[Avodah] Monagamy [was: Hypocrisy in halakhah]

[T613K at aol.com]

From: Zev Sero _zev at sero.name_ (mailto:zev at sero.name) 

Rich, Joel  wrote:

> Question: What was the driving force behind the takkana of  rabbeinu
> gershom on monogamy?

Wasn't it his own experience of  the consequence of lack of sholom bayis?

--  


>>>>>
There seems to be some disagreement on that  point.  Some think the story of 
his unhappy domestic life with two wives is  an urban legend.  (I think that 
Marcus Lehman wrote a novel about it -- the  first wife was a tzadekes but 
childless, the second wife was a machsheifa  -- I don't remember the whole story.) 
Many seem to think that he was motivated  by a concern that the Jews not seem 
to be on a lower moral plane than their  Christian neighbors.
 
R' Berel Wein writes: "[I]n a Christian society where even monogamous  
marriage was viewed as a concession to the devil, polygamy was seen as outright  
immorality, a societal crime of lewdness which cast the Jewish community in a  
negative light in the eyes of society at large. Perhaps in order that Jews  not 
seem less 'moral' than their gentile neighbors did Rabbeinu Gershom ban  
polygamy at this time [c. 1100]"  R' Wein does not mention domestic discord  at all.
 
Grayzel writes, "The Bible permitted Jews to have more than one wife.   As 
time went on, however, the Jews adopted monogamy as their rule, although,  since 
the law on the subject had not been changed, there was a Jew now and then  
who married more than one woman. This gave their Christian neighbors a chance to 
 speak ill of the Jews.  It probably also resulted in quarrels within the  
family."  Nothing about R' Gershom's private life.
 
BTW I once met a man whose mother was one of two co-wives in a Sefardi  
family and he told me that his mother and the other wife squabbled constantly  and 
that he would never think of taking a second wife himself.  He said his  
father treated both wives as if they were two more of his squabbling children,  and 
the women were not treated with respect.
 
I can't understand modern-day feminists who, when you tell them gay  marriage 
may lead to polygamy, respond, "So what?"  I don't know how they  can fail to 
see that in a polygamous society women's status is drastically  compromised.

 


--Toby  Katz
=============



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