Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/384

 polygamy has been removed, and, so far as conscience is concerned, every professor of Judaism must feel himself at liberty to marry as many wives as he likes. He knows that R. Gershom's anathema has expired, and if he goes to the codes of Jewish law, he finds that it is left doubtful. For instance, the note on the passage just cited says—

"Nevertheless, in all these countries the ordinance and the custom remain in force, and it is not lawful to marry two wives; and he that transgresses and does so is to be compelled by anathema and excommunication to divorce one of them. But some say that in the present time he that transgresses the anathema of R. Gershom is not to be compelled, for the five thousand years have been completed long since; but the custom is not according to this." Here then are two opinions. The most strict of the two is, that polygamy is now not lawful, and that he who marries two wives must divorce one of them: but even this cannot be very satisfactory to the woman whom he first married, for it does not define which of the two is to be divorced. It only requires that one of them should be divorced, and leaves it to the man himself to divorce which he pleases. The other opinion is, that polygamy is now lawful, and that he is not to be compelled to divorce either. Hence it appears that it is not Judaism which protects the rights and the happiness of Jewish women, or the peace and comfort of Jewish families. The influence and the laws of Christianity forbid polygamy. To Christianity, then, Jewish females are indebted, not only for the station which they hold in society, but for the peace which they enjoy in their homes. "Wherever Christianity has no power, there the Jews may take as many wives as they please: and if ever Judaism should obtain supreme power, Jewesses must expect to be again degraded into the category of slaves and Amharatzin, and to have their domestic peace annihilated by the introduction of new wives and families. It may be replied, that this objection applies with equal force to the written law, for that Moses himself allows polygamy. But to this we answer, that Moses only tolerated polygamy, but that he shows clearly that it was not the purpose of God, that men should have more wives than one. He found an evil custom existing amongst a people debased by Egyptian slavery, and like a wise reformer, he did not commence his improvements by