Dist. 33, Art. 1, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/4/d/33/q/bon-sent-IV-d33-a1-q2
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### Question II. *Whether to have several wives is against the law of nature.*

Secondly it is asked whether it is against the law of nature that one man should have several wives. And that it is so is shown:

1. *By authority*, because on Genesis, chapter 4, the Gloss says of Lamech, who had two wives: «He was the first to commit adultery against custom and against nature»: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, it seems so *by reason*: because it is according to the dictate of nature that man and woman should be equal as regards that act; but one wife cannot belong to several men: therefore neither the reverse.

3. Likewise, according to right reason a man is bound to render the debt to his wife: therefore, since it is impossible to render it to several at the same time, he cannot bind himself to several at the same time. But if he could have several at once, he would bind himself to several at once: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, what is enjoined upon man from his very constitution pertains to natural right; but from his very constitution it was said: *A man shall leave father and mother, and they shall be two in one flesh*: therefore it is according to the dictate of nature that there be only two: therefore one wife of one husband, and not several.

**On the contrary:** 1. Augustine says, and it is had in the text: «When it was the custom to have several wives, it was not a sin»; but a custom or usage against nature is not to be approved, nor does it excuse from fault: therefore to have several wives is not against nature.

2. Likewise, Augustine says that «it was not against a precept, because by no law was this prohibited»; but what is against the right of nature is prohibited in the law of nature: therefore etc.

3. Likewise it seems so *by reason*: because «what food is for the health of the individual, that marriage is for the conservation of the species»; but it is lawful to use several foods for the conservation of the individual: therefore also to have several wives for the conservation of the species.

4. Likewise, the joining of male and female is for the multiplication of offspring, which is according to the dictate of nature: therefore if the wife is barren, nature dictates that he may beget from another, since everyone, so far as pertains to nature, desires to leave seed and offspring upon the earth: therefore it is not *against*, but *according to* nature.

### Conclusion

> **Conclusion.** To use several wives is against the right of nature, taken commonly and properly.

**I respond:** It must be said that, as was said above, that distinction being presupposed: if «*natural right* be called that which is written in the Law and the Gospel», then it is natural right that there be one wife of one husband. *They shall be*, he says, *two in one flesh*, both in the old and in the new [testament]. — But if *natural right* be called that which right reason dictates, still it is true, because nature still dictates, in accordance with what belongs to right reason, that one should not do to another what he does not wish done to himself; but a man does not wish his wife to have another man: neither therefore ought he to wish to have another wife, since in such an act, as was seen above, they are judged equal and come together as equals. — If *natural right* be called that which nature has impressed upon animals, then it must be said that it impressed it *not on all*, but on some brute animals; but nevertheless it is in the nature of some irrational animals, and it planted [it] in *our own* nature. — And this is evident by experience, from the fact that in marriage there is a certain *singular love*, in which no stranger shares; whence naturally every man is jealous of his wife in this respect, that she love no one as she loves him in that act; and every wife likewise is jealous of her husband in this respect: whence, nature standing [as it is], there would never have been *community* there, even if other things were common. — Likewise, *when charity comes*—which makes all things to be common—it never makes a wife common, on account of the *private* love which ought to be in marriage, which is also the *Sacrament* of that love by which *God* is jealous for the soul, so that He wills not that anyone be loved so much [as Himself]; so too the *soul* in no way wills to be deserted by God for the sake of another. And in this the wisdom of God is manifest, which shows *itself* to us *in ourselves*, and shows to our very selves what we ought *to do*, in the *creatures subject* [to us], according to that [word] of Job: *Ask the beasts, and they will teach you*; but the mind of man, darkened, does not attend to this. — It must therefore be granted that to use several wives is against the right of nature.

**To the arguments:**

*To 1.* To that, then, which is objected—that when it was the custom, it was not a sin—it must be said that that custom was approved not by men only, but by God, as will appear later; and therefore it was not a sin.

*To 2.* To that which is objected—that it was not against a precept—it must be said that it calls a *precept* [something] expressed outwardly by word or writing, as the Mosaic law.

*To 3.* To that which is objected concerning food, it must be said that it is not similar: because there it is the use of an inferior thing, here it is the use of an equal, and therefore of one; otherwise the superior comes to be. *Moreover*, there is a *mutual* love, and therefore a *mutual jealousy*, and therefore *singularity*.

*To 4.* To that which is objected—that such an act is for multiplication etc.—it must be said that although nature dictates that offspring is to be multiplied, yet it dictates: *duly* and *in order*, and in such a way that *no injury be done to anyone*; and therefore one must rather cease from the generation of offspring than that injury be done to anyone; and therefore not even is another wife to be taken. Likewise, although nature dictates that the good of *advantage* is to be sought, yet not to the prejudice of the *honorable* good; and the *honorable* consists in the rectitude of justice and in the observance of faith, whereas the good of advantage is in the fecundity of offspring. Hence it is that, for the generating of offspring, another wife ought not to be added, unless God dispense.

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