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.
And thy Seed shall possess the gate of His enemies
61-0212E §39
He was a man when He come down off the mountain that night, looking around for something to eat on that olive tree, and they found nothing there. He was a man when He was hungry. But when He took five biscuits and two pieces of fish and fed five thousand, that was more than a man. Yes, sir. That was God in that man. Yes, sir. He was a man laying out there on the back of that little ship that night. Devils, forty thousand of them at the sea, swore they'd drown Him, that little old ship like a bottle-stopper out ther...
Questions and Answers, Part 4
64-0830E §69
QUESTION: Why is it that we make so much of a big issue of women's dress (oh, oh, I'm getting it on this one, ain't I?)--- big issue of women's dressing and cutting of hair, and do---nothing said about the hair of the man or the way he dresses? Well, Sister, I'm going to agree with you one thing. First place, the Bible said that a man should not have long hair. And if he had long hair, I'd tell him, just the same as I tell you. He's wrong. But most men, lot of them's like me, don't have any at all. But most men cut...
There is only One Way provided by God for anything
63-0731 §39
I was just thinking the other day, the Bible said that the sins of Sodom vexed the soul of Lot daily. I just thought, how many Lots is there in this United States? Men sitting in their study---good men, sitting in their study---looking out the window, and seeing these modern stripteases on the street, and carrying on the way they're... They can't say nothing about it. They know it's wrong. They can't say nothing. Half their congregation ... ninety percent of their congregation wear it. Bobbed-haired women wearing s...
Divine Love
56-0826 §28
I never said one word. I just looked up at him, and all at once the Holy Spirit, something another... What would you think if a man spit in your face? Why, if there's any temper about you, it'd rise. Sure it would. And here come two cops out (them two cops I'd led...) with the things in their hands to beat the man down to take him off, but I couldn't let them do it. God had brought love in my heart for that mortal being. I thought, "It's not the man. It's the devil that's got him in that condition. That man would b...
Marriage and Divorce
65-0221M §84
And you, some of the women put on these nasty clothes, eat out here to ... throw yourself before men. Jesus said, "Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart." Then who's guilty, the man or you? He's a male, made so he could take this act. See? And you're the female that ought to refuse. Now, why do you put yourself out like that? It ain't for comfort. You know it can't be, when you're half froze to death with them shorts on. Can't be for comfort. Then what...