regime, a woman in this position must:

• either “marry down” (to a man she does not truly respect),

• or remain unmarried, even if she would willingly join a stable covenant household already led by a proven man.

Polygyny, when lawful and transparent, opens an additional covenantal option:

• a woman may voluntarily join a household led by a man whose character, provision, and leadership are already demonstrated,

• provided that her consent is informed, the existing wife or wives are not defrauded, and biblical obligations of equality and provision are upheld.

This does not eliminate sin or guarantee harmony. It simply restores an avenue of female agency that Scripture recognises and modern law has closed.

2. Increasing Covenant Birthrates

Polygyny can also, quite straightforwardly, increase the number of covenant children in households where one man is particularly competent and fruitful as a husband and father.

The biblical record itself ties household expansion and national strength to such structures:

• Jacob’s four wives produce the twelve sons who become the tribes of Israel.

• 1 Chronicles 7:4 explicitly links “many wives and sons” with 36,000 fighting men.

• Abraham’s calling as “father of many nations” unfolds through more than one woman.

• Restoration narratives (e.g. Joash) include priest-led arrangements of multiple wives under divine approval.

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Again, this does not mean every capable man must or should be polygynous. It does mean that, where such households exist in obedience to biblical norms, the demographic effect is multiplicative rather than merely additive.

3. Protecting Widows, Single Mothers, and Vulnerable Women

Biblical marriage law functions as an embedded welfare system:

• Levirate marriage ensures a childless widow is not left destitute; where the surviving brother is married, the law’s default solution is polygynous, not institutional.

• Regulations regarding concubines and maidservants, however foreign to modern ears, are attempts to pull vulnerable women into protected household structures.

• Multi-wife households can distribute labour, childcare, and elder-care in ways that reduce state burden and provide relational stability for children.

Modern Western systems have effectively inverted this:

• very high rates of single motherhood,

• fragile kinship networks,

• increasing reliance on state welfare and bureaucratic care,

• and children growing up without consistent paternal presence.

Polygyny is not a panacea. It can be abused, just as monogamy can. But where it is practiced under covenant discipline, it offers structural protections that are currently attempted, with far less success, through costly and impersonal state programmes.

4. Strengthening Religious Communities Under Pressure

Shapiro and other conservative commentators are correct to diagnose:

• declining marriage rates,

• shrinking religious communities,

• male disengagement from family formation,

• and the demographic erosion of Western Jewry and Christianity.

Yet they defend a civil and ecclesiastical regime that:

• outlaws one of the Bible’s own household structures,

• undermines marital permanence through no-fault divorce,

• and then laments the predictable results.

The argument here is not that polygyny is a “magic bullet” for civilizational renewal. It is that a community serious about long-term survival and covenant continuity should hesitate before declaring unlawful what God regulated and used to secure exactly those ends.

Conclusion of Section VII

Polygyny, in biblical law, is not a curiosity on the margins. It is one of the civilisational tools by which:

• fertility is reinforced,

• vulnerable women are situated within covenant households,

• widows and childless lines are protected,

• and national strength is maintained.

Monogamy, properly ordered, remains a fully valid and honourable structure. Scripture blesses it and nowhere disparages it. The policy issue is not monogamy versus polygyny but whether the state or religious authorities are justified in forbidding a divinely regulated marital form in a time of demographic crisis.

When Shapiro defends monogamy-only, no-fault frameworks as if they were coextensive with “biblical marriage,” he inadvertently advocates a legal order that:

• departs from Torah’s own architecture,

• disables one of Scripture’s demographic safeguards,

• and then struggles to explain why covenantal communities are shrinking.

A juristic and policy-aware reading of Scripture suggests a more modest, and more faithful, conclusion:

• Monogamy is lawful and good.

• Polygyny is lawful, regulated, and in certain contexts commanded.

• A legal regime that bans the latter while weakening the former is not biblical wisdom but a civilisational gamble.

VIII. Legal and Pastoral Concerns: Polygynous Converts and Church Policy

Why the Church must return to Scripture rather than enforce Roman custom

One of the most acute practical questions in this debate is how churches should treat polygynous converts—especially men from African, Middle Eastern, Asian, or Indigenous contexts where polygyny remains lawful, socially normal, and embedded in custom. Here the gap between biblical law and Western ecclesiastical practice is most exposed.

To be fair to modern pastors: their concern is often genuine. They fear injustice to women, confusion among children, and perceived scandal in the wider culture. Those are real pastoral burdens. The problem is not their desire to protect households—but the tools they reach for.

When tested against textual authority, legal consistency, and pastoral ethics, one conclusion emerges: there is no scriptural basis for compelling a polygynous convert to divorce any of his wives, and historical attempts to do so have repeatedly produced grave harm. The Church must decide whether its ultimate norm is the Word of God or a Romanised custom of marriage. It cannot treat these as identical.

1. No Scriptural Basis for Mandated Divorce

Across biblical jurisprudence, dissolving a lawful covenant requires specific grounds and clear statutory warrant. Divorce is never treated as a trivial “reset”; it is regulated, morally weighty, and tied to defined causes.

Yet nowhere does Scripture command:

• a polygynous man to “reduce” his household to one wife;

• a new convert to dissolve otherwise lawful marriages;

• an elder or deacon to repudiate additional wives in order to qualify;

• any believer to break existing covenantal obligations merely to conform to later cultural norms.

Key legal points:

1. Patriarchal polygyny remained in covenant standing.Abraham, Jacob, David, Joash and others maintained plural households without ever being ordered by God to dismiss wives to achieve monogamy. Their sins are real and recorded—but polygyny itself is never named among them.

   
   

2. The apostles issued no general prohibition.The Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 faced the ideal moment to legislate on Gentile marital arrangements. It did not. Apostolic silence where correction would have been necessary is strong evidence that polygyny was not treated as inherently unlawful.

   
   

3. Christ condemns treacherous divorce, not plural covenant.Jesus speaks sharply against unjustified divorce (Matt. 5; 19; Mark 10). Forcing a man to send away a wife who has done no wrong, simply because he has another wife, runs directly against that ethic and resembles the very “treachery” Malachi 2:14–16 denounces.

   
   

4. Biblical law forbids dissolving valid marriages without cause.If a marriage was lawfully contracted according to local law and does not fall within the categories of incest, adultery, or other clear biblical prohibitions, a pastor has no jurisdiction to command its termination.

On a textualist reading, therefore, compelling polygynous converts to divorce wives in order to be “biblical” is itself an unbiblical act. It is not pastoral care; it is ecclesiastical overreach.

2. Catholic Handling of Polygynous Converts: A Cautionary Record

The Roman Catholic Church’s historical response to polygynous converts illustrates the dangers of subordinating biblical law to inherited Roman norms.

Working from a canon-law commitment to strict monogamy, many missionary contexts required converts to:

• select one “primary” wife,

• formally repudiate the others,

• often separate from children of those unions,

• and, in practice, provide little or no sustained support to the dismissed wives.

Reports from parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America consistently show patterns such as:

• women suddenly reclassified as “concubines” or “illicit partners” despite prior lawful marriage;

• children rendered socially vulnerable or effectively orphaned;

• discarded wives pushed toward prostitution or destitution;

• extended kinship structures destabilised.

Whatever the intentions, the effects were:

• legal injustice – lawful marriages dissolved without biblical cause;

• moral harm – women and children abandoned contrary to Torah’s protective impulse;

• evangelistic damage – Christianity perceived as a destroyer of households;

• social instability – weakened family networks and intergenerational trauma.

The lesson is not “Catholicism bad; Protestants good.” It is more sober: whenever the Church enforces Romanised marital norms without clear biblical warrant, it risks becoming an agent of injustice rather than of righteousness.

3. Protestant Churches and Jurisprudential Consistency

Protestant traditions, in principle, affirm sola Scriptura. In practice, however, on the issue of polygyny many operate under an unwritten rule of sola cultura—Western cultural instinct as final authority.

A. Jurisprudential Incoherence

Common Protestant patterns include:

• accepting repeated cycles of divorce and remarriage (functional serial polygyny);

• blessing blended families formed by marital dissolution;

• treating no-fault divorce as pastorally manageable;

• but refusing membership or fellowship to men with a single, intact plural household.

By biblical standards, a man with three ex-wives and a fourth current wife is often treated as more acceptable than a man who has two faithful wives, none divorced, all provided for. That is moral and legal inversion: Scripture consistently treats covenant-breaking as the problem, not covenant multiplicity.

B. Pastoral Double Standards

This leads to predictable double standards:

• A man may be repeatedly “monogamous” via serial divorce and remarriage and still be considered for deaconship.

• A man with one lifelong covenant expanded to include another wife—without divorce—may be excluded even from basic fellowship.

Whatever else this is, it is not a faithful application of 1 Timothy 3 or Titus 1. Those texts address fidelity and reputation, not the numeric impossibility of more than one lawful wife over a lifetime.

C. Toward a Biblical Pastoral Policy

A biblically grounded church policy would:

1. Receive polygynous converts without forcing dissolution.Recognise their marriages as valid where they are lawful, and address sin (if present) on the same basis as in monogamous households.

2. Honour all covenant wives as bound and protected.Require the husband to maintain provision, protection, and conjugal fairness in line with Exodus 21:10–11 and other relevant texts.

3. Evaluate fitness for office by character, not sheer arithmetic.The “husband of one wife” idiom should be read as “a faithful, sexually disciplined man,” not as a retroactive ban on all polygynous histories.

4. Challenge no-fault divorce culture with equal or greater vigour.A church that tolerates casual dissolution of monogamous covenants while refusing to recognise stable polygynous ones cannot credibly claim a biblical ethic of marriage.

D. Cultural Preference Cannot Override Covenant Law

Western monogamy norms draw heavily from:

• Roman property and inheritance law,

• medieval canon-law developments,

• Reformation-era political compromises,

• and Victorian sensibilities about respectability.

These may explain why our ancestors chose certain policies, but they do not supply divine authority. The Church is bound to Scripture first. Cultural preference—even deeply internalised—cannot legitimately overturn what God regulates, protects, and in some cases commands.

Conclusion of Section VIII

On any serious legal and pastoral analysis:

• Scripture does not command polygynous men to dissolve their marriages.

• The New Testament offers no precedent for forcing such dissolution upon converts.

• Historical attempts—particularly in Roman Catholic missions—to impose monogamy by mandated divorce have repeatedly produced grave injustice and social harm.

• Many Protestant bodies now apply harsher discipline to stable polygynous households than to serial monogamists produced by no-fault divorce culture.

The path forward is not to romanticise polygyny or to minimise its complexities. It is to re-align church practice with biblical law, recognising:

• monogamy as a good and honourable pattern;

• polygyny as a lawful, regulated form in certain contexts;

• divorce as a last resort, not a quick instrument for conforming households to Western expectation.

The kingdom of God is not Roman, and its marriage law is not bound to the preferences of late European history. If the Church is to be both just and faithful, it must recover the courage to distinguish between biblical covenant and cultural custom, and to pastor polygynous converts accordingly.

IX. Prophetic Jurisprudence: Isaiah 3–4 and the Future of Marriage Law

How biblical prophecy anticipates covenantal plural households

Debates about polygyny often remain anchored in the past—Abraham, Jacob, David—without asking how Scripture envisions the future. Yet biblical jurisprudence is not merely retrospective. The prophets function as a kind of constitutional court for Israel, declaring how YHWH will apply His law under conditions of judgment, crisis, and restoration.

Isaiah 3–4 is one of the clearest prophetic passages in which marital structure appears explicitly in an eschatological setting. Whatever one makes of the timing or precise fulfilment, one fact is difficult to escape: the prophetic text assumes that plural covenantal households remain a lawful and even stabilizing option in days to come. It does not depict polygyny as a relic to be abolished, but as a tool available under divine supervision in a time of male scarcity and social upheaval.

To see this, Isaiah must be read not only as poetry but as jurisprudential foresight—prophetic commentary on how God’s legal order plays out in crisis and renewal.

A. Isaiah 4:1 as Eschatological Legal Pattern

Isaiah 4:1 is sometimes treated as an odd textual outlier. Read in its legal-thick context, it becomes a crucial snapshot of covenant formation under eschatological pressure:

“And seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying,We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes;only let us be called by your name—take away our reproach.”

Even granting symbolic elements, several jurisprudential features stand out:

1. The language of “taking hold” is covenantal, not merely erotic.The verb hecheziq is used elsewhere for grasping in oath or binding commitment. It suggests deliberate, formal initiative: these women are not depicted as victims of abduction but as agents seeking a binding relationship.

2. “Let us be called by your name” is legal status language.The request for name-transfer (nikra shemekha ‘aleinu) resonates with legal incorporation: entering a household, gaining recognised status, and removing the stigma of uncovered womanhood. This is about lawful inclusion and social legitimacy, not casual liaison.

3. The “seven” is symbolically rich, but its form matters.Even if “seven” is numerological (completeness, covenant), the image is not “many men and many women in chaos,” but multiple women voluntarily seeking covenant with one man. The structure Isaiah chooses to portray covenant restoration pressure is explicitly polygynous, not monogamous.

No serious Isaiah scholar would claim this verse is a statute. It is prophecy, not direct code. But prophetic description still presupposes legal categories: Isaiah does not envision women begging to enter an unlawful structure. He assumes that under Torah, plural households remain a recognised and legitimate way to remove “reproach” and secure covenantal covering.

At minimum, Isaiah 4:1:

• treats polygynous covenant as a morally legitimate option in a future crisis;

• recognises female-initiated entry into such covenants;

• depicts this as honour-seeking (“take away our reproach”), not as rebellion against God’s order.

B. Isaiah 3–4: Judgment, Gender Imbalance, and Household Reconfiguration

Isaiah 4:1 flows directly from the judicial logic of Isaiah 3. The sequence is tightly structured:

1. Judgment on leadership and society (Isa. 3).The text announces the removal of capable men, breakdown of governance, and social inversion. Male death, cowardice, or abdication are part of the judgment.

2. Resulting gender imbalance.With men diminished—by war, misrule, or dereliction—women are left exposed, economically and socially. The “marriage market,” to use modern language, becomes severely distorted.

3. Covenantal response: seven women, one man (Isa. 4:1).Women seek legitimacy and protection not by demanding an abstract right to personal independence, but by voluntarily clustering under a man whose name and house can restore their status—even offering to forgo material claims.

4. Subsequent restoration (Isa. 4:2–6).The “Branch of the LORD” and purification of Zion follow this social reconfiguration. Isaiah does not signal that these plural households are a problem to be corrected, but part of the texture of a judged-yet-preserved remnant.

Legally, the pattern is significant:

• Isaiah assumes that when righteous, marriageable men are scarce, strict monogamy can function as a bottleneck, leaving many women uncovered.

• Under such conditions, Torah’s allowance for polygyny becomes a mercy, not an indulgence.

• The women’s request is for covenantal name and honour, not primarily for economic support—hence the offer to provide their own bread and clothing.

From a policy perspective, Isaiah anticipates a scenario in which:

• male capacity and numbers decline;

• female desire for covenantal legitimacy remains high;

• plural households become one of the few just means of protecting women from lasting reproach.

While one need not treat Isaiah 4:1 as a blueprint statute, it is hard to argue that a God who foresaw—and inspired—this image regarded all forms of polygyny as inherently immoral.

C. Christ’s Plural Betrothal as Covenantal Architecture

The New Testament does not overturn Isaiah’s basic marital imagery; it intensifies it in Christ.

Consistently, Christ is portrayed as:

• one Bridegroom,

• related to multiple ecclesial communities,

• each addressed as a distinct covenant partner,

• yet collectively united under a single head.

Examples include:

• Revelation 2–3 – seven churches, each engaged by Christ with covenantal language, promises, and threats.

• Ephesians 5 – one Christ, one “Bride” in the corporate sense, yet that Bride is composed of many local assemblies.

• 2 Corinthians 11:2 – Paul speaks of presenting a particular congregation as a “pure virgin” to one husband.

This is, of course, typological rather than literal marriage law. But typology is not arbitrary. Scripture does not employ immoral structures as its highest analogies of Christ and the Church. If polygyny were intrinsically adulterous:

• Christ’s relationship to multiple churches could not be portrayed in marital terms without confusion;

• Paul’s imagery would undermine, rather than reinforce, New Testament sexual ethics;

• the Spirit’s choice of polygynous-structured imagery would be theologically incoherent.

Instead, the New Testament freely uses the architecture of one righteous head, many covenant partners as its supreme marital metaphor. That does not make human polygyny mandatory. But it does strongly suggest that plural covenantal attachment to a single righteous head is, at least in principle, compatible with divine holiness.

In this sense:

• Isaiah looks forward to expanded households in crisis;

• Christ embodies the archetype of righteous “one-to-many” covenant;

• the New Testament reinforces, rather than erases, the legitimacy of that architecture at the level of symbol and theology.

Conclusion of Section IX

Isaiah 3–4, read within the framework of biblical jurisprudence, does not depict polygyny as a shameful relic to be excised in the future. It presents plural covenantal households as one of the means by which God sustains women, preserves honour, and stabilises a remnant in times of judgment and gender imbalance.

When that prophetic vision is set alongside Christ’s plural betrothal to multiple churches, a coherent picture emerges:

• The prophetic outlook is not toward Roman-style scarcity monogamy, but toward covenantal expansion anchored in a righteous head.

• Polygynous structures appear, both in prophecy and typology, as permissible and at times protective, not inherently corrupt.

• The eschatological kingdom looks more like Abraham’s enlarged household than like Augustus’ legally constrained, yet morally porous, monogamy.

This does not compel every community to adopt polygyny, nor does it deny the goodness of monogamy. It does, however, undercut any claim that Scripture’s long-range trajectory is toward the abolition of plural households. On the contrary: the prophetic and typological witness points to covenantal plurality under one faithful head as a recurring, and future-relevant, feature of God’s redemptive order.

X. Conclusion: A Legal Verdict

Rendering judgment on the evidence, the law, and the arguments.

The purpose of this article has been to determine whether polygyny, as described in Scripture, is legally permissible, covenantally coherent, theologically consistent, and historically grounded. Applying the canons of textualism, originalism, statutory interpretation, and precedent, the conclusion is unambiguous: the monogamy-only dogma of the modern West has no basis in biblical law. It is a cultural preference inherited from Rome—not a command of God.

What follows is the formal legal verdict.

A. Verdict

On the basis of statutory analysis, constitutional mandate, case law, prophetic jurisprudence, historical practice, and New Testament coherence, the judgment is as follows:

1. Polygyny is biblically legal.

Torah regulates it directly (Exod. 21; Deut. 21; Deut. 25).Regulation presupposes permission.No prohibitory statute exists anywhere in Scripture.

2. Polygyny is historically normal.

Patriarchs, prophets, kings, priests, judges, and ordinary Israelites practiced it.God gave wives to David and declared willingness to add more (2 Sam. 12:8).Jewish communities practiced it into the medieval period and beyond.

3. Polygyny is theologically coherent.

Christ is one Husband to multiple covenant communities.Isaiah’s eschatology anticipates expanded covenant households. No apostle commands polygynous men to divorce.

4. Polygyny is jurisprudentially defensible.

It satisfies foundational legal principles:

• regulation = legality,

• absence of prohibition = permissibility,

• case law = precedent,

• prophetic affirmation = constitutional coherence.

It also aligns with biblical ethics of provision, fidelity, fruitfulness, and covenantal stability.

5. Polygyny serves compelling covenantal and civilizational interests.

It strengthens households, protects vulnerable women, increases fertility, and undergirds national continuity—outcomes Western monogamy-only regimes have catastrophically failed to preserve.

Verdict: Polygyny stands as a lawful, regulated, righteous marital institution in Scripture.Monogamy-only dogma does not.

B. Shapiro’s Position

Ben Shapiro’s argument fails under legal scrutiny:

1. Legally inconsistent.

He conflates Roman law, rabbinic ordinance, biblical statute, and cultural sentiment as if they share equal authority.

2. Textually selective.

Genesis 2:24 is treated as a statute while explicit polygyny laws are ignored.

3. Tradition-dependent.

He leans on Rabbi Gershom’s medieval ban as though it were Mosaic legislation.

4. Philosophically contradictory.

He champions economic liberty while defending marital central planning.He warns of demographic collapse while supporting the legal structure that created it.

In sum, his argument is not grounded in Torah but in Roman cultural inheritance.

Objections Considered and Rejected

The principal monogamy-only arguments—(1) treating Genesis 2:24 as a numerical statute, (2) appealing to narrative dysfunction in polygynous households, and (3) inferring prohibition from apostolic silence—fail under textual and legal scrutiny. First, Genesis 2:24 articulates constitutional ideal language, not positive law; Torah’s regulatory statutes control (see II.B.1). Second, narrative hardship does not invalidate lawful institutions any more than Adam’s fall abolishes monogamy (see VI.E). Third, apostolic silence in the presence of known practice, absent corrective decree, functions as permissibility—not prohibition (see IV.D.4). No counter-text, precedent, or apostolic overruling displaces the statutory framework.

C. Final Call

1. Scholars must return to the rule of law in Scripture.

Biblical marriage must be interpreted with:

• statutory clarity,

• linguistic precision,

• historical grounding,

• and jurisprudential discipline.

2. Christians and Jews must re-evaluate monogamy through Scripture, not through Rome or Gershom.

Roman law formalized monogamy for citizenship and inheritance control. Rabbi Gershom’s ban arose from Christian coercion.Neither carries divine authority.

3. A call for scholarly debate grounded in text, law, and evidence.

The monogamy-only claim must be tested by:

• explicit statutes,

• original-language analysis,

• historical data,

• and consistent legal method.

Let the dispute be settled by law and Scripture—not cultural instinct or sentiment.

Final Word

Scripture is clear. History is clear. Law is clear. Polygyny is biblically lawful, covenantally coherent, historically normative, and civilizationally vital.

To deny it is not to uphold God’s law—it is to uphold Rome.

The verdict stands. And with respect, Mr. Shapiro—facts do not care about your feelings.