AHC: Polygamy in Christianity

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.

I think you could probably revive polygamy if you made Henry VIII introduce it into the Church of England so that he can have more wives and therefore more chance of a son.
 

Zioneer

Banned
Sup. You called? :p

Anyway, I don't know a very good PoD for this; perhaps early Christanity, instead of hanging out around Rome, migrates to a less monogamous culture? Or Rome loses the early heavily Christian cities to a nation that allows polygamy?
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Christianity spreads mainly eastwards and southwards towards Persia and Arabia, and from Arabia to Africa. Thus Christianity is adopted by cultures where polygamy is more usual (among the kings and upper classes that is), and Christianity will be linked to polygamy.

(Still, in this case I think the church would not be involved in marriages, and they remain a pure common law thing. In Ethiopia for examples kings and emperors had usually several spouses, but only on wife they married in the church, the other were common law wives).
 
It is pretty common in parts of Africa.

People identify as Christians, attend church, and so on, but have more than one wife.
 
It is pretty common in parts of Africa.

People identify as Christians, attend church, and so on, but have more than one wife.

Indeed - didn't the President of South Africa have a go at British criticism of polygamy for "assuming British culture is superior"?
 
I think you could probably revive polygamy if you made Henry VIII introduce it into the Church of England so that he can have more wives and therefore more chance of a son.

I doubt it would last. The Anglican church would be embarrassed about the whole thing and it would eventually go away. It would be a *huge* polemic point against Anglicanism and a mostly successful one. Western cultures are strongly monogamous.
 
While Paul is clear that a woman may only marry one man, he never explicitly forbids men from having multiple wives.
Remember polygamy means more than one partner in the Marrage, without regard for the gender of the partners.
 
Martain Luther may not have forbade polygamy but that's not the same as supporting it.

Paul forbade leaders to have more than one wife. Were'nt they supposed to lead by example?

Although technically possible in Christianity, polygamy will never be widely accepted by the church.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
The key is to keep marriages a common law thing, not a religous sacrament I think. However due to tradition it would still be unusual in Europe, probably like in pre-Christian times, it did occur, but wasn't the norm.
 
The key is to keep marriages a common law thing, not a religous sacrament I think. However due to tradition it would still be unusual in Europe, probably like in pre-Christian times, it did occur, but wasn't the norm.
I don't usually make self-quoting but.

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.

Manage to keep this system, and it could be expanded from nobility to free-men in the late middle-ages.
 
Top