This article examines a brewing legal and cultural clash over marriage in America where a revival of biblical polygyny and Gen Z’s embrace of polyamory are pushing against 19th-century bigamy laws and the assumption that marriage must be two adults. It traces the theological arguments, demographic concerns, and legal warnings offered by proponents and critics, and shows how both movements, though opposite in origin, target the same legal boundary that defines marriage.
For years defenders of traditional marriage warned that changing the definition of marriage would have consequences beyond same-sex unions, warnings often dismissed as slippery-slope fearmongering. Today, two very different forces are testing that slope: a religious push to revisit biblical plural marriage and a secular shift among young people toward non-monogamous arrangements. Both movements press on the same legal and cultural seam that has held marriage to a dyadic form.
Pastor Rich Tidwell has been a focal point in the theological revival of plural marriage, drawing sharp criticism from many conservative circles while answering with Scripture. Tidwell has framed marriage as a covenant between individuals and God rather than a purely civil contract, insisting he does not feel spiritually compelled to obtain a state license even if monogamous. He argues that Scripture treats sexual union as covenantal and that reframing sex as covenant would challenge hookup culture and shift male responsibility.
Tidwell contends that biblical polygyny is not an endorsement of sexual chaos but a regulated practice within biblical narratives, and he insists it tightens sexual ethics because a man is accountable to every woman he joins himself to. He has called “Monogamy-Only” a “Doctrine of Demons,” arguing that enforced monogamy leaves many Christian women unmarried and the nation failing its duty to “be fruitful and multiply.” Tidwell presents his case as an attempt to align modern Christian practice with what he reads in Scripture.
Rob Kowalski approaches plural marriage from a demographic and strategic angle, arguing that Western birth rates and family formation are collapsing and that current marriage norms are failing to sustain civilization. He warns that the existing marriage paradigm will not produce replacement-level births and frames reopening discussion of polygyny as a potential response to demographic decline. Kowalski is careful to say he is not attacking monogamy itself but criticizing mandatory monogamy enforced as a moral doctrine.
Kowalski also links the marriage debate to broader civilizational competition, noting that groups with higher birth rates will outpace those that do not adapt. He sees a breakdown in trust and family formation that could leave a vacuum filled by other social systems if conservatives and religious communities do not address the underlying demographic trends. For him, the question is practical as well as theological: who will shape the norms if change happens?
Not all Christian scholars accept that biblical plural marriage should be revived or normalized, and they point to legal and theological limits. Dr. Owen Anderson warns that redefining marriage solely around consent removes any principled reason to stop at two people. He stresses that New Testament fulfillment, not Old Testament exception, sets the Christian standard and argues the state has an interest in one relationship that produces new citizens — a man and a woman.
Other pastors in local churches have delivered a pastoral reality check, saying that reading Scripture holistically points toward monogamous union as the New Testament pattern. They note biblical polygyny often produces jealousy and instability in the narratives and argue the New Testament sharpens the standard toward singular, exclusive marital unions. These pastors insist that historical examples are descriptive rather than prescriptive for Christian marriage.
At the same time, Gen Z’s social shift toward polyamory and open relationships represents a secular path to the same legal question: who counts as family and what structures deserve recognition and protection. Surveys show large minorities among younger adults increasingly view monogamy as outdated and consider non-monogamous arrangements acceptable. Some municipalities have already moved to acknowledge multi-adult domestic partnerships and to forbid discrimination on relationship-structure grounds.
The two movements are culturally distinct — one rooted in Scripture and tradition, the other in autonomy and identity — but converging on a single legal battleground. If courts or legislatures start redefining marriage around consent and individual autonomy rather than demographic function or theological tradition, plural marriage challenges could follow from both religious advocates and secular practitioners.
The choice now facing conservatives is strategic: defend the historic civil definition of marriage based on its social function, or cede the legal frame and let others determine how marriage evolves. Either outcome will reshape institutions that raise children, assign rights, and manage social stability, and these stakes explain why the debate is intensifying across pulpit and campus alike.
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