His "own wife", her "own husband", 1 Cor 7:2-4

The Monogamy-Only Objection

Paul clearly says each man is to have his own wife and each woman should have her own husband and that is Paul directly shutting the door on everything but monogamous marriage, it's also "wife" not "wives".

The Answer

This is an objection we will have to get into the Greek to address, but first I will lay out a few important things to understand upfront.

The Context

Paul is responding to a letter that was written to him, which we don't have, but it appears the subject or conclusion the Corinthians had come to was that "it's good not to touch a woman".

There are a couple of explanations I have considered:

1. They had come to the conclusion that celibacy or abstaining from marriage is good, or better than marriage.
2. They had come to the conclusion that sex, even within marriage, was immoral, a view influenced by early ascetic and heretical movements, which Paul addresses and corrects in this passage.

Paul is addressing the Corinthian assembly, a city notorious for its pagan sexual immorality, particularly due to the temple of Aphrodite, where temple prostitution was prevalent. He tackled these issues earlier in Chapter 5, emphasizing the need for moral integrity among believers.

So Paul is dealing with a lot of sexual immorality within the Corinthian assembly and is tasked with teaching the ways of God in regards to sexual immorality, what is right, what is wrong, what is allowed, what is forbidden. Keep that in mind as we go through this. Also keep in mind that Paul cannot change what is moral, only teach it to them. Paul has to derive his teaching from the Torah (Law) and the Torah defines what sexual immorality is and the structure of marriage between a man and a woman.

The Greek

Here's the relevant Greek for 1 Corinthians 7:2:

διὰ δὲ τὰς πορνείας, ἕκαστος τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γυναῖκα ἐχέτω, καὶ ἑκάστη τὸν ἴδιον ἄνδρα ἐχέτω.

Let's break this down:

1. ἕκαστος (hekastos) – "each" or "every"
   • Refers to each individual man.
2. ἑαυτοῦ (heautou) – "his own"
   • A reflexive pronoun indicating possession. This does not inherently imply "one" in number but emphasizes personal or exclusive ownership. It would still be possible to use this term if a man had multiple wives, as it emphasizes his responsibility or connection to his wife or wives.
3. γυναῖκα (gynaika) – "wife"
   • Singular in form, but in context, Greek singular nouns often refer to a class of individuals. The singular could be generic here, referring to the concept of a wife rather than specifically limiting it to "one" wife. Greek is less explicit in enforcing number here compared to English, which often assumes singularity.
4. ἑκάστη (hekastē) – "each" or "every" (feminine form)
   • Refers to each individual woman.
5. ἴδιον (idion) – "her own"
   • This term conveys a sense of possession or belonging. Just as ἴδιον can be used to describe someone's connection to their city ("his own city") or their father ("her own father"), it similarly refers here to "her own husband," indicating that the woman belongs to the husband in a specific relationship. However, this usage does not imply exclusivity or monogamy, just as referring to "her own father" doesn't imply that the father only has one daughter. It simply underscores the personal association between the two.
6. ἄνδρα (andra) – "husband"
   • Singular again, but as with "wife," it might be a generic or representative singular.

It is not insignificant that Paul chose to use two very different words to describe the man's "own wife" and the woman's "own husband". Paul understood Torah, and in God's Law the man exclusively owns the woman, she belongs to him and only him. He does not belong to her.

Remember earthly marriage reflects our spiritual relationship with God. God is faithful to many while the only way we are faithful to Him is to have only one. The husband images God in the relationship, the women/wives represent the believers or the assembly.

Conclusion

This passage is Paul instructing the assembly about sexual relations, sexual immorality, and denying the wife or husband sex. We cannot make it more than what it is, or less.

In 1 Corinthians 7:2, Paul's instruction for each man to have his "own wife" and each woman to have her "own husband" is not a direct prohibition of polygyny or Paul putting an emphasis on monogamy. The context in the passage is sexual relations between a man and a woman. Paul is stressing that a man should only have sex with a woman who belongs to him while each woman should only have sex with the man she belongs to in order to avoid sexual immorality. English translations coupled with a monogamy-only cultural bias cause people to read exclusive ownership into the text for both the man and the woman, where it is there for the man, but not for the woman but that is obscured in English because translators chose to use the same word for both.

As a reminder, if I tell you I am going to speak to my own father about it, rather than yours, does that mean my father only has one son? In truth the passage in English can be read and understood for what it truly means, but not if you approach the text thinking that polygyny is immoral and Paul is attempting to forbid it.

Thus, this passage does not explicitly shut the door on polygyny but rather addresses the need for sexual propriety and commitment within the context of marriage. If Paul wanted to enforce monogamy, he could have used the same word for the woman and the man, as the word usage for the man does mean an exclusive ownership of the woman, which is in line with Torah in that the woman does belong to the man exclusively, but if Paul were to do this, he would be violating and contradicting Torah.

Far from shutting the door on polygyny, Paul actually wrote carefully to protect what is allowed in Torah and not violate or contradict God's Law.

We will deal with the following verses regarding "authority" over the body in a separate objection, but consider this, can the wife tell the husband what he can put in his body, or eat?