Sereno Edwards Dwight

“ Were the reasoning, thus applied to the Hebrew history, to be adopted in any other case, it would lead to singular results. The nations of Europe, during the last twelve hundred years and upwards, have professed to be Christians, and to respect the Laws of God. Yet, were a prophet of God to write the history of any one of them during that period, not excepting that of Rome itself, of its popes, cardinals, and bishops, he would detail —not thirteen, but—thirteen hundred instances of open, acknowledged, long-continued, multifarious, and yet unpunished adultery. ”

“ Of course, in the personal purity of married women, each member feels a lively interest, because he is resolved at all hazards, to guard the purity of his own wife. Intercourse with a married woman must therefore be punished with a heavy hand. But how many are there, in those august bodies, who feel, each as lively an interest in His own purity, as in that of his wife ? ”

“ Moses does not intimate that Lamech had been guilty of murder, nor that his wives had any apprehension on account of it. Nor, if Lamech had been guilty of murder, would he have had any right to suppose that God would inflict on the man, who should kill him, eleven times as exemplary vengeance, as on the slayer of Cain. The only act charged on Lamech by the historian, is his Polygamy ”

“ Moses, therefore, does not here legislate upon the case of a man, who has two wives at the same lime, but upon the case of a man who has had two wives in succession, the second after the decease of the first. And there was an obvious necessity of his legislating upon this precise case ; for the first wife, who was hated, was dead, and the second wife, the favourite, was alive, and, with the feelings of a stepmother, would urge her husband to make her own son the heir, This passage, then, furnishes no evidence that Polygamy was lawful, under the Levitical code. ”

“ And if a man sell his daughter to be a maid servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do. 8. If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed. To sell her to a strange nation, he shall have no power; seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her. 9. And if he hath betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. 10. If he take him another wife, her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage shall he not diminish. ”

“ Abraham's marriage with Keturah did not occur until seven years after the death of Sarah. If this extemporaneous connection of Abraham with Hagar proves the lawfulness of any thing, it proves merely that a husband who was childless might lawfully, with the consent of his wife, connect himself temporarily with his female slave ; but obviously, this is not Polygamy. ”

“ It consists in the fact, that the man, at the time of that intercourse, is lawfully married to a wife. He, then, who being lawfully married to a wife, has intercourse with another woman, is, according to Christ, guilty of adultery. This conclusion is so direct, that a plain man might naturally wonder, why our laws should be as they are. The true reason is this: Our legislatures are composed exclusively of Men, and chiefly of married men, or of men who intend to marry. ”

“ As the girl was not married, and the master, because he disliked her, would not even betroth her, the duty of marriage was impossible. Any sexual duty, rendered in those circumstances, must have been the duty of illicit intercourse. ”

“ We know of Ibzan and of Abdon, only that they were Judges possessed of absolute power, and that they practised polygamy. We know also of the children of Uzzi merely that they practised polygamy, just as we know of the children of Dan merely that they practised idolatry. The character of David did not justify his conduct with Ahimelech or Achish, with Bathsheba or Uriah. Elkanah was a good man, yet not a better man than Abraham. Yet the character of Abraham does not prove his falsehoods to Abimelech and Pharaoh to be in accordance with the Law of God ”

“ The husband and wife here mentioned are any husband and wife, who should thus disobey. The language is accommodated to the actual laws and state of society in Israel, not only as they were in the age of Moses, but as they were to be in every succeeding age. It describes marriage, as it actually finds it, and finds it universally prevalent—-as the union of one husband with one wife—as a union, in which the husband has the wife of his bosom ; and the wife, the husband of her bosom. In a country, where a man may marry but one wife, this language has meaning ”

“ That Abraham—himself originally an idolater, and living in the midst of idolaters, who not only practised polygamy, but every other species of impurity—in despair also of any issue from Sarah, should have had views of marriage so far loose and incorrect, as to yield to such a proposal from his wife, is not surprising ”

“ None of the Patriarchs lived in a regular state of society, governed by established laws ; but each was the head of his clan—a petty chieftain, acknowledging no superior. The surrounding chieftains, also, as well as the tribes whom they governed, all practised Polygamy. With these things in view, let us see what the Practice of the Patriarchs actually was, on this subject, both before and after the Deluge.
1. Adam was placed in a situation, in which Polygamy was neither lawful, nor possible. ”

“ The Jews inquired of him,— Whether it was lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause ?—In his reply, he admits that Moses, for the hardness of their hearts, allowed divorces in certain cases; but asserts that in the beginning it was not so. He then declares,
that, except in the single case of incontinence, it is not lawful for a man to put away his wife, and marry another; and assigns four reasons for it. (1.) The fact, that God originally created but one man and one woman, and joined them in marriage ”

“ In a town, where each householder had as many wives as he could maintain, it would be no very striking proof of universal profligacy, that all the wives but one, in each family were not only unpolluted, but un-neighedafter. ”

“ And the Lord said, 'My spirit shall not always strive with man.' There were giants in the earth, in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children unto them, the same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown. ”

“ When the sacred historians inform us that Noah was guilty of intemperance ; that Abraham uttered a known direct falsehood to Abimelech, and another to Pharaoh, both, at the imminent hazard of his wife's purity ; that Isaac, under similar circumstances, did the same to Pharaoh ; that Lot offered his two daughters to the men who surrounded his house; that he was twice guilty of drunkenness ; that his two daughters successively made him drunk, and were then guilty of incest with their father ”

“ Happy is the man, that hath his quiver full of them." This idea is fully recognized, in the passage quoted above, in which the Psalmist is describing the happiness of the man, who feareth the Lord. But, if writing for a country, in which Polygamy was customary, instead of saying, " Thy wife shall be a fruitful vine," he would have said, " Thy icives shall be as fruitful vines." It would present no very flattering prospect to a good man, who had twenty wives, to tell him, that, as the reward of his fearing the Lord, one of them should be fruitful. ”

“ Though the people at large had been forbidden to practise polygamy, still, from the example of surrounding kings, from the power and wealth of the monarch, and the passions of the human breast, there was the strongest reason to fear that, notwithstanding the general law, he would " multiply wives unto himself," and thus corrupt himself and the nation. In this point of view, the command appears most merciful; and the histories of Saul, David, Solomon, Rehoboam, Abijah and Ahab, prove, that it was most necessary ”

“ Men and women about to contract marriage were the only beings, and the very beings on whom it was binding. By the terms of it, Adam and Eve were personally exempted from its operation ; since they were already married, and Adam had no father or mother, whom he could leave. ”

“ The only wives which Saul is said to have had, were Ahinoam, the mother of Michal David's wife, and Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, who was his concubine. According to this supposition, God authorized Pavid to marry his wife's mother, a species of incest expressly threatened by the Levitical Law with burning alive. David also married Michal, the daughter of Ahinoam, when he was quite young. ”

“ The same is equally true, if the conneclion with the stranger were to be preceded by the forms of marriage. Any connection with another woman is leaving his wife, and ceasing to cleave to her, in the very point which the law respects. ”

“ Now concerning the things ye wrote unto me,—It is good for a man not to touch a woman : Nevertheless, to avoid incontinence, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband ;" I remark, 1. That every man has his own wife, and every woman her own husband, as truly in polygamy as in marriage ”

“ Jacob, while in the family of Laban, lived among idolaters, who practised polygamy. Laban and his children were idolaters, yet polygamy was no part of Jacob's plan of life. Leah was put upon him by a fraud, to Avhich he must submit, or hazard the loss of Rachel. He likewise told his father several direct falsehoods, and with extreme cruelty defrauded Esau of his birthright.
13. Lot, the twelve sons of Jacob, Amram, Moses, Aaron, Eleazar, Joshua, Caleb, and many others, who lived during the period in question, had each but one wife. ”

“ No derivation of the word, as well as no use of the word, or of any cognate word in any other case, will associate with it the idea of lawful intercourse by marriage : it having no refererence to any commerce of the sexes, but what is unlawful.
3. The weight of authorities is wholly against the rendering.
4. The other rendering, viz. habitation, lodging, is the natural rendering of a noun derived from the verb iWi to dwell, and the actual rendering of another noun derived from the same verb ; has the weight of authorities in its favour ”

“ Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind, and the pleasant roe ; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times, and be thou always ravished with her love." Solomon tells us, that these are part of the instructions, which David his father gave him, when he was young-, to regulate his conduct [1] I admit, that David had numerous wives and concubines ”

“ They also lived, when " every man did that which was right in his own eyes." Their polygamy is assigned as the reason, why they were numerous, compared with the other families of the tribe. It was of course singular, and did not prevail generally, either in Issachar, or in Israel.
Saul, the first king of Israel, had a wife and a concubine. He was judicially cut off for his wickedness.
David, the second king of Israel, had eight wives and numerous concubines. In this conduct he transgressed an express law, which forbad the king of Israel, to multiply wives unto himself. ”

“ Our legislatures contain so many members, who are determined at all hazards not to be restrained in their libertinism ; so many others, to whom wholesome laws, relating to licentiousness, might prove occasionally inconvenient ; and so many others who are habitually civil to vice, when it does not " pick the pocket, nor break the leg;" that we can expect no laws on this subject which are not of a Mohammedan character. ”

“ Neither shall thou take a wife to her sister in her lifetime, to vex her"— according to the construction of it, for which I propose to contend, in the ensuing Essay—Neither shall thou take one wife to another, in her life-time, to vex her— does, indeed, expressly forbid a man to have two wives ”

“ The Hebrew word *7, rendered for him, means alike either/or him, or for himself. The Rabbins render the passage, " And Jehoiada took unto himself (i. e. married) two wives, and begat sons and daughters;" and they insist that he married them in succession. This, if the passage refers to Jehoiada, is probable; for the language implies nothing more, than that he had two wives, without specifying when; and there is no instance on record of polygamy in a priest. If we suppose that Jehoiada took two wives for Joash, and both at the same time ”

“ It is likewise recognized in the Hebrew-Samaritan, Syriac, and Persian versions, and in that of Arias Montanus. The Arabic version also sanctions it; rendering the passage, " If it displease her master to take her to wife, let him see that she is redeemed ;" as does the Vulgate also—" If she displease the eyes of her master, to whom she had been entrusted, he shall send her back." ”

“ The verbS3>p?, in the seventh verse, rendered sell, according to Gesenius, usually denotes to receive a marriage portion for. The master by paying it to the father, had a right to the services of the daughter as a maid-servant, and if he were a single man, to marry her: the right of choice on the part of females not being known in the East. If the master was married, or chose not to marry her himself, he had a right, if she was of the proper age, to betroth her to his son, without paying an additional portion. ”