Torah and Jewish Idea > Torah and Jewish Idea
Multiple Wives
edu:
I saw an internet article
http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=228736
that there is a new Orthodox rabbinical group that feels that halacha does not forbid a Jew from having more than one wife, while the existing Rabbinical Establishment in Israel seems to very much oppose the idea.
Any opinion on the subject?
muman613:
--- Quote from: edu on July 12, 2011, 01:29:04 AM ---I saw an internet article
http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=228736
that there is a new Orthodox rabbinical group that feels that halacha does not forbid a Jew from having more than one wife, while the existing Rabbinical Establishment in Israel seems to very much oppose the idea.
Any opinion on the subject?
--- End quote ---
Well, I'll give my opinion based on my feelings and understanding.
I think that it is OK to have multiple wives under certain conditions. In todays world I think it will cause more problems than it is worth, and we will suffer because of increased divorce and broken homes. But a man is capable of loving more than one woman and taking care of her financially. Of course not every man is capable of this, but there are some Jews who are capable of sustaining multiple wives and children.
But the problem is that today women are also much more jealous of other women, and the fighting which will occur will far exceed the frictions which are written in the Torah between the patriarchs and their wives.
It is obvious the during that at the time of the patriarchs it was common for a man to have multiple wives. I believe that this is because in order to have a lot of offspring within a few generations requires having multiple children within a year. But one woman can only have a child so often, so having multiple wives is required.
Considering the threatened 'demographic bomb' it would be wise for Jews to have more children. But as I said before there will be a lot of emotional and psychological problems caused by this. I know the jealousy of women, and I believe that it is best to be faithful to one woman...
Yaakov Mendel:
--- Quote from: muman613 on July 12, 2011, 02:09:13 AM ---Well, I'll give my opinion based on my feelings and understanding.
I think that it is OK to have multiple wives under certain conditions.
--- End quote ---
And do you think it is OK for women to have multiple husbands ?
Because if you do, would you like your wife to sleep with other men ? And if you don't, how do you justify women's inferior status ?
--- Quote from: muman613 on July 12, 2011, 02:09:13 AM ---
It is obvious the during that at the time of the patriarchs it was common for a man to have multiple wives. I believe that this is because in order to have a lot of offspring within a few generations requires having multiple children within a year. But one woman can only have a child so often, so having multiple wives is required.
--- End quote ---
I don't understand. If one man fertilizes three different women in a given year, these three women will give birth to three children at the end of the year (assuming there are no twins !). But if each one of these three women was fertilized by a different man, there would not be fewer children born at the end of the year, there would still be three of them. Your argument works only if there is a shortage of men relative to the number of women. But if the number of men and women is approximately the same, as verified in reality, it doesn’t work.
Besides, what do you guys make of the prohibition of adultery ? How does it fit with the macho un-Jewish fantasy of multiple wives brought up in this thread ?
edu:
Yaakov Mendel commented
--- Quote ---Besides, what do you guys make of the prohibition of adultery ? How does it fit with the macho un-Jewish fantasy of multiple wives brought up in this thread ?
--- End quote ---
During the times of the Tanach it was permitted for a man to have more than one wife. So for example, the prophet Elkana, father of the prophet Samuel{Shmuel} had 2 wives.
The halachic definition of adultery is a married woman who has relations with a man that is not her husband.
This is not to say that everything that is not called adultery is permitted, but this is too wide of a topic to go into right now.
The following I copied from the ou website http://www.ou.org/about/judaism/rabbis/rgershom.htm
Rabbeinu Gershom was born in the year 960 in Metz, in northeastern France, but he moved to Maintz, in Germany. There he became a devoted student of Rav Yehudah Leontin. Rabbeinu Gershom would succeed Rabbi Leontin upon the latter’s death as the head of the great Yeshivah of Maintz, the flower of the Torah citadel of Maintz. That holy community was already being shown a most unholy and brutal side of Christendom, and it would be completely destroyed later, during the Crusades.
Around the year 1000, Rabbeinu Gershom instituted various “takkanot,” institutional reforms, in Jewish life. The most famous of these are the following:
1. A man is forbidden to marry more than one woman, a practice that is permitted by the Torah. (Incidentally, this “takkanah” was not accepted by Sephardic Jewry until the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, in a move towards the unification of the Jewish People.)
muman613:
--- Quote ---Besides, what do you guys make of the prohibition of adultery ? How does it fit with the macho un-Jewish fantasy of multiple wives brought up in this thread ?
--- End quote ---
Judaism most certainly had always allowed for men to marry multiple wives... As edu points out it was only because the ways of the nations that Jewish law was modified.
If not there would be no need for the commandment in Duet 21:15:
15. If a man has two wives-one beloved and the other despised-and they bear him sons, the beloved one and the despised one, and the firstborn son is from the despised one.
16. Then it will be, on the day he [the husband] bequeaths his property to his sons, that he will not be able to give the son of the beloved [wife] birthright precedence over the son of the despised [wife]-the [real] firstborn son.
17. Rather, he must acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the despised [wife] and give him a double share in all that he possesses, because he [this firstborn son] is the first of his strength, then he has the birthright entitlement.
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