I didn’t say the wives weren’t giving consent, i said the husbands weren’t asking for their consent. Big difference.
-
Biblical Families is not a dating website. It is a forum to discuss issues relating to marriage and the Bible, and to offer guidance and support, not to find a wife. Click here for more information.
Husband constantly talks about getting a second wife it drives me crazy!
- Thread starter Needinghelp
- Start date
I think that you are splitting hairs in trying to avoid the idea that a husband needs consent.
Imo the opposite of receiving consent is to act arbitrarily. There is no arbitraryness involved in receiving a wife that is freely offered.
I am agreeing with you that Abraham and Jacob’s wives offered their consent or at least that their consent was implied or at least that they were in agreement with him to have more. What I was trying to say is that there is no commandment that a man must have his wife’s permission to take another. A wife is required to submit to her husband. Now just because it isn’t commanded, don’t think that I am saying that it is unwise to help your wife to be onboard with it prior to taking another!
I don't think there is much doubt that most of us here would argue vociferously against the idea of a man needing his wife's consent for anything. Christ doesn't require the church's consent and no one would suggest He did. I've seen us have this debate a lot and I've never seen it arrive at any other conclusion.
A woman has no authority over her husband at all on any matter. She can either be his wife or not but if she chooses to be his wife then his word is law in her life and you could almost capitalize law.
A woman has no authority over her husband at all on any matter. She can either be his wife or not but if she chooses to be his wife then his word is law in her life and you could almost capitalize law.
You should notice two things about this.
- These examples predate the law of Moses
- The law of Moses never speaks of such practice.
Correct. The issue is not consent. Obviously consent is handy and makes everything nice and easy.
What the issue is is mandatory consent. There is no indication that Abraham asked for consent or limited himself to only those whom he got consent for. The fact that his wives were willing is a circumstance, not a binding pattern as far as I can tell from scripture.
When I asked for examples, I meant more along the line of the man going to his wife and saying, 'Honey, what about Elizabeth there? What do you think about adding her to the family? You decide." I do not see any examples of men doing this even voluntarily, much less as an obligation.
Last edited:
What we do have are opposite examples. Women so FOR their husband that the suggest he take another women in order to get kids AND suggesting a woman to him.
I agree with this as well. I do see it being a challenge at times when I mention the idea of taking another, the moods shift from support to anger and back again. I know I don't need my ladies acceptance or approval but I do want peace in my home so I find a lot of leadership and discussion is important. Usually I break down the problem after another long talk to insecurity of "I'm not enough" or "you will have less time for me". Bringing in another lady to a unhappy home isn't a good idea either. At the end of the day their willingness to submit to the husband and follow the word is vital for peace.
What gets me is this comment: "you don't care about how I feel because you do what you want anyway". I care very much how they feel, but that doesn't mean I do what they want.
Dang... your wife and mine read from the same script! lol.
Guessing the objections/responses are pretty much the same across the board.
I agree. Love does not mean caving in or providing maximum comfort. Sometimes love means asking someone to do soemething hard.
A parent who lets his child play computer games all day and never do school work might make that child comfortable, but there is no love there.
God loves his son, but he still had him to go to the cross even though Jesus did not want to do it.
I do think there is a balance. It does not have to be hard things all of the time. It is just sometimes it is necessary.
I think you have to carefully look at the situation and your motivation. Is it really necessary? Is it for your own comfort? Will they be a better person for having gone through the hard experience? Are they ready for the challenge? Do you do hard things yourself to set the example? Does it fit in with your family's mission?
There are a lot of factors that affect success.
Yes, and ultimately it's not up to us, ....we can lead by example all day long but our wife has to make the choice to submit and follow. This isn't something any man can force, no matter who it is. Love always tends to be the helping factor though, when we see and know we are loved it makes it easier to follow and submit, yet it's still a choice they make, just as with Jesus. He said to Pilot no one takes my life, but I give it freely. Jesus submitted to God, he didn't want it but he made that choice out of love and obedience. This is a good reminder for us all, husband and wife.
Also to be noted if the word "unfairness" is ever used about this situation today... that the majority of women in the whole of history have not had any choice in the matter of whether they would be a wife or who the husband would be, but their father made the decision. So not only would the full subjection and obedience of a wife be demanded of them, but they wouldn't have a choice about entering into the contract in the first place.
Aristotle - "A proper wife should be as obedient as a slave." It was expected, Bible or no Bible.
And there is abundant evidence today showing why the ancients felt the father a better judge of who his daughter aught to marry.
I have to correct you on this, our wife does have one area of authority over husband. Sexually, ....we have to submit our selves to eachother. She has authority if she wants you sexually!
I would probably quibble with the phraseology but I will concede the broader point...I have to correct you on this, our wife does have one area of authority over husband. Sexually, ....we have to submit our selves to eachother. She has authority if she wants you sexually!
Boom! Well said.
Good afternoon, @Needinghelp. I skipped over most of your post in quoting it, and my only justification in doing so is my sense, after reading everyone's responses, that everything else has been thoroughly addressed by others. So please know that I'm not failing to recognize, based on your presentation of things, that your husband could use some counseling about how to straighten out his own thoughts on plural marriage.
However, I do have one piece of advice for you that may help you see things in a different light. The theme in the sentences I picked out of your original post is that you perceive your husband as being obsessed with having a plural marriage, and you have a negative interpretation of this obsession. Setting aside what would be a much longer conversation about where the causes of feeling hurt lie (as in, it's human nature to blame our emotions on others, but most often we generate them all on our own), have you considered the possibility that one of the parts you are playing in this situation is that you are defining your husband's desire for another wife to be a victimization of you? -- when, instead, you might much more accurately label his 'obsession' as simply part of his male human nature?
I invite you to start looking at this differently by first contemplating the following: there was a time in the past when your husband was just as obsessed with finding you, a state of obsession that began even before he knew you or knew you existed. When he was in that state of obsession, his very best friends, his closest family members and perhaps even some of his trusted coworkers couldn't help hearing about this obsession of his to find a mate. It's likely they even sometimes got annoyed with him for how often he talked about it, just as likely as it is that, over time, this mate-obsession matured in its focus. This kind of talking is especially common among groups of single guys, and even more especially common among best male friends. (I can't even imagine not talking at length about such things with any of the close male friends I've had over the years.) At some point in time, your husband met you, and after that he probably even risked losing (or did lose) some friends because they sensed they were on the verge of losing him to you, given how increasingly obsessed with you he was becoming.
Ask yourself: would you have wanted him to not be as obsessed with you? Would you have preferred that he had informed his friends that he someday wanted to get married and then kept his obsession to himself? Would you have preferred that he didn't use his friends as sounding boards to see if his burgeoning obsession with you made any sense at all? If you believe you would have preferred this, then I suggest you contemplate the very real possibility that what he would have done after that wouldn't have likely involved ending up being married to you, much less fathering the child you now want him to pay more attention to.
What has occurred since his obsession led to your marriage is that you have become, in addition to being his wife and helpmeet, one of his best friends -- if not his best friend. As is natural, he wants to share his new 'obsession' with the closest of his best friends, which is you. Might I suggest that you consider the honor it is for you to be this closest of best friends? And might I suggest that you shift your focus from (a) declaring that you're being victimized by your husband's wandering eye and incessant mental pursuit of his next wife to (b) giving very serious consideration to putting your own personal power to its most effective use by taking full ownership of your status as such a close friend to recognize that the fact that your husband runs all his perceptions of women by you is a privilege within your relationship -- and a privilege that deserves support and encouragement, as well as partner-oriented feedback, from someone who would like to consider herself her husband's very best friend.
Last edited:
Yes, the objections are relatively consistent, and they all flow from centuries of women having maintained a place in the world in which their demands are met and men cave in as if they should just consider themselves lucky to have the privilege of fulfilling their wives' fairy-tale romance fantasies.