RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Deep Topics Is religion good for society?

The Torah never says anything against multiple wives. This is where the oral tradition comes in. That doesn't say anything against it either. It does not advise it, however, as laws of marriage go, there is no difference between the first and second and third wife and so on. There is a union where the woman is not a wife but rather a concubine, and she is not entitled to the same benifits upon divorce (I think that's the difference). A man can have multiple wives, but he can only have relations with one wife at a time, so no orgies. Also, a man must be completely focussed on the woman he is with, and she upon him. That's getting unnecessarily detailed. Anyway, a bit over a thousand years ago, there was a rabbi with two wives, and one betrayed him out of jealousy, so he made a law which was accepted by the mainstream, with a thousand year limit, that a man can only marry one woman. The law has since expired, but it is still not accepted custom to have more than one wife. It is custom, not law. Again, the Torah doesn't say anything against it, and there are laws concerning it in the oral tradition (Talmud).