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.
Marriage and Divorce
65-0221M §19
Now, it may be a little lengthy. I don't want you to be in any hurry and I... Just take your time (all of us) and study the Word of God truly and thoroughly as we know how to study it. Let's begin with St. Matthew, the nineteenth chapter, and beginning, I think, with the eighth verse of the nineteenth chapter, I wish to start. I might start also with the first and read down through the eighth verse of the nineteenth chapter. Now, remember, these things that I say must come from the Word of God. It can't be my own o...
Marriage and Divorce
65-0221M §93
Notice, now the woman's got her place, and she is a jewel. Solomon, this man that had ten thousand wives ... or, had a thousand wives, rather, he said that a man that's found a wife has found a good thing. He said a good woman is a jewel in his crown, that's an honor; but an unrighteous one is water in his blood. That's his life! He said, "There might be one righteous man found in a thousand [Solomon said this], but," said, "you wouldn't find one righteous woman in a thousand." Solomon said that. Now notice that, t...
Questions and Answers
62-0527 §15
Now, right here that would look like it would give... And that's the way you get contradictions in the Bible, but it isn't so. Now, it seems like, here, that the person is wanting to know, or the question what they do want to know: "Is a brother or sister in the Lord, can marry or remarry, be free, if they leave their companion to remarry again?" No. Now let's take ... begin at the 10th verse: ... unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord [see], Let not the wife depart from her husband: [see], But ... if...
Hear ye Him
57-0125 §35
...I leave home to go overseas, I don't take Mrs. Branham out and say, "Now, looky here, my dear lady; I'm going to tell you something. When I go overseas thou shalt not have any more husbands. You don't want to make any love to any other man. Thou shalt not do this and do that." Then after I give her all of her laws, then she'd say, "Just a minute, my young fellow; thou shalt not have any other wives while you're gone. Thou shalt not take any other woman out to dinner." That isn't it. We don't even think of such a t...
Marriage and Divorce
65-0221M §70
...ing it was---something else was introduced. Now, this is going to shock you. (Are you tired? Just sit still just a little longer.) Then when the double covenant was made by man and woman through sex (another covenant altogether; not the original covenant, but another covenant), now what's introduced? Polygamy in all. Then after the beginning, polygamy was introduced both in man and in beast, after the beginning, the fall. God now secondarily sets a new nature again by sex. God created the first without sex. Do you...