Diarmaid MacCulloch: prediction

Transcript context

…In the history of the West and the world more generally, why does it seem that monotheistic religion and monogamy are so closely correlated? A good question. They are not always closely correlated. They certainly weren’t in Judaism. Judaism is a form of religion in which — let’s call it, very precisely, polygyny rather than polygamy. Polygyny was a feature of Judaism, really, into the 20th century. In cultures where there were Jewish communities in Islam, then polygyny survived within living memory. There are Jewish people alive who would have known that polygynous context. In the West, it is further back with Judaism. It’s the 12th century when Jews ceased to allow polygyny in such circumstances. I suspect that is because the pressures of Western society around them. Western Christian society forced them into a monogamous form. Conversely, monogamy was a feature of two great civilizations behind Christianity which were not at all monotheistic, that is Greek and Roman civilizations, which, most unusually in the ancient world, were monogamous. I strongly suspect we may talk about this more, that this is the reason that Christianity decided to stick with monogamy against its cultural background in Judaism because it wanted to make an impression on Greek and Roman society. So, you’ve got to be monogamous. Otherwise, that society will just not listen to you. There seems to be a feature of Greek and Roman societies emphasizing intellectually a kind of subordination in sexual relationships, which Christianity at least pretends to abolish. Why that shift?…

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