Pro polygamy

We all know that God was happy to allow us multiple wives. Were it not for the reforms of Rebbenu Gershon, who 1000 years ago decided that the perfection of the Torah needed to be adjusted because the world had changed, any of us men would be permitted by Torah law/morality to marry a second, or even a third or fourth wife. (The rule change was never accepted by Arab Jews. Some of them emigrated to Israel from places like Iraq and Yemen with more than one wife.) Now I have discovered that the Meshech Chochma believed (comment to Bereshis 3:16) that, along with not wanting men to work, God's original plan was for women to be able to take multiple husbands:

The Talmud (Eruvin 100B) itemizes 10 curses for Eve/women [after the sin of the tree of union of good and evil]. Among these is that she is “forbidden to a house of two” [i.e. whereas a man may marry multiple wives a women can be married to only one husband at a time].

The Talmud’s intent is not to state what is forbidden to women from a religious standpoint or on account of the seven Noahide laws. Rather all curses on the list are things that are biological and social. Such that natural law, rather than religious strictures, is what restrains women from polygamy while allowing polygamy to men. As follows:

If women were polygamous the settlement and peopling of the world would be negated. People would waste their lives [rather than work and settle the world]. Neither recognizing fathers nor identifying with certainty sons that they had sired the very foundations of society would be undermined. For who would exert themselves absent a name and legacy??....

However prior to the sin [of the tree of union of good and evil] ascertaining paternity was unambiguous and instantaneous: “They came up on the bed as two and descended as three” (Bereshis Rabbah 22) [there was no time lapse for pregnancy. Human reproduction occurred immediately after sexual intercourse. As such] the reason for women refraining from multiple partners did not pertain.

It is for these reasons that slaves who have no chayis/yichus [familial relationships and inheritance] (Yevamos 32A) lack the institution of marriage as well. [I.e. As marriage is a post –sin institution meant to protect yichus-bloodlines-family relationships it is useless for slaves. Slave women may, in fact, legally have multiple partners.]

The take-away lessons are many; the most important of them I think is this: Morality is not absolute. Like everything else, it is a function of time and place.

*Cite and translation provided by someone who does not wish to be named.
---------
Buy my fabulous book of outstanding Parsha commentary. (please)