Christians say that christianity is monogamist.But muslims say that only islam limits the no of wives.?

Question

Who is correct? Christians please support your views from the relevant passages of bible and not from the views of any pope/bishop/father etc.

Answer 1

1. Polygamy means a system of marriage whereby one person has more than one spouse. Polygamy can be of two types. One is polygyny where a man marries more than one woman, and the other is polyandry, where a woman marries more than one man. In Islam, limited polygyny is permitted; whereas polyandry is completely prohibited.

Now coming to the original question, why is a man allowed to have more than one wife?


2. The Qur’an is the only religious scripture in the world that says,"marry only one".

The Qur’an is the only religious book, on the face of this earth, that contains the phrase ‘marry only one’. There is no other religious book that instructs men to have only one wife. In none of the other religious scriptures, whether it be the Vedas, the Ramayan, the Mahabharat, the Geeta, the Talmud or the Bible does one find a restriction on the number of wives. According to these scriptures one can marry as many as one wishes. It was only later, that the Hindu priests and the Christian Church restricted the number of wives to one.

Many Hindu religious personalities, according to their scriptures, had multiple wives. King Dashrat, the father of Rama, had more than one wife. Krishna had several wives.

In earlier times, Christian men were permitted as many wives as they wished, since the Bible puts no restriction on the number of wives. It was only a few centuries ago that the Church restricted the number of wives to one.

Polygyny is permitted in Judaism. According to Talmudic law, Abraham had three wives, and Solomon had hundreds of wives. The practice of polygyny continued till Rabbi Gershom ben Yehudah (95% C.E to 1030 C.E) issued an edict against it. The Jewish Sephardic communities living in Muslim countries continued the practice till as late as 1950, until an Act of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel extended the ban on marrying more than one wife.


3. Hindus are more polygynous than Muslims

The report of the ‘Committee of The Status of Woman in Islam’, published in 1975 mentions on page numbers 66 and 67 that the percentage of polygamous marriages between the years 1951 and 1961 was 5.06% among the Hindus and only 4.31% among the Muslims. According to Indian law only Muslim men are permitted to have more than one wife. It is illegal for any non-Muslim in India to have more than one wife. Despite it being illegal, Hindus have more multiple wives as compared to Muslims. Earlier, there was no restriction even on Hindu men with respect to the number of wives allowed. It was only in 1954, when the Hindu Marriage Act was passed that it became illegal for a Hindu to have more than one wife. At present it is the Indian Law that restricts a Hindu man from having more than one wife and not the Hindu scriptures.

Let us now analyse why Islam allows a man to have more than one wife.


4. Qur’an permits limited polygyny

As I mentioned earlier, Qur’an is the only religious book on the face of the earth that says ‘marry only one’. The context of this phrase is the following verse from Surah Nisa of the Glorious Qur’an:

"Marry women of your choice, two, or three, or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one."

[Al-Qur’an 4:3]

Before the Qur’an was revealed, there was no upper limit for polygyny and many men had scores of wives, some even hundreds. Islam put an upper limit of four wives. Islam gives a man permission to marry two, three or four women, only on the condition that he deals justly with them.

In the same chapter i.e. Surah Nisa verse 129 says:

"Ye are never able to be fair and just as between women...."

[Al-Qur’an 4:129]

Therefore polygyny is not a rule but an exception. Many people are under the misconception that it is compulsory for a Muslim man to have more than one wife.

Broadly, Islam has five categories of Do’s and Don’ts:

1.

‘Fard’ i.e. compulsory or obligatory
2.

‘Mustahab’ i.e. recommended or encouraged
3.

‘Mubah’ i.e. permissible or allowed
4.

‘Makruh’ i.e. not recommended or discouraged
5.

‘Haraam’ i.e. prohibited or forbidden

Polygyny falls in the middle category of things that are permissible. It cannot be said that a Muslim who has two, three or four wives is a better Muslim as compared to a Muslim who has only one wife.


5. Average life span of females is more than that of males

By nature males and females are born in approximately the same ratio. A female child has more immunity than a male child. A female child can fight the germs and diseases better than the male child. For this reason, during the pediatric age itself there are more deaths among males as compared to the females.

During wars, there are more men killed as compared to women. More men die due to accidents and diseases than women. The average life span of females is more than that of males, and at any given time one finds more widows in the world than widowers.


6. India has more male population than female due to female foeticide and infanticide

India is one of the few countries, along with the other neighbouring countries, in which the female population is less than the male population. The reason lies in the high rate of female infanticide in India, and the fact that more than one million female foetuses are aborted every year in this country, after they are identified as females. If this evil practice is stopped, then India too will have more females as compared to males.


7. World female population is more than male population

In the USA, women outnumber men by 7.8 million. New York alone has one million more females as compared to the number of males, and of the male population of New York one-third are gays i.e sodomites. The U.S.A as a whole has more than twenty-five million gays. This means that these people do not wish to marry women. Great Britain has four million more females as compared to males. Germany has five million more females as compared to males. Russia has nine million more females than males. God alone knows how many million more females there are in the whole world as compared to males.


8. Restricting each and every man to have only one wife is not practical

Even if every man got married to one woman, there would still be more than thirty million females in U.S.A who would not be able to get husbands (considering that America has twenty five million gays). There would be more than four million females in Great Britain, 5 million females in Germany and nine million females in Russia alone who would not be able to find a husband.

Suppose my sister happens to be one of the unmarried women living in USA, or suppose your sister happens to be one of the unmarried women in USA. The only two options remaining for her are that she either marries a man who already has a wife or becomes public property. There is no other option. All those who are modest will opt for the first.

In Western society, it is common for a man to have mistresses and/or multiple extra-marital affairs, in which case, the woman leads a disgraceful, unprotected life. The same society, however, cannot accept a man having more than one wife, in which women retain their honourable, dignified position in society and lead a protected life.

Thus the only two options before a woman who cannot find a husband is to marry a married man or to become public property. Islam prefers giving women the honourable position by permitting the first option and disallowing the second.

There are several other reasons, why Islam has permitted limited polygyny, but it is mainly to protect the modesty of women.

Answer 2

Human are prone to such things . See how you all are fighting that too on such a thing like marriage and no of wives and husbands.


All of you read this please completely.

But get basics clear :

All souls when enters a new body , are assigned a religion according to there current level of advancement, and also on the amount of good work in past life. ( Religion is not by chance ).

And religion with different level of abstinence ( is nothing but some sort of grouping of living beings with some matching rules and principles ) exist on all planets, and all other places where life forms dwell.

As far as age of religion is concerned.

Cristian is the new baby,

Islam came before ,

and Hindu is the oldest

There are numerous proofs and i don't expect to have doubt in atleast this order. also I have considered only three which are followed by majority. There are numerous other religions.

Religion like Pagan,wicca, Judaism, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist etc etc etc also exists ..

But if you say one religion is not dependent on other ,that it would be sense less.

When islam was born, the only religion that existed was Hinduism. So obviously it should have taken roots form Hinduism.

After all, no one can create something which does not exist.

I can mix gold and hill and tell you golden hill. But without gold, there is no golden hill.

So get this out of your minds all.





Now coming to next , I will never classify one religion as better and the other as lesses . Because : people who believes a particular religion thinks Their religion is the best.

Yes, they need to think that there religion is the best. Only than can they follow it in a best way possible.

and so please don't fight for things which has no meaning. Instead of this , you can use the same time in funding your advancement in your own religion.

But my sincere request form Christians is that stop the crap of blind conversion. This is one place where i like about other religions, including Islam lately.

And the person who asked this question.

See it is an equation :

The male and female separation is created universe so that living beings desire for each other and to make it harder for human beings to get free from material desires.

Each religion tries to reduce this desire, by limiting this. And how it limits this is dependent on the religion and to what kind of people it intends.


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As far as Vedic religion and derived Hinduism is concerned. it does not suggest anyone to marry in the first place. It say leave everything and whatever time you have , don't waste even a sec and learn about supreme and get elevated, free form all this clutches.

But only for people who cannot follow this and weak in there capabilities, Some rules are made. In that case Vedic religion is the most strict one.
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Regards,

-deito

Answer 3

In the name of Allah the most Gracious the most merciful.

We know that before the advent of Islam there were no limit to
the number of wives mentioned in any scriptures.Prophets,
heads of states, kings, emperors etc would keep up to Hundreds of wives.When the verse was revealed in the Quran
restricting the number of wives to a maximum of 4 under very
strict conditions the order to marry was only One if a Muslim
male would not be able to do justice between His wives.After
the revelation of this verse many of the Prophets Companions
who had many wives had to divorce them to observe the
minimum limit.

We can challenge the Christians to ouote from the bible where God almighty Or jesus [pbuh ] or any of the earlier Prophets[pbut ] have mentioned marry only one.It is only the
doctrine of the catholic church and country made laws that
restrict marriages to a single women.It is very Ironic that those
who criticize the Muslim Law of marriages fail to realize that
marriage brings security to a woman and gives her rights,But
this does not go down the Christians throats .Rather They
would prefer to have many mistresses and enjoy illegal sex
free of cost without commitment to the woman so that she
can be changed when one is fed up and move on to another
mistress, what does this reduce a woman to? where are her
rights ?
Allah the almighty is all wise and there for allows a man to
marry more than one up to four so that a widow , a Divorcee
and woman who cannot find single men can marry married
men and live respectfully ..

Answer 4

The Bible states God created Adam and Eve{not plus 3 more}For every man that has 4 wives there must be 3 men that can not find one.Poligamy is a very selfish concept.

Answer 5

Islam was established by Muhammad, more than 500 years AFTER the writings of the Bible were complete. (Muhammad died in 632 C.E.)
Monogamy was promoted first in the Old Testament by the Jews.

You do the math.

The Apostle Paul taught that for a leadership position in the church, am man must be married, but to only one wife.

Answer 6

Islam is the purely precise be attentive to God. And it maintains to be unchanged, so it fairly is a techniques much less confusing to understand. Christianity has had books faraway from the Bible and has had different adjustments from mistranslating for 2000 years. as a result there are countless variations and it fairly is impossible to get a quickly answer.

Answer 7

muslims base their beliefs on mohammed. but they forget that he was never married to all four women at the same time. he married a new wife after the previous one died. no 2 wives of his lived in d house together.
christianity isnt outrighly against polygamy or bigamy.the thing is if you are married and you feel attracted to someone, u are in the early stages of adultery, since most people have affairs that lead to marriage because of sex. to avoid all this the church insists on one man one wife. I THINK

Answer 8

Monogamy or polygamy depends on the times the society is passing through. After all these rules will be framed by the society based on the situation and bound to change. Its nothing to do with religion. Insisting this type of systems through religion or following them without rational is escapism.

Answer 9

1Timothy 3 ...the husband of one wife.
Roman 14...obey man's law
Matt 5 and 19, ICor 7 ...Husband do not divorce your wife. Wife do not divorce your husband.

Islam came along 600 years after the gospel. Islam was under the influence of the Catholic church. The true church existed before the Catholic church.

In the Old Testament men were allow to have multiple wives. Bur not under the church and the authority of God.

Answer 10

In any case it is only Muslims that has institutionalised the consent of women in the system of marrige

Answer 11

Well, if I remember, most of the great men in the bible had numerous wives and mistresses.