Is There Any Bible Passage That Stops a Man from Having Two Wives?
1) Direct answer
Yes. The New Testament sets one man with one woman as God’s order, and it closes the door on adding another wife while the first is living.
2) Scriptural explanation
- From the beginning: “They two shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24; repeated by Jesus in Matthew 19:4–6; Mark 10:6–9). Notice, it’s two—one man and one woman—becoming one flesh.
- Church order and example: “Husband of one wife” is required for overseers and deacons (1 Timothy 3:2, 12; Titus 1:6). The same standard appears for widows: “wife of one man” (1 Timothy 5:9). God sets the pattern plainly.
- Purity in marriage: “To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband” (1 Corinthians 7:2). Singular on both sides.
- Bound by the first covenant: Jesus said that marrying another while bound is adultery (Mark 10:11–12; Luke 16:18). If even a legal “putting away” doesn’t free a man to take another without guilt, taking an additional wife beside the first certainly doesn’t make it right.
- Warning against multiplying wives: God forbade kings to multiply wives (Deuteronomy 17:17), showing His displeasure with the practice.
-God allowed polygamy in the old testament because of the fall but restored back the original order in the new testament. However, those who came to Christ already married to many wives or part of a harem of wives were not forbidden from worshipping God, only they were not allowed to hold any leadership office in the church.
3) Simple clarifying logic
- God joined two to be one flesh. The Bible never says “three (or more) shall be one flesh.” You can’t be “one flesh” with several at the same time.
- If God requires leaders—the examples to the flock—to have one wife, that reveals the divine pattern for all believers.
- Jesus restored marriage to God’s original intent. Where men once tolerated arrangements, the Lord pointed back to the beginning and fixed it: one man, one woman, for life.
4) Reinforcing statement
So yes—the Scripture sets a clear stop: a believer is to have one living wife. That’s the Bible way.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 6:E-7
Let us go back to the beginning. In the original physical creation as we know it today, God made everything in pairs, male and female. There were two chickens--rooster and hen. There were two cattle, the cow and the bull. And right down the line. But when it came to man, there was only one. They were not a pair. Adam had been made in the image of God. He was a son of God. As a son of God he could not be tempted and fall. That would be impossible. So God took a byproduct of man to cause the fall. Woman never stepped...
The Serpent's Seed
58-0928E §50
Adam had done named all of the creation, everything else. But he wasn't nothing for himself, so He made Him a helpmate: took a rib from his side, closed up the gash, and made a helpmate to him. And man in his spirit was both man and woman. And a woman is just a part of a man. And when a man takes to himself a wife, and if she's correctly his wife, a God-given wife, she'll be just to him as part of him. That's the reason you have so many scruples in the marriage. Is because you go out and see some girl with pretty b...
I will restore
54-0620A §18
Now, in the beginning, when God made man in His image, the first man Adam was a man like God. He was a spirit man. Then later on, we find after He'd made man in His image, there was no man to till the soil, so He put man in five senses to contact his earthly home. There's where man fell. Now, Adam had a helpmate, Eve. And Eve was given birth of two sons. First son was Cain; the second son was Abel. Now, when two more human beings come in the world, then after Adam and Eve, two more spirits come to occupy these huma...
Questions and Answers on Hebrews, part 3
57-1006 §77
Now, who's speaking here? Now, sometime a lady say, "Oh, Paul was an ol' woman-hater." Well, now while we're at that, let's just turn over here to Galatians 1:8, and see what Paul says about this. See, in Galatians 1:8, you'll find out that Paul said here in Galatians 1:8: ...though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel ... than this you've already heard, let him be accursed. Now don't blame me; you blame Him, see. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is in the glory and the...
The Rejected King
60-0515M §26
And no matter how much that Samuel tried to persuade the people, continually they went after him day and night. "We want a king. We want a man. We want a man that we can say, 'This is our guide.'" And that has never been the will of God. It never was the will of God, or it never will be the will of God for men to rule over one another. God rules over man. God is our ruler, our King. And it's very much of a parallel of today because that man seems to have that same idea. They don't seem to be able to grasp that God...