The bishops’ conferences of Africa discussed the pastoral challenges of polygamy – and the problems created by canon law.
Aug 07, 2025
The bishops’ conferences of Africa this week concluded their continent-wide plenary assembly at which they discussed a new document on the history and contemporary practice of polygamy, as well as the pastoral care of people in polygamous relationships.
The draft document, “The Pastoral Challenges of Polygamy” was presented Friday at the 20th plenary assembly of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar which is in Kigali, Rwanda.
The 29-page text lays out the cultural and legal issues around African experiences of polygamy, as well as the Church’s teaching, “to critically assess pastoral practices, as well as the law and theology which support them.”
“Polygamy is one of the subjects which acutely poses the great question of inculturation, which has inhabited all Christians in the world since the beginnings of Christianity,” the document said.
As such, “it will be necessary to answer two questions: What pastoral care can be appropriate to help those who have been encountered by the Gospel while in a polygamous relationship? What pastoral care can we implement to help Christians adhere to monogamous marriage?”
The document did not propose specific pastoral solutions for dealing with polygamy across Africa — though it did evaluate some of the most common practices. Instead, the text was drafted to serve as a framework and basis for discussion, both in Kigali at the SECAM plenary assembly and among the various member conferences across the continent.
The text offered a critical look at some of the more widespread pastoral practices, including informal toleration of polygamous situations in some places and the creation of a kind of “permanent catechuman” status for those seemingly unable to extricate themselves from multiple unions.
But the document also made a new critique of current canonical provisions for polygamous men seeking baptism while regularizing their union to one wife — noting especially that the application of canon law in the African cultural context has often been seen as abetting injustice, and causing scandal.
While taking seriously the need for pastoral accompaniment, the text concluded with an affirmation that all evangelization and conversion required the “radical” proclamation of the Gospel and, eventually, an experience of “incarnation, death and resurrection,” both at the individual and societal level.
So, what exactly did the text say? The Pillar is here to walk you through.Subscribe
A traditional practice
The bishops’ document noted that in parts of Africa, polygamy is widespread, calling it “one of the oldest [social] forms in many African societies,” with the practice being “completely normal” in “traditional society.”
The document notes the various social and cultural roots and motivations for the practice, including the support of a clan-based society, the need for large extended families with many children in traditionally nomadic and agrarian societies, and even the reality of multiple wives as a matter of “prestige.”
None of this is unique to Africa, the text noted, though in many other places the practice has effectively died out. But while “this reality is not unique to Africa, it is universal,” the document noted that “the practice of polygamy is most visible on the African continent, and it is there that Christians feel most challenged.”
In many parts of Africa, the practice of polygamy is still common and even developing as a civil structure, often presenting new legal and pastoral complications and challenges: “In the vast majority of African societies, only the first wife has the status of wife,” the document said.
“This traditional legal provision, however, has evolved in Islamic societies where polygamy has become the law. In this context, the proclamation of the Gospel quickly encountered the situation of aspirants to baptism living in a situation of polygamy.”
The document also noted that the experience of Western-style secularization was also producing new social issues and pastoral challenges from “other postmodern forms of polygamy and the growing phenomenon, particularly in the Americas, of ‘polyamory,’ which is seeking legitimacy and for which the situation of African polygamists could well serve as a pretext.”
“Indeed, socio-cultural changes in Africa are very significant. Decolonization, almost as brutal as colonization, contributed to this. Thus, the traditional environment has crumbled,” said the text. “With the ethical collapse, we now note a real distrust of traditional institutions and values, both socio-economic, cultural, political and religious.”
Far from dying out, the document found that polygamy is proving both adaptable and robust in many parts of Africa.
“While modernization, demographic transition, and convergence toward the nuclear family model might have suggested a gradual disappearance of polygamy, its sustainability reveals the weight of traditions and social codes,” it said. “Indeed, in a country where divorce is seen as a social catastrophe, and being a single woman is almost intolerable, polygamy represents, for some, a path to salvation.”
In total, 31 African countries legally recognize polygamy, in one form or another, and so it is simply not a reality the Church can either ignore or expect to disappear on its own.
A synodal-Scriptural approach
Because of the widespread custom and legal reality of polygamy, the document said, “in the synodal process of the universal Church, SECAM and the Christians of Africa have been asked to examine the issue in depth and to make relevant pastoral proposals based on their concrete experience, but which can inspire other communities in other parts of the world.”
Taking as a starting point the praxis of “see-judge-act,” the document said the synodal approach to the reality of polygamy was considered on the basis of “listen-appreciate-engage.”
“To enlighten our pastoral discernment, we must allow ourselves to be challenged by the Word of God. It does not give us ready-made answers, but it does inspire us,” the document said, noting the numerous examples of polygamy within the Old Testament.
“Nevertheless,” the document concluded, “despite this strong tendency towards polygamy, monogamy is exalted.”
“God created man and woman, Adam and Eve. This parable of creation has paradigmatic value” it said. “Moreover, the patriarchs of the line of Seth are monogamous,” it observes, and “the preaching of the prophets leads to an ever-increasing respect for women, symbolizing the people in their relationship with God. Biblical law guarantees their promotion.”
“Finally,” the document notes, “the theology of the Covenant exalts the figure of monogamous marriage: Israel is the unique spouse of the One God.”
“In conclusion to this listening to the biblical experience, it emerges that God the Father is a teacher who gradually educates his children,” said the text.
“This is the case with marriage and its different forms. He allowed polygamy to continue for centuries. But, in his Son, he shows that polygamy is not the ideal of the couple wanted by God. In the spirit of the Matthewian antitheses, Jesus recalls the ideal of monogamous marriage wanted by the Creator: one man and one woman.”
As applied to the pastoral care of persons in polygamous situations, especially in social contexts where this is common and even legally acknowledged as an acceptable norm, “the Church, in its capacity as teacher, and therefore as pedagogue, must, in the light of the Word of God, lead the polygamous man or woman to ask themselves questions about the relevance of their choice,” the document said.
“Indeed, can having shared feelings between several wives or several husbands not be a source of psychological discomfort? Similarly, can a man or woman live in deep communion with a wife or husband who is not entirely theirs? Is there not a risk of erecting a sort of marital infidelity as a standard of life?”
“The choice to follow Christ must be clear, without compromise and with the requirement to take up one’s cross and truly commit to promoting for oneself and for others a liberating way of living and thinking, in conformity with the Word of God,” the document advised.Subscribe
Practical considerations
While noting that the first Chirstinan missionaries to arrive in Africa were uncompromising in their condemnation of polygamy and their insistence that conversion to monogamy was intrinsic to the conversion to Christianity, the draft text also noted that “Christianizing and Westernizing went almost hand in hand.”
But even then, “there was a real fear of letting the family structure slide into a form of instability,” according to the document, “not to mention the blow to the freedom and dignity of women,” which could accompany the wholesale upheaval of the social order without a coherent alternative in place.
These same concerns continued even through the second half of the twentieth century, resulting in a reticence to engage with the issue too directly in Church documents, even in the post synodal exhortation following the Synod on the Church in Africa in 1994, according to the text.
By 2014, and amid preparations for the Synod on the Family, SECAM recommended more attention to individuals and their situations.
In doing so, the bishops recalled that “the practice currently proposed [in canon law] is to choose a wife. Furthermore, [at that time], more attention [was] recommended to those who experience polygamy: some cases would require special and courageous attention from pastors called, following the Apostle Paul, to exercise the power that Christ has entrusted to them to discern and find more appropriate responses to these situations.”
“Nevertheless,” the text explained, “in the spirit of the future post-synodal exhortation Amoris Laetitia, the emphasis was placed neither on the law nor on the sanction, but rather on the accompaniment which testifies to the tenderness of God of which Jesus and his Church want to be witnesses.”
The draft text identified three basic pastoral practices which are most commonly deployed in meeting the situation of polygamy in Africa. The test does not endorse any of them; rather, it presents them as realities which the bishops need to assess and discuss.
The first of these is the transition by the man to monogamy through the “choice” of the “first or favorite wife,” in which a sacramental union is either affirmed or entered into but without dissolving the requirements of justice and care towards the other “wives” and children.
The second practice proposes to give the polygamist a status of “permanent catechumen.”
“In this case, the accompaniment is done through catechumenal formation that does not conclude with the sacrament of baptism, but with the granting of an official document that recognizes the individual as a candidate for baptism,” the text said. “In this sense, he is accepted into the community and remains a catechumen, given the impossibility of breaking the marital bonds of polygamy and the obligations towards children and wives that these bonds imply.”
Of course, the obvious problem with this approach is that the “permanent catechumen” remains excluded from sacramental participation in the Church. “On the other hand,” the document noted that “this polygamous family can request the baptism of their children, receive the sacraments offered by the Church, and lead a life of Christian witness.”
While the concept of a “permanent catechumen” obviously raises questions and concerns, the text noted that rejecting pastoral contact with a polygamist effectively shuts the door on evangelization and “baptizing a polygamist who will continue to remain so would give every appearance of legitimizing this irregularity and could distort or even devalue baptism of its substance as the first sacrament of Christian initiation.”
The document also considered the idea that baptism could be given in an “anticipatory” manner to polygamous catechumens who were working towards regularizing their situation but concluded that “to do so would create more problems than it would solve, especially considering the rights that flow from baptism, including the right to receive the other sacraments.”
“Furthermore, it would not be fair to thousands of baptized people who have accepted the Gospel and abandoned polygamy to mark their conversion and faith in Christ,” the text said. “Those who are not baptized are constantly exhorted to prepare themselves to receive Christ and his Word for a new life which involves the choice of abandoning polygamy.”
The third practice highlighted by the text is the baptism of the first wife of the polygamous relationship, and in doing so treating her as essentially a “victim” of subsequent adulterous unions.
According to the document, “since the converted party is not obliged to withdraw from the marital relationship, a new path opens up for them. They now have the responsibility and the important mission of living according to the faith in an unconverted family environment.”
However, the bishops’ draft text also noted a fourth common practice which a kind of “veiled polygamy” is practiced and tolerated, and “corresponds to permissive behavior in men or women who have lovers, people with whom they maintain free relationships.”
In this case, “the process of Christian initiation is then organized and oriented not towards the couple, but towards the person requesting baptism, which results in the baptism of a woman who has children, but no husband.”
While the circumstances this kind of practical toleration seeks to address are real enough, the document said, “this situation is harmful to society and the Church, even if it does not pose a doctrinal problem.”
Canonical considerations
Some of the pastoral practices associated with polygamy present obvious canonical issues, which the bishops’ text addressed at length.
In addition to considering the lack of a doctrinal or canonical basis for a “permanent catechumen,” document also considered the idea that baptism could be given in an “anticipatory” manner to polygamous catechumens who were working towards regularizing their situation but concluded that “to do so would create more problems than it would solve, especially considering the rights that flow from baptism, including the right to receive the other sacraments.”
“Furthermore, it would not be fair to thousands of baptized people who have accepted the Gospel and abandoned polygamy to mark their conversion and faith in Christ,” the text said. “Those who are not baptized are constantly exhorted to prepare themselves to receive Christ and his Word for a new life which involves the choice of abandoning polygamy.”
In dealing with instances in which a person or people in a polygamous situation present themselves for baptism and wishing to regularize their union, the Code of Canon Law has a clear legal mechanism for addressing the situation, which the bishops’ text noted, while advancing its own critique as it is applied in the African context.Subscribe
The first canonical treatment of the issue was issued by Pope Paul III in 1537, followed by Gregory XIII 34 years later. Both popes folded their treatments of the issue into wider provisions for missionaries.
Paul III’s basic premise remains the basic premise on which the Church still proceeds:
“Concerning their marriage, We decree that this is to be observed: That those who before conversion had several wives, in accordance with their customs, and do not remember which one they took first should, when converting to the faith, take from one among them, whichever they will, and should contract a marriage with her using words related to the present in the usual way; but those who remember whom they took first should retain that one and send the others away.”
The canonical presumption remains in favor of the “first wife,” but when there is a case of doubt there is the possibility of a “favorite” wife being chosen.
The 1917 Code of Canon Law made these provisions for “the Indies” applicable wherever “the same circumstances” made them appropriate.
The 1983 Code made things a little more nuanced, introducing the option to pick a wife other than the first if remaining with the first wife would be “hard,” in the language of the Code, but added the obligation to provide for the needs of the other now-dismissed wives according to the norms of “justice, Christian charity, and natural equity,” and keeping in mind the “moral, social, and economic conditions of place and persons.”
Canon 1148 explains that “when he receives baptism in the Catholic Church, a non-baptized man who has several non-baptized wives at the same time can retain one of them after the others have been dismissed, if it is hard for him to remain with the first one. The same is valid for a non-baptized woman who has several non-baptized husbands at the same time.”
The canon adds that “keeping in mind the moral, social, and economic conditions of places and of persons, the local ordinary is to take care that the needs of the first wife and the others dismissed are sufficiently provided for according to the norms of justice, Christian charity, and natural equity.”
Of course, all that operates under the presumption that the man with many “wives” is converting to faith on his own, and will be entering a new, non-sacramental marriage with his unbaptized wife of choice. If a man and one of his “wives” are converting together, intending to form a sacramental union, and none of the rest are seeking baptism, a somewhat different calculus might apply.
In such cases, it is possible for a valid (in the eyes of the law), non-sacramental union between the man and the first (unbaptized) wife to be dissolved in favor of forming a new sacramental union with one of the others if both are receiving baptism (and the first has no intention to convert to Christianity).
However, the African bishops’ draft text noted the need for “a necessary theological reevaluation” of the canonical praxis in some cases.
“In pastoral reality, it is the first wives to whom the corruption of natural marriage has been imposed who have been most harmed” by giving the converting man the effective choice of which wife to retain, the text noted.
“The possibility of choosing a wife left to the polygamous husband requesting baptism has been the occasion for many men to put their first wife ‘in the garage,’ preferring to marry a younger woman in Christian marriage for reasons that are certainly not always those of faith,” said the draft.
While acknowledging that canon law makes provision for the husband to still provide for the other wives, the text said that “the measures accompanying this practice are not sufficient because, in reality, they only take into account the material needs of the parties involved in the situation. The psychological and emotional aspect is left aside, even if [canon law] speaks of a ‘moral condition.’”
The bishops’ draft text also raised concerns with the canonical provision for the man to choose an other-than-the-first wife which are specific to the African cultural context, noting that “it concerns the African conception of marriage, which is not only a contract between a man and a
woman, but involves the entire community of the living, ancestors and future generations.”
“This bond includes the role of the first wife of a polygamist socially considered as the mother of all the wives taken in marriage in the family,” the text said.
“From this perspective, in the choice of the first wife, there is implicitly a duty of justice towards the other women and their offspring. Often the successive marriages of a polygamist are made with the consent of the first wife, which gives her the unique status of mother and queen in the family.”
“It is difficult to untie all the ties woven between families and clans, at the time of separation, reducing the capacity to provide or not to provide for the material needs of the woman who was not retained and her children,” the draft said, calling “a scenario of serious injustice” the man “who wants to convert to Christ by abandoning the one who is the mother of his children, having as justification a new way of believing and leading his life.”
“There is an urgent need to rethink this way of handling cases of polygamists who request their inclusion in the Christian community,” the document said. “It is therefore important to seek a way forward that takes into account the importance of preserving the previous bonds between spouses, thus protecting the most vulnerable in the relationship: the wife and children.”
Inherent tensions
While the text effectively critiques rather than endorses existing pastoral practices, the draft document reflects the essential tension between providing ongoing, even open-ended pastoral care without compromising “the radicality of the Gospel” or promoting the tolerance of irregular situations.
“The fundamental question for pastoral care since the beginning of the Church’s life has been how to present the faith in a given social and cultural context,” it said, while arguing that pastoral proximity, listening and accompaniment are not concepts at odds with the full and uncompromising announcement of Church teaching, but rather essential to doing so effectively.
“By being close and listening, it will be possible [for others] to perceive that polygamy is not a normative condition, even in societies where it is legalized,” it argued. “Accompaniment will maintain the family in its polygamous model, because the spouses cannot break away from the acquired bonds, but it will allow a better understanding of the marital vocation, of its aspect deeply linked to the mystery of Christ and the Church, of God and humanity and of its prophetic character.”
“In this sense,” said the text, “it will be easy to understand that some members of the family meet the conditions for full integration into the Christian community through the reception of the sacraments (the first wife and the children who are members of this family), while the polygamous man and the other women will be invited to live their faith in a penitent manner and in the hope of full integration into the community of Jesus’ disciples.”
The document concluded by noting that authentic evangelization is always rooted in the presentation of Christ’s incarnation, death and resurrection, leading to the ultimate transformation of the whole life of the person seeking baptism.
Authentic inculturation, the text said, mirrors this same dynamic, including “the incarnation in cultures, the critical confrontation with them and the death of some of their elements, and finally the resurrection, that is to say, their transfiguration from within.”
source https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/what-does-the-african-bishops-draft