AHC: Polygamy in Christianity

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

Find a good PoD that would allow polygamy in christianity (even if it is only allowed in one of the major denominations).

One of my ideas was that Henry VIII introduced polygamy in England after he broke with Rome and made himself pope of the Church of England.

[LSCatilina]

Originally Posted by Barbarossa Rotbart

Find a good PoD that would allow polygamy in christianity (even if it is only allowed in one of the major denominations).

One of my ideas was that Henry VIII introduced polygamy in England after he broke with Rome and made himself pope of the Church of England.

Polygamy existed in Christianity until the IX-X.
The nobles could take a first or main wife, then secondary wifes. It allowed to create ties with more families in a gift-based economy/familial nobility.
By exemple the mother of Charles Martel wasn't the main spouse of his father Peppin (it was Plectrude) but his secondary one.

During the carolingian era, the system evolved because of Church pressions. Don't forget that before the XII, marriage was not a sacrament, almost never blessed by a priest.
A noble could have a "wife of youth" that he have married before his new marriage. Technically he was forced to abandon this first wife when he married anew, but it wasn't the case for everybody.

I think you can end the polygamy in Europe for the Christian at the moment where Lothaire II was forced to abandon his first wife, who had gave him two child, to keep his mains pouse that was sterile and imposed by his uncles.

[yourworstnightmare]

It existed in Christianity but wasn't commonplace. This has to do with that Christianity spread to cultures where polygamy was uncommon already (existed, but wasn't mainstream). Also the nobility and the kings had a lot of official misstresses besides their wife, so it was polygamy in a way.

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

Then make it common in at least one denomination.

[yourworstnightmare]

Originally Posted by Barbarossa Rotbart

Then make it common in at least one denomination.

For this we would need to have a denomination that does not follow the traditional European inheritance system. It worked in a way that every family from peasants to kings tried to arrange marriages as advantegous as possible, and create strong family alliances. Those alliances could only work if the offspring of a marriage was guaranteed to inherit the property of the father, and perhaps some good stuff from the mother's family. Thus a man could only marry one woman, even though he could have several of them, but only one wife, so only children from that union will inherit.

[Makemakean]

"I confess that I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict the Scripture. If a man wishes to marry more than one wife he should be asked whether he is satisfied in his conscience that he may do so in accordance with the word of God. In such a case the civil authority has nothing to do in the matter."
- Martin Luther.

The more I study the man, the more oddly similar does he seem to Joseph Smith, Jr.

Anyhow, with Luther openly condoning the practice, it shouldn't be impossible to have the Puritans become 16th-17th century Mormons as far as marriage is concerned. All you need is a king or an emperor falling in love with some noblewoman he wishes to marry, while at the same time not divorce his current wife. Have Luther sanction the marriage and there we go. As Barbarossa Rotbart's suggestion of Henry VIII is surprisingly plausible, considering that theologian Philipp Melanchthon (who's up there with Luther and Calvin as the founders of Protestantism) actively advocated that the English king adopted polygamy rather than divorcing Catherine of Aragon.

Having polygamy sanctioned in the Roman Catholic Church, on the other hand, seems much harder (I'm actually currently trying to figure out a way for the Catholic Church in my Vinland-timeline to sanction the practice). The reason it is hard is because St. Augustine and many other of the big sainted theologians of the Roman Catholic Church quite clearly condemned the practice for centuries.

[tonsofun]

The hardest thing about this is that the bible forbids polygamy. It even forbids having more than one spouse in your life. It does not recognise divorce and as far as it is concerned you are married until your own death.
The only way to bring polygamy into christianity would require only having a select few write the bible. It might also help to hide the original scriptures and stopping the public from asking questions.

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

Originally Posted by tonsofun

The hardest thing about this is that the bible forbids polygamy. It even forbids having more than one spouse in your life. It does not recognise divorce and as far as it is concerned you are married until your own death.
The only way to bring polygamy into christianity would require only having a select few write the bible. It might also help to hide the original scriptures and stopping the public from asking questions.

Well, Martin Luther had a different opinion and he studied and translated the Bible not only from Latin but also from Greek and Hebrew. So he really knew what he said.

Originally Posted by Martin Luther

"I confess that I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict the Scripture. If a man wishes to marry more than one wife he should be asked whether he is satisfied in his conscience that he may do so in accordance with the word of God. In such a case the civil authority has nothing to do in the matter."

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One 'evil' thought: If polygamy and divorce is allowed and if one divorce does not annul the other marriages, what will happen if all wives in a polygamous marriage decide to divorce their husband? Lesbian polygamy.

[Makemakean]

Originally Posted by tonsofun

The hardest thing about this is that the bible forbids polygamy. It even forbids having more than one spouse in your life. It does not recognise divorce and as far as it is concerned you are married until your own death.

Now, now, it never explicitly forbids polygamy, that's only an inference from Paul's speaking about wives in singular, rather than plural (I mean, most Jewish men could only afford to feed one wife, and during Paul's time, a greater and greater fraction of Christians were Romans, who came from a culture which was strictly monogamous). While Paul is clear that a woman may only marry one man, he never explicitly forbids men from having multiple wives. As a matter of fact, the Bible actually teaches that polygamy is not counted as a sin in God's eyes, as David's only sin was his adultery with Bathsheba.

I would assume that if monogamy was an important tenet of Christianity, the Bible would on at least one occasion include a statement such as "Thou shalt have no more wives than one; One shall be the number of thy wives, and no more."

[Don_Giorgio]

If i am not mistaken the herecy of Nicolaism practiced some sort of polygamy...

[tonsofun]

I stand corrected.
But at the end of the day we all choose what we want to believe and we will interpret bible scriptures as we want to. To make polygamy more common among Christians you simply need the guys at the top to be more into it and more willing for others to do the same.

[LSCatilina]

Originally Posted by Don_Giorgio

If i am not mistaken the herecy of Nicolaism practiced some sort of polygamy...

Nicolaism can be everything, depending on which texts you're basing yourself.

Basically, it's a name chosen by orthodoxy to denounce heterodox or heretical practices : dualism, priests marriage or free union, everything.

I don't think that, except some lunatics during the Middle-Ages, someone have claimed to be nicolaist.

[MerryPrankster]

I remember reading some comment from 30 Years' War-era Germany in which, due to so many men being dead, there was de facto if not de jure polygamy.

Perhaps polygamy remains the case in Germany and other such war-ravaged areas, or the European cultural consensus changes to allow it in limited circumstances, for a limited time.

[RamscoopRaider]

About that quote from Saint Paul about forbidding Polygamy, I believe he's was speaking only about Bishops, maybe priests, but I do not have a copy of the bible with me so don't quote me on that

[MerryPrankster]

Originally Posted by RamscoopRaider

About that quote from Saint Paul about forbidding Polygamy, I believe hes was speaking only about Bishops, maybe priests, but I do not have a copy of the bible with me so don't quote me on that

He's talking about leadership in the church when he says "husband of but one wife."

Polygamy by the lay people is in theory permissible.

[mrmandias]

I think this is doable if you don't get hung up on it being Western Christianity. The monogamy of the Roman Empire and the monogamy of the West makes it very difficult for any branch of Christianity from these areas to go for polygamy.

What you probably need is a Christian branch to arise and thrive somewhere outside of the Roman orbit where polygamy is practiced, either early on or with a prolonged loss of contact with the rest of the Christian world.

The Taiping practiced polygamy of a sorts, in a Taiping victory scenario you could probably have the butterflies flap in such a way that they evolved into a recognizably Christian group (if still pretty heterodox) that had some practice of polygamy.

[Prince Charon]

If Henry VIII had gone with polygamy, I wonder how many wives he would have had.

Also, here's a thread that's relevant to this thread.

[Makemakean]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

If Henry VIII had gone with polygamy, I wonder how many wives he would have had.

I dunno about wives, but considering his desire to produce an heir, I think that at the end of his life he would have to worry about his sons unleashing a civil war upon the country over who was to become the successor than that at least one of them might live.

[Marc Pasquin]

Originally Posted by Makemakean

actively advocated that the English king adopted polygamy rather than divorcing Catherine of Aragon.

I might be wrong but I think what was being suggested was to have one as *official mistress* or some such thing while having the other as a wife.

[Owain]

Connecting with the other thread, Henry might well go for three wives at once- presumably Anne, Jane and someone else (possibly Mary, given she was also his mistress and it's quite common in some cultures to have one man wed several sisters).
This could also lead to both Edward's betrothals going through.
An intering question would be: Who does this make the heir?
I think the most likely solution is a "High/Great Queen" whose sons get first chance, but it has to go through the other wives's sons before their daughters are heirs.
Also, yourworstnightmare, in Wales at least it was traditionally all children that inherited, including recognised bastard and sometimes daughters or their husbands.