Polygamy and the Bible

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I was born and raised in the Catholic faith and I absolutely love it. My question is I recently heard about polyamory dating and marriages. I truly in my heart believe it’s wrong to be married or sleeping with more than one person. I’ve read the Bible and I can’t find anywhere where it says being with more than one person at a time is a sin. I’m a 29 year old female and all I want more than anything is a good Catholic man to share my life with. I just need someone to tell me where in the Bible it says it is a sin. I need that validation from a fellow Catholic. Thank you and God bless.
 
You do realize that not EVERYTHING is covered in the Bible?
Polygamy is not condoned by Christ int he New Testament. The church’s position is covered here in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
2387 The predicament of a man who, desiring to convert to the Gospel, is obliged to repudiate one or more wives with whom he has shared years of conjugal life, is understandable. However, polygamy is not in accord with the moral law." [Conjugal] communion is radically contradicted by polygamy; this, in fact, directly negates the plan of God which was revealed from the beginning, because it is contrary to the equal personal dignity of men and women who in matrimony give themselves with a love that is total and therefore unique and exclusive."180 The Christian who has previously lived in polygamy has a grave duty in justice to honor the obligations contracted in regard to his former wives and his children.
 
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I’d like to add Catholics aren’t Sola Scriptura Christians. Sacred Scripture is important but there is also Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium to ‘bind and loose’. I hope I got this right.

I’m not a Catholic but this is how I understand it.

Polygamy didn’t appear until after the Fall.

The original design of marriage was one man and one woman. Adam never had any other wives even after the Fall nor did a number of his more immediate descendants. It was down a few generations before it even appeared. There may be symbolic significance in the first polygamist Lamech being descended from Cain (not to be confused with another Lamech, who descended from Seth) or maybe not, better left to scholars.

Like divorce, it wasn’t supposed to be the case but only permitted through the hardness of our hearts. Keep in mind there were procedures for divorce in the Old Testament.

Christianity is about redeeming what’s been corrupted. The whole of Creation. In my opinion, supporting polygamy, no-fault divorce and anything other than the original design of marriage goes against the spirit of redemption.

Early Christian thinkers like Iranaeus and Justin Martyr condemned polygamy. You can argue they probably ‘captured’ the spirit of Christianity on this matter better than us.

Christians are New Testament people. The New Testament favours monogamy over polygamy.
A comparison between marriage and Christ and His Bride, the Church is made. Singular not plural.
For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body -Ephesians 5:23
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“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”[1] This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. -Ephesians 31-32
[1] Quote from Genesis 2:24
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Individual Christians aren’t ‘married’ to Christ. Collectively, we are in essence cells, organs and limbs that form one Body. One Bride. One Church.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ…that there may be no division in the body…Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. -1 Corinthians 12:12,25,27
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To have more than one wife is to say there is more than one Church. Two or three wives don’t form one wife. They are not limbs and etc. of one wife but are individual people.
And no, different denominations does not mean Christ has multiple Brides but the Bride has been gravely injured and we pray for healing and unity. Even Jesus prayed:
I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one -John 17:20-21
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Also consider:
This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. -Ephesians 3:6
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So natural law isn’t natural law for God (or leaders who claim God gave them convenient permission)?

Strange OT law.
Strange OT God.

Glad Jesus put things back on track.
 
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God is the author of the natural law, so of course he can make exceptions to its particular claims. Thus if God decrees that a man may take multiple wives, then he may do so, even though this is generally impossible.
 
Then you may not fully understand natural law theory.
You are comparing it to the way kings make law.

Since the Magna Carta its been clear that nobody really believes a lawmaker is exempt from the law and law is not the arbitrary.

That is, “natural law” ultimately flows from God’s own Being and Truth. To contradict it is to contradict Himself.

You seem to believe morality is whatever some supreme being arbitrarily commands and could be anything as there is no objective basis to morality…
That is not Catholic understanding.

Secondly, I don’t believe God has ever objectively told anybody to take multiple wives.
Just as I do not believe that God truly tells people to kill their parents.

Sure, deluded people like to justify their disordered actions by saying God gave them permission or appeared to them in a dream.

A better resolution might be to say that monogamous marriage is not something that directly flows from the principles of natural law. But that approach has difficulties too.
 
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I think it’s safe to say that Aquinas understood the Catholic approach to the natural law better then you (or I) do.

Also, the English understanding of law is somewhat problematic, and the Church’s legal system is based on Roman law. It’s not a disputed point in ecclesial law that dispensations can be granted.

In any case, while it’s true that the natural law cannot be dispensed per se, God certainly has the right to alter its application to a particular scenario. Thus, if God permits a man to take a second wife, even though such is impossible in the general course of things, then they will truly be married and he can legitimately have sex with both of them.
 
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You’ve simply rehashed your previous argument and added nothing.

You have confused natural law with human positive law by the Roman thing.
No comparision.
while it’s true that the natural law cannot be dispensed per se, God certainly has the right to alter its application to a particular scenario.
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I have no idea how those two sentence halves are compatible.
Its simply a complex rehash of the problem without actually solving it…

Does God have “the right” to redefine “unicorn” to mean “having two horns”.
To make one, two. To make my uncle my son…

There are some things God just cannot do if he is to be true to His own being.
 
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It’s not clear what the counter-argument is, that God cannot alter creation?
 
Not creation but His own Eternal Ideas.

But how about answering my question before you pepper me?

I am asking you to provide some explanation that harmonises the two apparently self contradictory halves of your above conundrum.
 
There is no logical contradiction in a man having two wives. It is less fitting, because there are then two women who have marital rights with regard to him, but that isn’t a strict contradiction any more than e.g. a married man having military duty, which can prejudice his wife’s marital rights, is.

Since there is no logical contradiction in a man having two wives, it follows that God can allow that to happen, just as he can cause the dead to rise or the heavens to stop, though these things are naturally impossible.

Once God has made a second marriage real, the same moral rules apply to it as to a normal marriage, regarding sex being licit and not fornication.
 
Nevermind, I seem unable to bring you to an understanding of the contradiction you are touting let alone an attempt at a cogent response.
 
On another tack I’d be interested to know why you would also not find the following marriages inherently against natural law:
  • one woman many husbands.
  • two men married to the same two women.
 
The purpose of marriage (contrasted with indiscriminate sexual relations) is to make paternity readily known. Thus there would be greater disorder in a woman having multiple husbands than vice versa.

So, to make that licit, God would need to effect a change in the psycho-social nature of humanity (namely, removing the need for children to be raised by their father), and not simply make an otherwise impossible marriage real.
 
So you believe that knowledge of paternity is an unalterable dictate of natural law and any form of marriage that respects that is not inherently in contradiction to natural law?

Therefore God is able to command/tolerate polygamy but not polyandry?

If so what Magisterial sources do you have for this interesting view?
 
I’m not certain of whether God could in principle authorize polyandry without effecting a change in human nature. In any case, we know that he never has done this, and it would be a greater exception to the norm of the natural law than authorizing polygamy. It would also have been useless for the greater increase of the Israelite nation, which is the purpose for which polygamy was permitted.

I’m not aware of any magisterial rulings on the hypothetical question of whether or not God could have allowed polyandry.
 
Now you are prevaricating.
You all but laid down as unchangeable that one of the natural law principles essential to identifying moral forms of marriage was the necessity of identifying the father.

Can you address this point and provide Magisterial sources for it?

If not, which is likely the case, I put it to you that the natural law principles are in fact otherwise.
Namely, all forms of marriage tolerable to natural law must respect the generation, rearing and education of children which for human lasts a considerable time if not the lifetime of the children (Aquinas). Hence polygamy can be commanded/dispensed by God if circumstances of same ensure those ends (eg wealthy Patriachs who needed to quickly expand the Israelilte race).

Using these principles of Aquinas polyandry could also be tolerated and commanded by God without inherently breaking natural law.

No significant Doctor of Father mentions your principle of paternal identification from my wide reading on the matter.
Perhaps you know of some?
 
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