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This book is written by a Catholic priest, theologian and missionary who has obviously struggled with the differences between his church's official position on polygamy and what the Bible says about it. This struggle was particularly important to him as he saw that the insistance on monogamy was hampering his effectiveness in countries where polygamy was popular. The really interesting thing about this book is watching someone squirm as they try to defend something the Bible allowed, but the apostate Church banned, whilst at the same time he tries to remain faithful to that apostate Church and its effective claims to supremacy over the Bible.
The foreward indicates that the book is split up as follows:-
Introduction - The principles and methods used in the book together with a definition of African polygamy and other mating forms.
Chapter 1 - The historical missionary and pastoral problem of African Polygamy
Chapter 2 - Cultural Presumptions of the West
Chapter 3 - Demography
Chapter 4 - Anthropology
Chapter 5 - Biblical texts
Chapter 6 - Theological Rationale
Appendix - On the Council of Trent
The book starts as it means to go on, with a quote from Haring - "Have the moral theologians really made a serious attempt to distinguish in marriage ethics and marriage law the specifically Christian elements from those elements which were more or less a successful accommodation to European culture?"
The author raises the question as to whether the theologians who saw polygamy as a problem have ever really thought beyond the ready-made solution they had to offer or whether, quoting Joseph Fuchs "the marriage institution we have discovered belongs only to our given culture." He places the anti-polygamy movement as getting its exegetical methods and theological arguments from Pope Innocent III.
He then moves on to focus on the problem, that while Christianity rightly condemns consecutive polygamy (otherwise called serial monogamy, where you divorce one wife to marry another), this practice needs to be completely distinguished from simultaneous polygamy, where commitments are honoured. The author follows popular usage in talking of 'polygyny' and not of 'polyandry', and claims it is practiced in India, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and most of the Islamic world. He also tries to convince his readership that Socrates indulged in plural marriage.
The scene is set for this enlightening chapter by a quote from Augustine - "Now indeed in our time, and in keeping with Roman custom, it is no longer allowed to take another wife, so as to have more than one wife living."
The feeling of reading this chapter is similar to that of listening to a conjuror telling you how he did the trick which mystified you moments earlier. Mr Hillman, who would no doubt prefer to be called 'father', possibly thinking that no-one was reading, begins to tell the tale of how many ideas about marriage are not founded in Christianity, but in the ancient Roman religion which stole the clothes of the true Church and developed into the Catholic religion of today.
By his own admission, the focus on individual consent comes from the Roman idea of 'consensus', and the use of a ring, the style of the ceremony and the institution of betrothal were all imported from pre-Christian Roman law and custom. The idea that the purpose of marriage is "in order to bring forth children" is a Roman idea, as are the laws related to impediments, consanguinity, affinity and other areas. The author confidently states that the evidence shows that pagan and so-called 'Christian' marriages were essentially the same around 306 AD.
The basic principles of the Canon Law of the church concerning the obligations and nature of the marriage contract were (surprise, surprise) the same as the Roman law. As the author says, "Christianity did not introduce monogamy into the Greco-Roman world."
Instead, it is shown that while the Romans were being monogamist and abusing the Bible, those people with the original texts, the Jews, were still practicing polygamy. This can be seen from the writings of Josephus in the first century AD, of Justin Martyr in the second, and in a Roman law (not another one!) passed in 212 AD to 'tolerate' Jewish polygamy.
Tolerance of polygamy wasn't really in the Roman blood, for in 285 AD the Emporer Diocletian rescinded that law, Maximilian later reaffirmed this and in 393 Theodosius built another anti-polygamy law on top of it. Despite this, polygamy continued to be practiced by Jews in northern Europe right up to the eleventh century.
The effects of mandatory monogamy are soon seen: - "The legal monogamy insisted upon by the Greeks and the Romans was often supplemented with institutionalised concubinage and widespread prostitution, and divorce was a recurring problem." And as they held tightly to the doctrine of monogamy, 'nineteen centuries of Christianity have not entirely removed the ancient concomitants of legal monogamy: concubinage, prostitution and divorce.' It is worth saying at this stage that when Mr Hillman says 'concubinage' he essentially means the keeping of mistresses, rather than secondary wives, which is probably why he is so disapproving.
It is then considered how polygamy came to be viewed as a problem. According to Augustine 'when polygamy was a common custom, it was no crime; it ranks as a crime now because it is no longer customary.' Splendid reasoning there! You can see why Aquinas became more popular! Augustine goes on to say that polygamy was acceptable while there was a need for population increase, but now we have quite enough people and it only comes from 'an excess of lust'. Reading Augustine's "Confessions" may leave you with the question as to whether Augustine was projecting his own excess of lust on to the rest of mankind.
What was really happening wasn't a change of custom or the end of an increase in population. What happened was that "the Roman understanding and structure of marriage was basically accepted and 'baptized' by the Church." In Germanic tribes where marriage was a contract between families there was a struggle with the Roman 'consensus' idea of marriage as a contract between bride and groom. So, in 726, Pope Gregory II advised a missionary to this area that if a man had an infirm wife, he could be allowed to marry again if he could not contain himself as he lacked 'high ideals'. The Roman idea and reasoning was to prevail. Polygamy was only ever to be the exception and not the rule, and polygamists were to be branded as people of low morals.
In such a manner the idea was popularised that polygamy was only allowed by a divine dispensation. This baseless teaching was followed by Augustine, Pope Innocent III, Thomas Aquinas and the modern LDS church, although the last of these probably wouldn't like to admit that they got their ideas through the Roman Catholic Church, and ultimately from a pagan religion. Augustine, by the way, was the same guy who couldn't see 'what other help a woman could be to a man' if reproduction wasn't important, and he came up with the idea that enjoying sex INSIDE marriage was sinful! So, modern Mormons, be careful of what company you keep!
In case any Catholics out there think I'm being harsh, this book shows that Pope Gregory II said that marital sex couldn't be 'without the pleasures of the flesh' and that 'this pleasure could not be without fault'. And his successor, Pius XII said there was nothing wrong with sex in marriage. So, if two Popes fundamentally disagree, which one's infallible?
(Here's a clue - maybe none of them are!)
So, you may want to know how the Catholics went about dealing with polygamy whenever they encountered it. Well, apparently they expected a man to divorce his wives, the mothers of his children, on his conversion to the faith. Yes, that's right - when it comes to the biblical practice of polygamy the Catholic Church prefers, recommends and enforces divorce! Many marriages were dissolved by the Pope 'in favour of the faith'. Just in case you were thinking there was some rational basis to all this, such as the first wife being recognised as the proper wife, think again! In 1571 Pope Pius V said that where a man 'couldn't remember' which was his first wife, he should just remarry any one of them, and if he was actually mistaken, and his poor old first wife had been abandoned, well, it didn't really matter, because that marriage was still legally dissolved. So even the first woman a guy married, when maybe no-one thought there would be another, could end up being persecuted by Rome. If the church is the bride of Christ then is Roman Catholicism a pagan religion in drag?
In case you hadn't noticed, this meant that the Catholic church permitted consecutive polygamy (marriage followed by divorce to allow a new marriage) which the Bible condemns, in order to condemn simultaneous polygamy which the Bible allows. In line with this, these women were free to marry again while their first husband was alive, their marriages having been dissolved by some bloke in a dress in the Vatican, therefore encouraging polyandry, which in Bible language is adultery. This is considerably more Roman than Christian.
So what happened to the wives? "Their previously contracted conjugal rights, their social status, economic security, and even their relationship with their own children, have been radically compromised; and this in the name of the Christian ideal of marriage and family life". The women are left "to live like nuns or prostitutes."
But it would be unfair to blame the Catholic church alone for this terrible state of affairs, or to give the impression that there were no dissenting views. In 1855 John Colenso, the Anglican Bishop of Natal said "I must confess that I feel strongly on this point, that the usual practice of enforcing the separation of wives from their husbands upon their conversion to Christianity, is quite unwarrantable, and opposed to the plain teaching of our Lord. It is putting new wine in old bottles, and placing a stumbling-block, which He has not set, directly in the way of receiving the Gospel." Sadly his motion of tolerance was defeated at the 1888 Lambeth Conference of Bishops, (by 21 to 34) which in turn led to African Baptists and Methodists also becoming less tolerant of polygamists.
Since then, independent African churches have gone many ways. Some have positively accepted polygamy. Indeed "the correlation between the occurence of these numerous independent movements and the incidence of polygamy in the same population, and the fact that independency rarely occurs among peoples with a low incidence of polygamy, suggests that this form of marriage is one of the dynamic factors behind the growth of independent churches. Some of these churches, precisely because of their stand on this question, have been excluded from ecumenical fellowship with neighbouring churches, and sometimes for this reason only, they were not regarded as authentic Christian communities."
In addition to this, Lutherans in Liberia, the Transvaal and even the Anglican Diocese of Victoria Nyanzu in Tanzania became tolerant of polygamy. But most telling is the quote from the Methodist bishop reconsidering his church's position in the light of his experience:-
"Is it more Christian to have organized prostitution, marital infidelity with impunity, a rapidly growing divorce rate and increasing numbers of illegitimate children, than polygamy? Is it more Christian for young women to become prostitutes, call girls, or mistresses than to become the second or third wife of a respected member of the community?"
The author shows the problem as follows - "In areas where polygamy is a preferential and socially integrated form of marriage, missionaries have all too often been seen as persons who come to break up the natural family unity and to shatter the existing complex of marriage-related human bonds. Jesus clearly taught that marriage should be indissoluble. Yet a polygamist is told that, if he would fully obey the call of Christ, the first thing he must do is to divorce the mother of his own children."
The author goes into great depths to show how people add bits of their culture to Christianity and then expect it to carry the same force as a law of God. The idea the reader is left with is that perhaps we should treat the ideas bolted on to Christianity by the West with the same disdain as those bolted on by South American liberation theologians or by other foreign cultures. If we did, then perhaps we would reject the attitude of the second Vatican council who consigned polygamy to the same category as 'the plague of divorce, so-called free love, and other disfigurements'.
Perhaps then we would accept the concern of those who bemoan "the great amount of fuss made about the issue of monogamy, as if it were the most fundamental dogma of the Christian Church, and possessing indubitable scriptural validity." Accepting our own culture as THE right culture devalues all others and adopts the view, according to Peter Berger, that history is "a giant escalator ascending to the point at which we happen to be standing".
People have thought for a long time that the practice of polygamy would die out, but it hasn't. There are many societies where polygamy is 'preferential', that is, a social ideal. In these societies, monogamous unions may be potentially polygamous, although more numerous.
It is important to recognise this idea of 'potentially polygamous' marriages. If you live in a society where you marry one woman and throughout your life together you always have the option of marrying another, then your marriage which is in fact monogamous is different from a normal monogamous marriage. Those who advocate enforced monogamy try to say they are following nature, as most marriages are monogamous, blissfully ignoring the fact that the vast majority of societies in history have allowed some form of polygamy and created an awful lot of 'potentially polygamous' marriages. In fact, in Tanzania in 1969 the government were proposing legislation that would have made all Christian marriages potentially polygamous.
The author then goes on to provide some statistics for gender distribution. They are dated by the age of the book, but still interesting. They give Guinea as a country having 122 women to every 100 men, and Tanzania as a country having 100 women to every 95.1 men. In such situations monogamy creates difficulty for women in finding husands, increasing the incidence of nunnery and prostitution. The differential mortality rates seem to result from preferential treatment given to females and differences in the hazards facing the sexes. The chances of finding a husband in a monogamous system are reduced due to the incidence of male celibacy and the existence of a chronological age gap between males and females at the time of marriage. Where the birth rate is increasing the gap widens further.
This is demonstrated in a quote from R. E. Hanin - "Women, as a rule, marry at an earlier age than males, so men in the younger age-groups are excluded from the pool of "marriageable" ages. Further, if it is assumed that the number of births is increasing from year to year, then if women aged 15 marry men aged 20, they marry men born five years earlier than their own date of birth. But five years earlier fewer births were occuring. A large difference between the ages at marriage of men and women in a population of high mortality with increasing numbers of births tends greatly to reduce women's chances of marriage in a monogamous society."
Mr Hillman then gives us an account of the practical reasons why a system of bride-wealth payments (from the husband to the bride's parents) exists in African communities. These are:-
1) to act as a support to the permanence of marriage.
2) to provide compensation for the loss of a family member.
3) as a pledge of ability to provide adequately for the bride.
4) to show willingness and the ability to help in-laws.
5) to show that he loves his prospective wife more than his hard-earned possessions.
6) to encourage later marriage (through the need to save) and thereby encourage polygamy.
This is done to show that male lust does not figure at all among the factors that make polygamy a preferential form of marriage in 78 per cent of African tribes south of the Sahara. 34 per cent of these tribes have an incidence of polygamy which is more than 20 per cent of the population. The estimate in 1967 was that the average incidence of polygamy in the sub-Saharan region was 35 per cent, with 245 wives per 100 polygamous men, or 150 wives per 100 husbands. Far from decreasing, the incidence was varying in both directions in different places - indeed, the number of polygamous husbands was increasing along with wealth and the introduction of a cash society. In 1964 in Lagos 14 per cent of households were polygamous and 17.3 per cent of Catholics and 23.3 per cent of protestants were in these households.
"The custom fits well into the thinking of the people, serving many useful purposes."
These purposes are as follows:-
1) The provision for a larger number of offspring.
2) The multiplication of relationships in a community, building social cohesion and stability.
3) The ability to form alliances and build society.
4) The ability to overcome barrenness by allowing in-family adoption.
5) The defeat of loneliness, poverty and inhospitality.
In fact "since the wives, together with their children, share in all the benefits of belonging to the polygamous family, they themselves will sometimes pressure their husbands into seeking additional wives. Some women even regard it as a disgrace to be the only wife of a man."
It is pointed out that African societies cope well with widows, getting them back into families quickly and simply. "Loneliness is not an indigenous African problem."
Also, polygamy allows for a man's sexual needs to be met during pregnancy and lactation. This actually prolongs lactation and serves to lower and regulate overall fertility levels, because for women the period between births becomes longer. Adultery, prostitution and temporary concubinage rise with monogamy due to enforced abstinence during pregnancy. This behaviour increases the chances of introducing sexually transmitted diseases into monogamous families.
Finally, while in the West we use romance as a drug which propels us from attraction into marriage, African marriages build their love on the strong affection which acrues through time spent living and working together to co-operate in many activities including the rearing of children.
"The great evil... was not really polygamy as such, but so-called 'successive' polygamy - a husband was able to annul his marriage, send his wife away, and enter into a new marriage." Edward Schillebeeckx
The author states 'the biblical texts that are usually cited to show the incompatibility of polygamy with Christianity are concerned specifically with other matters', as polygamy involves neither divorce or remarriage. In the Bible adultery, divorce, polyandry, serial monogamy, fornication, prostitution and male homosexual acts are condemned, but not polygamy.
The author outlines the false reasoning of many as based on the idea that God once permitted polygamy, but allowed it to become progressively less common. Monogamy is taken as an ideal in the Garden of Eden and monogamy is assumed to be true throughout the New Testament (neatly side-stepping the failure to condemn it).
"However, the method of interpretation is rather suspect. The whole biblical case against the practice of polygamy is developed only by inferences, and it hinges on a number of assumptions which can no longer be taken to be self-evident." Claus Westerman says "Without really realising it we have become accustomed to listen to the Bible in the light of a particular type of interpretation." Perhaps it is the Western culture, rather than the Bible, which has provided Christians with their basic notions about marriage. Perhaps we should wonder at what other doctrines are based merely on inferences and have been smuggled into our minds without a true scriptural basis.
Mr Hillman does not attempt a detailed exegesis of the Bible. He merely seeks to raise doubts about the presumption of monogamy. Particularly this can be done in realising that each of the passages cited can be interpreted in such a way as not to exclude polygamy.
"Marriage was regarded as a social instrument required for the preservation and continuation of familes and clans. Through daughters being married into different families, there was a mutual strengthening of kinship bonds - each family giving its own flesh and blood to other families." This contrasts radically with the Western emphasis on individuals.
"Such a conception of marriage was congenial to the custom of having more than one wife at the same time. In the Mosaic law polygamy is clearly regarded as a normal and licit practice (cf. Exod. 21:10; Lev. 18:18; Deut. 21:15-17)...Nowhere in the Old Testament is this form of marriage called into question. The one and only admonition against the acquisition of too many wives (Deut. 17:17) is not an attack upon the institution of polygamy; it is, if we take account of the context, simply a warning against an abuse - against the king's taking too many wives, foreign wives specifically, because they would turn his heart toward their foreign gods (cf. 1 Kings 11:1-8)." Indeed it has even been suggested that the passage is talking about 'tribute' rather than wives, but the Hebrew is too complicated to present here.
It is pointed out that Jeremiah (in 3 vv 6-10 & 31 vv 31-32) portrayed Jehovah as a polygamist, and that the imagery of man and wife used of God and Israel and Christ and the Church need not be any more monogamist than the other imagery such as parent and child, shepherd and flock, vine and husbandman.
Regrettably, Mr Hillman loses all his senses and begins to defend himself from an evolutionary perspective. Quite what this has to do with the Bible is anyone's guess.
Mr Hillman then invokes the biblical idea of 'one flesh' as being equivalent to 'kindred' or 'kinship' and quotes Gen 29:14, 37:27; Lev. 18:6; Judges 9:2; 2 Sam. 5:1, 19:12-13; Neh. 5:5; and Isaiah 58:7 in support of this. This allows 'one-flesh' to apply to everyone in a polygamous family.
Of Matthew 19 vv 3-9 Mr Hillman suggests that perhaps Jesus was answering the questions that the Pharisees had asked him - a question on divorce. 'We need not expect to find here the answer to a question that was not asked.'
Of the tendency to talk of 'wife' in the singular, he says 'elsewhere in Deuteronomy, the singular 'wife' is used in laws that could apply to cases either of monogamy or polygamy (Deut 22: 1, 22) and 'wives' appears only in regulations which could not apply to monogamy (Deut. 21:15-17) while other rules of behaviour simply take polygamy for granted (Exod 21:10; Lev 8:18). And the issue of divorce only pertains to one wife at a time, so the use of 'wife' is unsurprising. In fact it is the normal biblical way of talking about either form of marriage.
He points out that if celibacy was rare and men married young then the Levirate law required polygamy. He also argues that the principle of no change in status on conversion could apply to polygamists just as much as monogamists.
We learn that Jerome and Chrysotom thought that polygamy was not allowed for church officials in 1 Timothy 3 and that this meant that it was widespread within the church.
He suggests that the term 'one flesh' has a carnal sense and a kinship sense and therefore explains that 1 Cor 6 is no difficulty as a man can obviously be 'one flesh' with any number of prostitutes. Also Eph 5:28-33 shows us as members of his body, a plurality and unity - a corporate personality. "In actual historical fact, God's beloved people is a plurality of persons."
The author says 'it is significant that the traditional interpretation of the relevant biblical texts and the usual ecclesiastical discipline regarding polygamy, must be buttressed by a variety of purely rational arguments".
The first of these is an appeal to natural law theory - but this accepts that polygamy is not intrinsically wrong, and can be acceptable in certain circumstances.
The second approach is the Cultural-Progress hypothesis, but this begs the question if history really is the road to here. If other norms are relevant in other societies then polygamy is suitable for them, and therefore not wrong.
Finally, people appeal to sociological conjecture that polygamy is fading away. Not only is this not happening but it is equivalent to saying 'if we just wait a little longer, without thinking too much about it, the moral question will vanish' - which is a pretty poor way of dealing with moral questions.
The catholic church is seen to get all mixed up for when it suggests that a polygamist convert should keep his extra wives but not have sex with them, there is a 'necessary proximate occasion of sin'. In other words there is a recognition that there will be unbearable temptation and frequent breaches of the no-sex rule, and this counts as mitigation - but this goes completely against the Biblical idea that God will not put us through more temptation than we can bear.
Sadly 'many missionaries and pastors have found themselves avoiding the problem by not trying very hard to present the gospel to polygamists,' thereby derogating from Christ's final command to Christians. 'Those with the wrong cultural garments are not invited into the Christian fellowship,' and those who receive the invite do so with a stumbling block put in their way. 'Precisely because this legal condition is both intolerable and incomprehensible to them, polygamists find it hard to listen to the whole Christian message, so they are unable to respond fully to the call of Christ. Since the law of monogamy is often the first thing that people hear about Christianity, many do not care to hear any more."
Here it gets bizarre. The author is in a fix. Following the Bible he believes in polygamy. But he is stuck in a religious system which was founded on ignoring the Bible and has legislated against polygamy. On November 11 1563 the Roman Catholic Council of Trent said 'If anyone says that it is lawful for Christians to have several wives at the same time, and that it is not forbidden by any divine law, let him be anathema.'
All this appears to be fairly straightforward anti-polygamy stuff, but our intrepid author tries to say that:-
a) they weren't really considering ordinary polygamy
b) They didn't think about missions and the pastoral question
c) They were only out to get the Reformers (some of whom said polygamy was not sinful) with specific reference to Europe where it was against the custom. (They thought they would win a greater market share of believers!)
d) 'anathema' and 'divine law' were used so much by the Council of Trent that they didn't really mean anything by them.
Sadly it is a particularly unconvincing sight. Polygamy is fully compatible with Christianity and fully incompatible with Roman Catholicism, which has proved to be one of its (and the Church's) most bitter and committed enemies. Work it out for yourselves.
This is a good book and an interesting read. There are plenty of intriguing facts in here, even though some of them are out of date. The history is particularly interesting - the biblical coverage is basic but just about sufficient for the book's purpose. The author is too concerned with polygamists not being 'baptised', but this is unsurprising as he sees it as necessary for salvation. The author is also too concerned with driving a square peg into a round hole, but his mental gymnastics are amazing to watch!
If your local library has the book then it's well worth a read as there is plenty to learn inside it.
