Does the Bible Speak of Monogamy?

The primary question when considering the Bible and marriage is whether the holy book endorses monogamy — that is, a marriage in which there are only two individuals (traditionally speaking, one man and one woman)? Most of our experts agreed that the book does, indeed, advocate for this type of relationship.

Pastor Phillip Dennis of New Hope Christian Church in Monsey, N.Y., noted that the Bible must be read with a certain frame of mind — one that takes into account its four main parts: creation, fall, redemption and re-creation. He argues that these elements help one to properly understand the entire Bible and, thus, the complex issues within it (like marriage).

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For Dennis, it all goes back to the creation story. Genesis, in a sense, is what he believes God wanted for mankind, however the story ended up changing as human beings exercised their free will.

“In the beginning, God created all things good. As part of the good order inherent in the created world, God made man and woman and gave them to each other in monogamous heterosexual marriage for the purpose of mutual love, companionship, partnership in the task of cultivating the world’s potential, and for propagating the race through childbirth,” Dennis explained. “The pattern of creation shows us the way things are meant to be, the way things would be if they were still very good, as they were at the end of the creation account in Genesis.”

Rabbi Aryeh Spero, author of “Push Back: Reclaiming Our American Judeo-Christian Spirit,” added to this notion of a natural connection between men and women, noting that “male and female united brings about completion of the human species, a wholeness derived from the disparate biological and emotional elements found only in male and female, combined to achieve full humanhood.”

This essentially means that, in his view, the united nature of man and woman creates a oneness that is uniquely God-ordained. He noted Biblical references as well of man and woman coming together as one. According to Spero, marriage is more than a mere partnership that exists for business purposes.

He continued: “It is a sacred union between man and woman. The Old/Original Testament, known as Torah, labels it kidushin, which means sanctified. The attachment of male and female is the ultimate and only sanctified human union. It is sanctified because God himself created and thereafter blessed it, as is seen in Genesis. It is an endowment from God and the culmination of His Creation.”

Author R.P. Nettelhorst, too, noted that the Bible is clear in 1 Corinthians 7:1-33 that a husband’s body belongs to a wife and vice versa. In this scripture, he noted that wife is always singular, which is an “apparent assumption of monogamy.”

Continuing with the Genesis theme, Rabbi Moshe Averick, an Orthodox rabbi who has taught theology for more than 30 years, noted that the first two chapters of B’reisheet (Genesis) make it clear that the first human being who was created “with a godly soul and who could be described as being in the ‘image of God’ contained both male and female in one being.” Averick said the brief loneliness that existed for man before woman was created hampered the spirit and soul, as he had no one to share his life with.

“With male and female separate they can now relate and give to someone outside themselves. As one of my teachers put it: The mode is one, the method is two,” he added. “Neither a man alone nor a woman alone reflect the full image of God. The true image of God is only found when a man and woman are united physically and spiritually in marriage.”

Averick continues, explaining the importance of the unity of woman and man: “When they achieve this total unity they reflect Godliness in a number of ways, the most obvious being that they create life itself. In an ultimate sense the joy, love, passion, and ecstasy of the male-female relationship is the experience of oneness and Godliness. The obsessive drive that God planted in human beings to seek out these relationships is an indication of how central marriage is to the whole purpose of our existence.”

These experts clearly agree that man and woman should be united in monogamous relationships with one another and that these values are predicated upon and inherent in the Bible.