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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Leviral marriage

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Leviral marriage
  • Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 12:42:03 +0100

On 12/10/2005 21:34, Bill Rea wrote:

...


It was probably more common than we moderns believe. In ancient
society males tended to die younger than females, particularly
through warfare whether that be on raiding parties or as state
sanctioned wars, but also through disease and accidents. In
so-called ``primitive'' societies the male-female ratio is
often around 1 to 1.2. This would make polygamous marriages
quite common. I believe the Torah provisions are there because
there were enough polygamous marriages in Israelite society to
require regular legislation to deal with them and the problems
of inheritance and so on which are unique to them.


Also, men tended to marry much later in life than women, as indeed they still do in Middle Eastern societies, where men commonly do not marry until their thirties or forties, whereas their brides are usually still in their teens. So each man had a much shorter period of marriage, compensated (at least numerically!) by having several wives when he did get married.

I think we can make a good argument that, although this was tolerated by God, it was not his original purpose, which seems to have been mongamous, as in Genesis 2:24 which mentions only one wife.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/





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