5,000 Years and Counting, but which way?
Brigham Young and his 21 wives
It should not be surprising that North Carolina’s Republican legislators have made it a state law that marriage is only between one man and one woman, but the rationale is a bit puzzling for one of the buckles of the Bible Belt. Here is Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council claiming that “We can’t think that we can tinker with the definition of marriage and say, it’s no longer between a man and a woman which 5,000 years of human history has shown.” What Bible has Tony Perkins been reading? Let’s assume that he also wants to set back the clock to Bishop Ussher’s number game that Adam and Eve were created in 4004 BC. If Adam only married Eve, which would be news to the legendary Lilith and make it really interesting to speculate where Seth got his wife, then why not push it back another millennium. The problem is that many of the Biblical Patriarchs were not aware of the one man/one woman rule. Certainly not Abraham or Jacob. David and Solomon were only two of the Israelite kings who had rather sizeable harems.
Throughout most history, whether in the orbit of Biblical myth or not, marriage has not been exclusively between one man and one woman.
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