PART 1
Monogamy is the practice or state of being married to only one person at a time. When God instituted the covenant of marriage, He designed the relationship to be monogamous.
In Genesis 2:21–22, God created Adam and then formed a woman, Eve, from one of his ribs and brought her to the man. God did not create several women for Adam, which would have been helpful in fulfilling the command to populate the earth (Genesis 1:27–28). Adam responded with the joyful proclamation that Eve was “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” (verse 23), followed by this declaration: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh” (verse 24).
Jesus echoed this truth when He was asked about divorce (Matthew 19:5). He then added, “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate” (Matthew 19:6).
From the very beginning of the Bible, monogamy is the model. The Old Testament is rife with examples of people abandoning monogamy. Many patriarchs and kings had multiple wives. Even David and Solomon, God’s chosen leaders, multiplied wives over the course of their reigns, and the Bible is strangely silent about this apparent breach of godliness.
Deuteronomy 17:17 specifically prohibits the accumulation of wives by the kings of Israel. And because the Bible is so honest about the humanity and failures of even those God used mightily, it dutifully records the problems those multiplied wives created.
In every biblical account of men having multiple wives, there is conflict. Families not based on a monogamous relationship paid a price. Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar were the first “love triangle” gone bad—jealousy arose when the younger Hagar became pregnant when the older Sarah could not (Genesis 16:1–5). Rachel and Leah vied for Jacob’s affection, which led to bringing in servant girls to be their husband’s concubines (Genesis 30). The prophet Samuel was born into a household where his mother Hannah was constantly provoked by her husband’s other wife, Peninnah (1 Samuel 1:4–6).
TO BE CONTINUED...
MICHAEL OPPONG-AMPONSAH
Waiting for the next part. Well done sir