Thesis XIV

Polygamy, compared with natural law, is not contrary to its first precepts, by which the things that are essential are commanded; but it is contrary to those by which the things that are congruent are urged.

This is the doctrine of St. Thomas, Suppl. q. 65, a. 1: "Everything which renders an action unsuitable to the end which nature intends from some work is said to be contrary to the law of nature. But an action can be unsuitable to the end either principally or secondarily." Therefore there can be a twofold end which nature intends from some work, and therefore also from marriage: a primary and a secondary. The primary end is that which nature chiefly intends in the work, namely that to which the work has been adapted by nature before its other works; the secondary end is a good for the attaining of which the work is indeed ordered by nature, yet lacking the prerogative of the former. The holy Doctor proceeds: "If the action is unsuitable to the end, as if altogether prohibiting the principal end, it is directly prohibited by the law of nature through the first precepts of the law of nature, which in practical matters are like the common conceptions of the mind in speculative matters. But if it is unsuitable to the secondary end in some way, or even to the principal end as making arrival at it difficult or less congruent, it is prohibited, not indeed by the first precepts of the law of nature, but by the second, which are derived from the first, just as conclusions in speculative matters have their credibility from principles known through themselves; and thus the said action is said to be contrary to the law of nature." Now weigh what he has in the same place in the response to the second: "Those things which the natural law dictates as derived from the first principles of the law of nature (which are those that in the body of the article were called second principles), do not have coercive force by way of an absolute precept except after they have been sanctioned by divine and (perhaps: or) human law."

Therefore there is a twofold class of precepts of the law of nature: the former contains precepts which command that which is necessary for the attainment of the principal end and forbid that which altogether impedes the attainment of the same end; the latter contains precepts which command that which is necessary for the secondary end or more congruent to the principal end, and forbid the opposite; and these then become absolutely precepts when the sanction of divine or human law is added. Namely, by the first precepts essential things are commanded; by the second, congruent things: the first have of themselves the coercive force of a precept; the second do not yet have it of themselves, but have it after the sanction of positive law has been added. And therefore they are indeed called precepts, because they dictate something to be done; but because they lack coercive force, they should rather be said to urge than truly to command.

Moreover, those things which are truly precepts of nature are immutable, and therefore no dispensation has place in them, as all philosophers and theologians teach.

II. Now that polygamy is not altogether contrary to the law of nature, or is not opposed to its first precepts, St. Thomas teaches in the cited place, and it is proved by an argument both extrinsic and intrinsic. The extrinsic argument is that in the old law, God permitting it, polygamy was practiced. This is clear first from the manner in which the following law is proposed. Deut. XXI. 15 seq.: If a man shall have two wives (כי תהיין לאיש שתי נשים), if there are two wives for a man, that is, if a man has two wives (which is properly understood of simultaneous polygamy, and this is certainly manifest from the kind of case proposed, from which it appears that the son of either could have been firstborn), one beloved and the other hated, and they have begotten children from him, and the son of the hated one was firstborn, and he shall wish to divide his substance among the sons, he will not be able to make the son of the beloved one firstborn and to prefer him to the son of the hated one; but he shall acknowledge the son of the hated one as firstborn and shall give him double from all the things which he has. God wills the rights of the firstborn to remain intact, even if he is the son of the hated or less beloved woman; but this supposes that God held each woman as a true wife; for the rights of the firstborn pertain only to legitimate sons. But if God held each as a true wife, then she was such, that is, a true marriage existed between the man and those women, and therefore that conjunction was lawful. Therefore the hated one, who could even be the one married second, is supposed to be a wife, or each is held as a true wife. Therefore God did not merely tolerate polygamy, but permitted it as honorable, and for this reason in such a way that God would protect the rights even of the second woman, if her son had been born first.

Again in the same place, c. XVII. 16 seq., a precept is given with regard to the king: He shall not multiply horses for himself (לא ירבה־לו סוסים) ... he shall not have many wives (לא ירבה־לו נשים)

which may entice his soul, nor immense weights of silver and gold (the same phrase occurs); by these words one wife is not commanded, just as neither is one horse, but immoderate excess is prohibited; implicitly, however, some multitude of wives is permitted.

Indeed, secondly, many most holy men and men most dear to God had several wives, as Abraham had two, Sarah and Hagar; Jacob four, Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, Zilpah; Elkanah two, Hannah and Peninnah; David certainly several, cf. 2 Kings V. 13; XV. 16; 1 Paral. III. 1 seq.; Ashhur two, 1 Paral. IV. 5, etc. Now this must be called not simple toleration but a permission of God; for first, it is not lawful to think that the holy Patriarchs either were ignorant of what they ought to do by the law of nature, or acted against conscience; secondly, no reprehension or reprobation of this matter ever occurs in the Scriptures; thirdly, the sons of the four wives of Jacob are in the highest and equal honor in the Old Testament. Moreover, this is the interpretation of many Fathers. What of the fact that God Himself, by the law of levirate which He established, Deut. XXV. 5-9, frequently gave occasion for nuptials of this sort? For no exception is made if the brother of the deceased is already married. Therefore God permitted simultaneous polygamy in the Old Law. But God cannot permit what is intrinsically evil; but such is what is prohibited by the first precepts of natural law: therefore. But certain women were called concubines, not because they were not true wives, but because they were not mothers of the family, sharers in the honor and rights of the man. Cf. 3 Kings XI. 3.

III. It is also proved intrinsically from St. Thomas, l. c., because marriage has for its principal end the procreation and education of offspring; for a secondary end the communication of works; and, insofar as it is among the faithful, the signification of Christ and the Church. ... But plurality of wives neither totally takes away nor in any way impedes the first end of marriage, since one man suffices for fecundating several wives and educating the children born from them. It does not totally take away the second true end, although it greatly impedes it, because peace cannot easily exist in a family where several wives are joined to one man; nor can the man always satisfy wives who ask. But the third end St. Thomas says is totally taken away, yet it is not necessary to marriage by natural law. Therefore polygamy is not contrary to the first precepts of nature, which command what is essential, and consequently it is not simply contrary to nature.

IV. Indeed, in several places Augustine wishes the conjunction of Abraham with Hagar to be free from every malice: "As to the thing done, in no way must the crime of Abraham be branded concerning this concubine; for he used her for begetting offspring, not for satisfying lust, and not insulting, but rather obeying his spouse, who believed it to be a consolation of her sterility if, since she could not do so by nature, she made the fruitful womb of the handmaid her own by will. ... There is here no desire of wantonness, no turpitude of wickedness" (de Civ. Dei l. XVI, c. 25). Moreover, that reason of Augustine would have no force unless it be posited that this was then prohibited by no law of God, or what is equivalent, that it was then permitted by God. For certainly Augustine would not, on account of that reason, have approved marriages of this sort in the law of the Gospel. Cf. l. XXII, Contr. Faustum, c. 32; l. II, Contr. Adversarium legis et prophetarum, c. 9; l. III, de Doct. Christ., c. 18; and l. I, de Nuptiis et concup., c. 8: "Thus (honorably, namely, so that those to be regenerated spiritually might be generated carnally) no Christian ought to doubt that the holy fathers from Abraham and before Abraham, to whom God bears witness that they pleased Him, used spouses, when it was granted even to certain individual men to have several, where the reason was for the multiplying of offspring, not for the varying appetite of will." And in de Bono Coniugali, n. 33, against the Manichees, who calumniated the fathers of the Old Testament concerning several wives, he says that they committed nothing "against a precept, because they were prohibited by no law." Cf. Jerome, Epist. 123 to Ageruchia, n. 12. Chrysostom, Hom. 56 on Genesis, n. 3: "Hearing that Jacob received the elder by birth and afterwards the younger, do not be troubled; nor judge the works which were then done according to the state which now exists. For then, because they were beginnings, it was permitted to mingle with two or three or more wives, so that the human race might be propagated."

Ambrose indeed, book I, de Abraham, c. 4, seems to disapprove the union of Abraham with Hagar as evil; but in reality it is not so. For, that he may give the reason of this deed, he says: "But let us first consider that Abraham was before the law of Moses and before the Gospel: adultery did not yet seem interdicted. The penalty of a crime is from the time of the law, which inhibited the crime; nor before the law is there any condemnation of the guilty party, but from the law. Therefore he did not anticipate the law. Although God in paradise praised conjugal union, He had not condemned adultery." If you take adultery properly, you have from Ambrose that at some time it was lawful and was not prohibited by the law of nature; which is sufficiently absurd and repugnant to Ambrose himself in this same book, c. 2, n. 8, asserting on the contrary that this was forbidden by right and the law of nature, and that it was known to Pharaoh; but Ambrose judged here, l. c., that "the same chastity is owed by the man as by the wife." Namely, adultery in that place is for Ambrose that which in his age, on account of the law of Christ, was and was called adultery, namely the union of a man having a wife with another woman. Ambrose denies that this was prohibited in the age of Abraham; therefore he denies that he sinned against the law. Ambrose brings forward in the same place those reasons for this permission which Augustine also brings. Yet elsewhere we do not deny that Ambrose rather clearly signified that he judged that Abraham sinned in this matter, as in the book de Paradiso, c. XIII, n. 65; but the fault which Ambrose supposes can be venial, which does not exclude the lawfulness of the thing considered in itself.

V. Nevertheless this simultaneous polygamy is in some way contrary to the law of nature, insofar as it is opposed to the precepts commanding or urging what is more congruent to marriage. For if the secondary end is considered, it is most congruent to it that there be one woman: both because peace is difficult in a family when several wives exist, for the sharing of several persons in a beloved thing causes jealousy and quarrels; and because it is congruent that the man satisfy the wife whenever she asks by right. And besides, although the true essence of marriage is also in the man and each of his wives, nevertheless it is congruent that, just as the wife hands over the whole power of her body to the man, so that she does not reserve to herself the right of handing it over to another, so also the man should hand over the full power of his body to the wife, so that the obligation which he contracts be equal to the power which he receives. And so polygamy is in some way contrary to nature, insofar as it is less congruent to marriage.

In order to solve the difficulties against this last conclusion, note with St. Thomas, l. c., ad 7, that the man through marriage does not give power over his body to the wife as to all things, but only as to those things which marriage requires. But marriage does not require that the man render the debt to the wife asking at any given time, as to that for which marriage was principally instituted, namely the good of offspring, but insofar as suffices for impregnation. This, however, is required by marriage insofar as it was instituted for a remedy, namely that the debt be rendered at any given time to one asking. But this is the secondary end of marriage. And thus it is clear that one receiving several wives does not obligate himself to the impossible, the principal end of marriage being considered. And therefore plurality of wives is not contrary to the first precepts of the law of nature. Again, ad 8: that precept of natural law, what you do not wish to be done to you, do not do to another, must be understood with the same proportion preserved. For if a prelate does not wish to be resisted by a subject, he himself ought not therefore refrain from resisting a subject. And so it is not necessary that, just as a man does not wish the woman to have another man, he himself should not have another wife. Because this is not contrary to the first precepts of the law of nature, as that is. And ad 9: it is not as contrary to the natural inclination that a man have several wives as that a wife have several husbands. Whence the affection of the wife does not so greatly flee partnership in the man as, conversely, his affection does. And therefore both among men and among other animals there is found a greater jealousy of the male toward the female than conversely.

VI. Finally, note that in order that polygamy, even with positive law prohibiting it set aside, be lawful, it is necessary that it be contracted on account of the honorable ends of marriage, not on account of unbridled lust, and in such a way that it be right for the wives to use marriage both for the generating of offspring and for the remedy of concupiscence; and who does not see that Solomon, who was joined to thousands, transgressed these limits?