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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (132722)	5/12/2004 4:09:20 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The patriarchs were not monogamous, but I believe that monogamy is enjoined under the Mosaic Law. If I am mistaken, I apologize in advance. I will check, if possible.......

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (132722)	5/12/2004 4:15:53 PM
From: el_gaviero	Respond to of 281500

Thanks, Nadine, for the support. I think you are quite right on this point.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (132722)	5/12/2004 4:18:07 PM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 281500

You are quite right. This is what I found about ancient times: Monogamy the Jewish Ideal. In Judaism the Law tolerated though it did not enact polygamy; but custom stood higher than the Law. From the period of the return from the Babylonian Exile, monogamy became the ideal and the custom of Jewish married life. That monogamy was the ideal may be seen from several facts. Not only does the narrative of Genesis, containing the story of the first man and woman, point to monogamy, but Gen. ii. 24 is best explained in the same sense. So, too, in the story of the Flood, in which the restoration of the human race is depicted, the monogamous principle is assumed. Also the polygamous marriages of some of the patriarchs are felt by the narrator (J) to need excuse and apology, as being infringements of a current monogamous ideal Even more unmistakable is the monogamous ideal displayed in the Wisdom literature. The "Golden A B C of the Perfect Wife" in Prov. xxxi. 10-31 is certainly monogamous; in fact, throughout the Book of Proverbs "monogamy is assumed" (Toy, "Proverbs," p. xii.; comp. Cheyne, "Job and Solomon," p. 136). Ben Sira, moreover, as well as Tobit, confirms this conclusion (comp. History of Susanna 23, 69), though, while Ben Sira's view of woman is lower on the whole than that of the canonical Proverbs, Tobit's is quite as high as the highest ideal. Job is monogamous. So is the Song of Solomon. Harper gives a most convincing argument in this sense in his edition of the Song of Solomon (Cambridge, 1902; comp. especially pp. xxxi. and xxxiv.). From another side the monogamous ideal is illustrated by the prophetic use of marriage as typical of the relation between God and Israel. In this sense monogamy becomes the corollary of the divine Unity (comp. Hamburger, "R. B. T." i., s.v. "Vielweiberei"). It is a commonplace of prophetic imageryto describe God as the husband and Israel as the bride (comp. Hosea, passim; the exquisite passage Jer. ii. 2; also ib. iii. 14, xxxi. 32), in contrast to idolatry, which is typical of impure married life (Isa. liv. 5, and many other passages). Infidelity toward God is expressed under the figure of whoredom (see Driver on Deut. xxxi. 16). The same figure of the relation of God to Israel passed over to the later Judaism; and a similar figure is prominent in Christianity also. jewishencyclopedia.com It goes on to say that monogamy increasingly became the rule, but that it was not made mandatory in an authoritative legal compilation until the 11th century in Europe.