ABSTRACT
We have to account for the growing favour with which the monogamous family was regarded during this period. 1 A plurality of wives had been the rule among the Hebrews as nomads. Even during the age of the Vindicators, as we have seen, men who were so circumstanced as to be able to maintain more than a single wife were polygamists. Yet in process of time, during the period of the monarchy, if not earlier, monogamy came quite markedly into favour, if not with the ruling classes, at least among many of the people and among some who exerted a potent influence. The J and E narratives of the Hexateuch, which we here need to remind ourselves were not the work of individuals but of schools or centres of thought, in idealising their past, do so in such a way as to leave upon their readers the impression that monogamous marriages were to be preferred. Men like Adam, Noah, Isaac, and Joseph appear as the husbands of single partners. A beautiful idyl is that of the courtship of Eebekah, out of which narrative much of the beauty would have gone had the writer spoken in the same breath near the close of Isaac as taking to himself other wives of the daughters of the land. It is true that certain of the patriarchs, as Abraham and Jacob, are spoken of naturally as possessed of more than one wife as well as concubines; but Abraham marries Keturah after Sarah's death, and Jacob has Leah deceitfully given him to wife, a woman he does not want, so that nothing is left to him but to marry as quickly as he may Eachel, the woman whom he ardently loves. Besides, we are not to overlook the fact that the writers of these narratives do bring out most unpleasantly the strifes and jealousies with which the harems of these patriarchs were rife. The general impression left upon the mind of the reader, and probably designedly so left, was in favour of monogamy.
