Is Having Two Wives Adulterous?

I think it depends where you live. I wouldn't want two husbands.Have you got two wives?

I think for the sake of sanity we should not consider this an option. It will ultimately lead to somone getting hurt and most likely it will be the husband. I love my wife and I do appreciate her efforts to keep me in check but to double this fun no thanks. I can't keep up with one why would you do that to yourself unless you're a controling person who demands obiedence and who would want to live with him? Lets call it wrong and move on.

Technically, maybe not adulterous, but it is problematic.

Okaying polygamy if a man can take care of all his wives is one thing. But name any single instance of polygamy in which no wife was favored over another, there was no jealousy, no neglect, and no cases of women and children forced to compete for the attention of the father. The pitfalls of polygamy were detailed in the Bible, going all the way back to Abraham and Jacob and the problems their wives had.

Then there is the matter of Biblical context. Bishops in the early Church, while allowed to be married, could not have more than one wife because they were supposed to be examples to the community. This shows that monogamy was regarded as preferable.

In the second Creation story, there was only one man and one woman created for each other. Even when polygamy was tolerated, the second Creation story was taken to mean that we were made to be monogamous, and polygamous relationships fall short of that ideal.

So polygamy may not fall very neatly under the "adultery" category, but there are plenty of reasons even aside from that that it can and probably should be considered sinful.

Adultery is the voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and another person who is not a woman's/man's spouse. wikipedia

sexual relations between a married person and someone other than the spouse. Written or customary prohibitions or taboos against adultery constitute part of the marriage code of virtually every society. Indeed, adultery seems to be as universal and, in some instances, as common as marriage. Encyclopedia Britannica

Biblical Adultery:

SEXUAL ADULTERY—“Conjugal infidelity. An adulterer was a man who had sexual intercourse with a woman he was not married to, either a married woman or one who was engaged to be married. A woman who did the same thing was an adulteress. Adultery is fornication. The Bible regards adultery as a great sin and a great social wrong. It has been inferred from John 8:1-11 that this sin became very common during the age preceding the destruction of Jerusalem.” Adultery without sexual intercourse—Jesus Christ warned, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery already with her in his heart.”

Author: Matthew G. Easton

Is having two wives legal? If you can not have two wives legally, then how could it not be adulterous? In the Christian belief system it is adulterous. If you have no belief in God and His commandments then to you it probably is not adulterous. If you do not believe in the legal system then it is not adulterous.

I personally believe it is adultery, morally and legally! I see many others already disagree!

Look at the 10 commandments and the Beatitudes.

Only of the laws of your area and your relilgious beliefs make it so. Clancy's THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON mentions that while Roman Catholic priests may not marry, priests of another segment of the Catholic "group" may. Jerry Pournelle in the JANISSARIES series mentions that while priests in the the service of Yatar may marry, those who hope to get higher positions may not. Mormons in the United States, while they no longer do so, usually had more than one wife. Whether or not something is illegal or immoral depends, always, on the "rules" of the place and time.

I would have to agree with jak2009. From the beginning, God's desire was one husband,one wife. But due to the hardness of man's heart, God has allowed mankind to deviate into less than perfect arrangements (see Mark 10:1-9). At the time the New Testament was written, in the Roman world, people had more than one wife. Even Christians in the church did. This is why in 1 Timothy 3:2 one of the requirements to be an elder was "husband of one wife." It was not adulterous to have more than one, but complicating and problematic. Like David in the Old Testament, who had multiple wives, God allowed it, but you can read the troubles he had. David was very lustful, and "needed" more women. He crossed the line with Bathsheba, which WAS a case of adultery. God said through Nathan to David:

'I also gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your care, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these!" (2 Sam 12:8).

God allowed him to have more wives, but not to commit adultery.

If its a sin is debatable, as long as neither of them find out... but look at the down side: Two mothers in law! yikes!!!

Biblically speaking, having two wives if properly married would not be seen as adulterous relationship,but polygamous. Whether it is spiritually wrong or sin is to be determined by those involved. It is definitely not adulterous.

Having two wives is adulterous. No matter what society feels about it or what society laws feel about it. Any unlawful sexual relations between a married woman and someone not her husband or between a married man and someone not his wife is adultery. But, Jesus went further, He said whoever look on a woman or a man to lust after them have already committed adultery in their heart. People in society may say it depends on this or that, but, you know they don't have any heaven or hell to put you in. All that matters is what God feels about it.

It would only be adulterous if you were living your life around Christian principles. Other nations and religions live my different rules. Early Christians had more than one 'wife'.

Adam and Eve of course never heard of Christ but Eve was Adam's second 'wife' and I don't recollect a divorce from the first. Today there are many Christian men who have one wife and one or more mistresses. They cannot be adulterous because they are not married to one partner. Does that make the relationship less of a sin through Christian eyes.

I have two 'wives' (not officially married to either). I love them both deeply. My life is very very complicated. And yes they know about each other. It would be less complicated if they did not. So as a non Christian does this make me an adulteror?

Technically no, looking at most definitions adultery has to me extra-marital

M't:5:32: But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.

M't:19:9: And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

In The New Testament Paul says that if you wish to fulfil the role of a bishop (an overseer, not a man in authority) then you will be the husband of one wife.

This says to me that there were church members in the first century church who did have more than one wife. So two or more wives is not adulterous. King David had six wives, I think, and the Ten Commandments were in force in his day.