A man had no more right,
in carrying out the designs of the Almighty, to have two or more wives
living at the same time, than a woman had to have two or more husbands
living at the same time. Wherever the Bible speaks of the duty of
husbands to wives, or of wives to husbands, the singular form is
invariably used, as husband and wife. For instance, when God brought the
woman he had made to Adam, he (Adam) says: "Therefore shall a man leave
his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife"--not
wives--"and they shall be one flesh." And again, "They twain shall be
one flesh." What God has directly commanded, and what he merely suffers
men to do without imposing insuperable restraints upon them, are two
very different things.
It is asserted that the Mosaic Law makes a very great and decidedly
partial distinction between men-servants and maid-servants, greatly to
the disadvantage of the latter, particularly in their release from
servitude. These same texts--some of them, at least--have been quoted in
defense of African slavery. The term, selling a Jewish servant, in the
Scripture, is simply the same as binding out a child under English law.
A Jewish father could only "sell," or in other words bind out, his
daughter for six years, and that before she was of a suitable age to be
married.[J] At the expiration of six years her apprenticeship ceased,
and the maid-servant was free, unless she voluntarily perpetuated her
own servitude.
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