Women and the Book of Genesis

I am often asked the question: why doesn’t the Bible condemn men marrying multiple wives?  The Book of Genesis in particular can seem problematic, especially in today’s culture that is sensitive to an overtly male-dominated perspective.  The Bible is often attacked for appearing to make women less important than men.

The reality is far from the truth.  It is true that the Bible clearly gives different roles to men and women.  In marriage, the man is given the role of leader and provider.  He answers to God for his marriage, and he is the head of his wife.  However, this does not mean that the wife is less important than the husband.  Just as the church is prized and immensely valued by Christ, so the wife should prized and valued by her husband.  In fact, 1 Peter 3:7 tells husbands to show honor to their wives, for they are fellow heirs of the grace of God.  If they neglect to show honor to their wives, their prayers will be hindered!  Think about that!  God will not listen to a husband who is not treating his wife in an honorable way.  There are also different roles for men and women in the church.  1 Timothy and Titus reserve the leadership in the church, the office of the elder, for men.  This does not mean that women lack something spiritually, for Galatians 3:28 claims that there is no male and female in Christ, for we are all one.  It is simply a designation of different roles for the genders.

When one reads through the New Testament, women are actually given an equal standing with men.  When Luke narrates the early converts to Christianity, he does not focus only on men.  He notes that the early church met in the house of Mary, the mother of John-Mark (Acts 12:12).  When Paul and his companions first reached Europe, in the city of Philippi, they sat and shared the gospel with a group of women first.  A woman named Lydia became the first convert, and Paul and his friends actually stayed at her house during their ministry in that city.  In Acts 18, Paul meets a couple named Aquila and Priscilla.  They become follow laborers with Paul, and Priscilla is always mentioned along with her husband.  These passages may not seem like very big deals, but for Luke to include these women’s stories in his history of the church means that he considered their stories as important to remember as the stories involving men.

In the Gospels, Jesus ministered to women as well.  Some wealthy women actually supported his ministry (Luke 8:1-3).  His encounters with the woman at the well, the sick woman who touched his garment in the crowd, the accused woman caught in adultery (he that is without sin cast the first stone), and the woman who anointed Jesus with expensive perfume all show that Jesus clearly loved and valued women.  At His crucifixion, the women outnumbered the men (John 19:25). They were the ones who shows courage when most of the apostles were running scared! And what is most remarkable, at a time in history when the witness of a woman would not hold weight in court, the Gospels point to Mary’s eyewitness testimony as the first evidence of Jesus’ resurrection (John 20:1)!

When it comes to the book of Genesis, it can seem like the men can multiply wives to themselves without any condemnation from God.  We have to remember two things when reading biblical history.  First of all, biblical narrative simply tells us what happened.  The authors rarely interject with a moral judgment; instead, they simply tell us what happened when certain people did certain things.  When David had an affair with Bathsheeba and conspired to have her husband murdered, the author helpfully tells us that the thing David did displeased the Lord.  But most of the time, the narrators do not add this little inside information.  We are left to look at the effects of the characters’ action to figure out if what they did was right or wrong.  The second thing to remember is that the authors of Scripture wrote in certain historical settings to an audience that lived in a specific historical setting.  While the message is eternal, the context is situated in an ancient time.  We must be careful not to take our current cultural ideas and push them on to ancient audiences.

That being said, Genesis clearly shows that having multiple wives was a negative act, and it always brought pain.  First of all, when God instituted marriage, He designed it to be between one man and one woman (Genesis 1:24).  Secondly, the first recorded instance of a man having two wives occurs in Genesis 4:19.  Lamech was a descendant of Cain, and he brags to his two wives that he committed murder worse than Cain.  In this passage, the fact that he has two wives is not condemned.  However, he is clearly shown to be an immoral man who does not fear the Lord.  At the very least, one can say that his having two wives was not a positive action.  The next instance of multiple wives occurs in the story of Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 16.  Sarah is unable to conceive, so she gives her servant Hagar to Abraham as a wife.  The effects of this second marriage show that Sarah was consumed with jealousy, and Abraham’s home life turned into a toxic situation.  Eventually, Hagar is put out along with her son Ishmael.  Abraham did not want to do this, but it was a consequence of his poor choices.  God shows grace to Hagar by providing for her and blessing her son, even when Abraham and Sarah abandoned them.  After this, multiple wives becomes more prevalent.  Esau had multiple wives, and grief followed (Genesis 26:34-35).  Jacob has multiple wives, and we saw last week that the home was full of jealousy and strife in Genesis 29-30.  This strife continues with Jacob’s children, because Jacob shows favoritism to Rachel’s children over Leah’s children (Genesis 37:2-4).

So while Genesis does not overtly condemn men having multiple wives, it does make it clear that this was not God’s design, and the effects of polygamy are always negative.  I hope this helps you read Genesis in a new light, and at the very least, I hope we all see that men and women are all created in the image of God, equal in our standing in Christ, and equally able to do mighty things for Jesus.

David Kleinhans