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.
The flashing red light of the sign of His coming
63-0623E §77
Look. Now, in Jude the 7th chapter again, Sodom and Gomorrah. Oh, my, what an awful thing! Unmarried to women, going after strange flesh. A man that's married to his wife, they're not no longer two, they're one. And a man that'll run out after another woman, he automatically separates himself from his wife. And a woman that runs out with another man, she's dead to her husband. She's denied her own flesh; she's cut away from him. That's right. In the day of judgment will have to answer for it.
Marriage and Divorce
65-0221M §76
Note, let's read this here. I want to get this to you. Matthew 5, Jesus spoke here of something that's really of a vital importance. We want to see it. Matthew 5. I wrote on my ... I marked out some of the things I was going to say just to the men, so had quite a little time saying it just before our sisters. But I want to go out here now before... Now, sister, I want to put you into the place where God's Word promised you. And you see then, you stay in that place too. Matthew 5:32. I want you to notice here, to su...
The Deep calleth to the deep
54-0624 §40
Now, okay? No man seeks God at any time; God seeks man. Never did a man seek God in all the world; God's seeking man. When man first fell in the Garden of Eden, it showed the strain of man. Man hid; God was hunting man. Jesus said, "No man can come to Me except My Father draws him." He has to be drawn of the Father first. And then, I would like to explain something to you. Seeing a vision... How many people in here ever dreamed a dream? Let's see your hands. Why, I guess two-thirds of you. There is true that many p...
The flashing red light of the sign of His coming
63-0623E §31
Did you notice, it never said nothing about marriage? Notice! The sons of God came unto the daughters of men---nothing about marriage. And if you take in the original Greek there, the word meaning ... says... I've got it wrote down here somewhere---wife, "taken unto them wives," in the third verse, taken them... In the Greek---I looked it up this afternoon---it didn't say take to them wives, it said, "took to them women," not wives. Now, you check it with your---the Emphatic Diaglott and watch if that isn't true. "...
The choosing of a Bride
65-0429E §48
Now, notice again, how the natural bride types the spiritual. The Word says that she was made for man, and not man made for her. Now I'm going to speak on why in a few minutes, on the bride of Christ. But I'm trying to show you the background of it. Woman was made for man, and not man for woman. That's the reason under the old laws that polygamy was legal. Look at David, sitting down there with five hundred wives. And the Bible said he was a man after God's own heart, with five hundred wives, and Solomon with a tho...