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A: Polygamy was permitted in the Bible. However, already in Biblical
times, it was viewed with some suspicion and subjected to both
ethical and legal restrictions. In particular, the Torah stipulated
(Exodus 21:10) that when a man took a second wife, he could not
reduce the first wife's rightful portion of food, clothing, or
conjugal relations. The early rabbinic period, also, treated polygamy
as allowed, but discouraged. I can't recall any Talmudic rabbi
that had more than one wife (at a time).
The Talmud did prohibit polygamy in locations where monogamy was
the local custom. It was reasoned that monogamy was an implied
condition of the wife's consent to marry in such a location.
The first general ban on polygamy is called the Kherem deRabbenu
Gershom (= "Our Rabbi Gershom's ban"). It presumably was instituted
by a court headed by Rabbenu Gershom ben Judah (960-1030 C.E.),
although there have been scholars who disputed this. The ban prohibited
a man from marrying more than one wife. (And from divorcing a
wife without her consent.) There has been some historic disagreement
over the original extent of this ban. In terms of geographic extent,
it was enacted for those communities under Rabbenu Gershom's jurisdiction,
but it is unclear what those communities were. In terms of temporal
extent, some reported it to have only been enacted until the year
1240, some for a thousand years from the time of its enactment,
and some for all time. In practice, all Ashkenazi communities
have accepted the Kherem deRabbenu Gershom as continually binding
since not long after its initial declaration.
The Sepharadi and other non-Ashkenazi communities did not, however,
consider themselves subject to Rabbenu Gershom's ban. In many
of these communities, it was customary to insert a clause into
the ketubah stipulating that the husband may not marry another woman without
divorcing his first wife. Nonetheless, without such a stipulation,
polygamy was considered legal in these communities.
The entire Jewish world came under the authority of the Kherem
deRabbenu Gershom in 1950, when a rabbinical council convened
by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel declared the ban to be binding
on all Jews. (One could quibble that the Chief Rabbinate's declaration
affected only Orthodox Jews, but all non-Orthodox Jews had already
accepted the principle of monogamy.)
According to the Kherem, there are certain cases in which dispensation
may be given to a man to take a second wife. The most important
of these which is still relevant in Jewish law is the case of
a wife who becomes severely mentally ill and therefore not legally
competent to consent to a divorce. In this case, a rabbinic court
of 100 rabbis from three countries may be convened to allow the
man to take a second wife. He remains legally married to the first
wife, since he cannot divorce her, and therefore must continue
to financially support her. However, he is not necessarily prohibited
from having a functional marriage to another woman.
written by Rabbi Jeremy Schwartz |
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