The Bible and Polygamy. Newman John Philip

bachelor in the world; but a man without a wife is only half a man. Now and then we find a woman in the world who is styled an "old maid;" but a woman without a husband is only half a humanity. Adam, in the beginning, was a perfect humanity, possessing the strength, dignity and courage of man, with the grace, gentleness and beauty of woman. After Eve's creation he retained the strength, dignity and courage; but lost, with Eve, the grace, beauty and gentleness; so that it now takes the union of one man, with the sterner qualities, with one woman, with the gentler graces, to produce one perfect humanity, and that is the type of marriage, as instituted by Almighty God, and as is approved by His divine law.

      And, now, I desire to run the parallel between the two systems, showing how the one is destructive of the other. Take, for instance, the element, namely, the design, and see how polygamy strikes at the institution of marriage in that regard. I now refer to companionship, the union of two loving hearts to the exclusion of a third. A man may love three or more friends; he may love three or more children; he may love three or more brothers or sisters; but God has so ordained the law of affinities between the man and the woman that companionship can only be secured to the exclusion of a third person. Ah! what a pleasure it is for a man when away from home to know, "I shall soon return to the bosom of my wife, and my little children will climb upon my knee and lisp the child's welcome at my return." And he hastens from afar to the embraces of that wife. And then what an almost infinity of joy it is on the part of the woman, whose husband is far away, to know that he is coming. Says she, "I will stand in the door-way and will watch his returning footsteps. He is coming to me, to my embrace, to my home prepared for him!" And with what pride and care the busy housewife arranges for his return! How neat and beautiful everything is! The bouquet of flowers is on the table, the best viands are spread on the board, and everything in the house is prepared with the utmost care! But oh! what a gloom comes down upon the poor woman's soul when she knows that he returns not to her, but returns to one, two, three, four, twelve, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty.

      Then see how the system works against the next design – namely, procreation. It is a fact that in polygamous countries one sex or the other has preponderance in numbers. Some good authorities say the females preponderate, others say the males. I do not know, I do not care a rush which preponderates: all that I say is this, that good, reliable authorities say that in polygamic – mark you, polygamic countries, there is a preponderance of one or the other; while in monogamic nations the great law of equality is brought out. According to some authorities the tendency of polygamy is to make all males; according to other authorities to make all females; and if either follow, then comes the destruction of the race, and within a hundred years the earth is depopulated and is a howling wilderness.

      Take the influence of polygamy upon what may be properly called the rights of marriage, and these rights are two-fold: – authority on the part of the man, and protection on the part of the woman. The man is the head of the family; the man is the high priest of the family; the man is the legislator and executive of the family. He is to have reverence from his wife; she is to obey him; and I never performed the marriage ceremony without including that word when I address the woman, "Wilt thou obey the man?" That is God's authority, and every true and loving wife will obey her husband in the Lord as readily as she obeys the Lord Jesus Christ. But while man is the legislator and executive; while he is endowed with authority as his right, so, on the other hand, protection belongs to and is the natural and inalienable right of the woman. See that ivy as it entwines around the oak! That grand old oak has sent down its roots and takes hold of the very foundations of the earth, and its branches tower up towards the sky. See that ivy how it entwines itself gently, sweetly and beautifully around the oak?

      "A thing of beauty is a Joy forever."

      So woman entwines herself, the tendrils of her affection go out and they entwine themselves around the man; and what must be the depth of the depravity to which that man has fallen who ruthlessly tears asunder these gentle tendrils of affection! What the ivy is to the oak, the woman is to the man; and it is for man, in his pride and glory, in his strength and energy, with his strong arm to protect her; and it is woman's right to go to man for protection. But how is it possible under the system of polygamy for these great rights to be preserved? It is true that the man retains his right and authority; this system augments and multiplies that authority. This system is one of usurpation, extending a right over the larger number that is not included in God's law. But, on the other hand, where is the right of woman to protection? A whole soul for a whole soul! A whole body for a whole body, and a whole life for a whole life! Just like the shells of the bivalve; they correspond with each other! Just like the two wings of a bird, male and female. So precisely this great idea of reciprocity, mutual affection and reciprocal love is developed in this idea of monogamous marriage. But polygamy, it seems to me, strikes down this right of woman; in other words, it divides the protecting power of man in proportion to the number of wives he possesses; and it seems to me that in view of the distribution of worldly goods in this life a man can support and protect but one family. Kings, who can tax a whole people; kings, who can build palaces and rear pyramids; kings, who can marshal their armies on the banks of the Rhine and go to war, may have their harems – their plurality of wives; but the poor man, doomed to toil, with the sweat of labor on his brow, how is it possible for him to provide for more than one family? Yet if the king in his glory has the right to have a plurality of wives, so also has the poor man, who is doomed to toil, the same right; and God Almighty, in making this law for a plurality of wives, if He has made it, which I, of course, question, yet, if He has made it, then He has not made provision for the execution of that law; or, in other words, He has not made provision for its immunities to be enjoyed by the common people. It is a law exclusively for nabobs, kings and high priests; for men in power, for men possessing wealth, and not for me, a poor man, or for you, [pointing to audience] a poor laborer. God Almighty is just, and a king is no more before him than a peasant. The meanest of His creatures, as well as the highest, are all alike unto Him. I ask you, therefore, to-day, Would He enact a law sanctioning – commanding a plurality of wives, without making a provision that every man should be in such financial circumstances as to have a plurality of wives and enjoy them? See, therefore, how these two systems of marriage are antagonistic one against the other! And, after hearing this exposition of the nature and the elements and the rights and the muniments of marriage, it is for you to infer which is the system which God ordained in the beginning.

      My distinguished friend has hastily reviewed many passages of Scripture, all of which, my friends, I shall notice. I will sift them to the bottom. My only regret is that my distinguished friend, for whose scholarship I have regard, did not deliberately take up one passage and exhaust that passage, instead of giving us here a passage and there a passage, simply skimming them over without going to the depths, and showing their philological relation and their entire practical bearing upon us. When my friend shall give us such an exegesis and analysis, whether he quotes Hebrew, Greek or Latin, I will promise him that I will follow him through all the mazes of his exposition and I will go down to the very bottom of his argument.

      I feel bound, to-day, my friends, in my opening speech to give this analysis of the question and to present to you my ideas of marriage in contradistinction to the idea of marriage held here as polygamous.

      Now I presume that I will pass to the consideration of a few of the salient points which my distinguished friend threw out.

      Let us see in relation to the text he quoted, "If brethren dwell together," though he wanders back, and it was difficult for me to see what relation the antediluvians, and what relation old Adam had to this passage; but he referred to the antediluvians and to Adam, and he also referred to Lamech. Who was Lamech? He is the first polygamist on record, the first mentioned in the first two hundred years of the history of the world. He had two wives; and what else did he have? He had murder in his heart and blood on his hand, and I aver that whoever analyzes the case of Lamech, will find that the murder which he committed grew out of his plurality of wives; in other words, it grew out of the polygamy which he attempted to introduce into the world. Said he to his wives, "I have slain a man;" and the inference is that this man had come to claim his rights.

      My friend says that Cain was a murderer, and went down to the land of Nod; he don't exactly know the geography, but it was somewhere. And there he found a woman and married her. Now I affirm this, that when Cain killed his brother Abel he was not married, and he didn't