The Bible calls for one-man-one-woman marriage? Not even close.
Let’s start with Genesis.
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.” Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
In other words, God’s original plan was not one man with one woman as man’s “partner”. It was one man with an animal as his “partner”. If Adam had found that orangutan or that sheep to be real purty, women never would have been invented. God’s first plan was…bestiality, which makes it a bit hard to take his second plan quite so seriously, especially since one-man-one-woman wasn't really God's plan anyway -- Adam rejected God's animal plan and forced God to make a woman. Which led to God's "real plan" -- incest with a clone, namely Eve the Rib Woman.
In other words, God’s original plan was not one man with one woman as man’s “partner”. It was one man with an animal as his “partner”. If Adam had found that orangutan or that sheep to be real purty, women never would have been invented. God’s first plan was…bestiality, which makes it a bit hard to take his second plan quite so seriously, especially since one-man-one-woman wasn't really God's plan anyway -- Adam rejected God's animal plan and forced God to make a woman. Which led to God's "real plan" -- incest with a clone, namely Eve the Rib Woman.
All you Christians out there who really believe that God’s plan is for marriage to involve one man and one woman, I’ve got a test for you. Look at this group of twenty names – the great names of the Bible – and tell me which two names don’t belong with the other eighteen.
Adam, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Esau
Gideon, Saul, David, Solomon, Rehoboam
Ahab, Lamech, Caleb, Belshazzar, Ezra
Manasseh, Nahor, Simeon, Zedekiah, Jesus
The answer? Adam and Jesus. The other eighteen men all practiced polygamy. Adam had sex with Eve, but since they were made from the same flesh, technically that was not marriage, it was incest. Jesus never married at all.
The norm for men in the Bible was not one-man-one-woman marriage. It was polygamy, which was also practiced by Joash, Elkanah, Ashur, Abijah, Jehoiada, Ahasuerus, Benhadad, Eliphaz, Jehoiachin, Jehoram, Jerahmeel, Machir and Mered.
The one story that clearly supports the one-man-one-woman model seems to be Isaac. But his marriage to Rebekah was arranged by others, and for most of their married life, Rebekah was barren. Other than that…somebody crack open their Bibles and find a happy, prosperous one-man-one-woman family.
In the book of Ezra the Jews were forced up break up many of their one-man-one-woman marriages, and even give up their children, if their wives were foreign-born. Not only weren’t they marrying one to one, they were going quite a long way to break up existing one-on-one marriages. PS, if I wanted to be really mean, I'd mention that famous couple, Joseph-Where-The-Hell-Did-That-Baby-Come-From, and Mary-That's-My-Story-And-I'm-Sticking-To-It.
Jesus went even further: he actively rejected the concept of family, saying his real family consisted of those who carry out the word of God – in Luke he even said that no one could be his disciple unless they turned their backs on their families. He encouraged the disciples to abandon their families to go preach. Jesus didn’t even want to give one of his followers a chance to bury his father, before taking up the ministry: “Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.” Throughout the gospels the refrain continues: people who abandon their families go to heaven, so don’t even say goodbye before abandoning them. And that is exactly what the disciples did: a huge proportion of them abandoned their wives to go preach, so much so that eleven of the original twelve apostles were killed while preaching.
Apparently the epidemic of disciples leaving their wives to go preach, and then getting killed off in the process, was so widespread that their widows needed feeding, which led in turn to the ministry of Stephen, which led in turn to the ministry of Paul and the establishment of the churches across the empire. In other words, if Jesus had really been a one-man-one-woman-marriage kind of guy, the Christian Church probably wouldn’t have been built at all.
Apparently the sentiment about leaving your family behind was driven by the belief that Jesus was going to return and establish God’s kingdom on earth any day now, and that marriage would no longer be relevant since all of the faithful would be heading off to heaven, souls only. Later on, of course, when The Return didn’t happen as expected, the church leaders changed tack: they even said bishops and deacons could marry (which the Catholics later reversed).
Apparently the epidemic of disciples leaving their wives to go preach, and then getting killed off in the process, was so widespread that their widows needed feeding, which led in turn to the ministry of Stephen, which led in turn to the ministry of Paul and the establishment of the churches across the empire. In other words, if Jesus had really been a one-man-one-woman-marriage kind of guy, the Christian Church probably wouldn’t have been built at all.
Apparently the sentiment about leaving your family behind was driven by the belief that Jesus was going to return and establish God’s kingdom on earth any day now, and that marriage would no longer be relevant since all of the faithful would be heading off to heaven, souls only. Later on, of course, when The Return didn’t happen as expected, the church leaders changed tack: they even said bishops and deacons could marry (which the Catholics later reversed).
In Corinthians it is said that men shouldn't marry at all -- but that it's okay for them to marry after all, just so as to avoid the sexual temptation.
So, as we noted earlier, God's first plan was not one man one woman. It was bestiality. And then polygamy and desertion.
