http://www.openbible.info/topics/polygamy
Moses was a polygamist, so was David, the Patriachs, etc. Check it out. Leverite marriage, where it's actually required, is listed there in Dueteronomy. Very interesting. I have to say that I see nowhere in that list where polygamy is an "abomination", unless it involves the marriage of a mother and daughter to the same man under passages in Leviticus. The clear implication is that it's just fine otherwise. Please tell me where the Bible says that polygamy is an "abomination."
A legitimate argument that polygamy should at least be tolerated based on biblical standards emerges from all that, no? I used to be a Catholic, non-deomonimational now. I recall that Augustine believed that polygamy was permissible in biblical terms, but that Christians shouldn't practice it as there was no need for it in his late-Roman-period world and its practice violated Roman customary law. So, the rejection of polygamy seems to me to be one of those cases where RCC doctrine strayed from the teachings of the Bible to accommodate the secular world.
Where do I err?
I confess that I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict the Scripture. If a man wishes to marry more than one wife he should be asked whether he is satisfied in his conscience that he may do so in accordance with the word of God. In such a case the civil authority has nothing to do in the matter." (De Wette II, 459, ibid., pp. 329-330.)
I'm not a great bible scholar, but I do believe that we should try to live by Biblical principles and that we need to try to weed out accretions from the general culture when we identify them. Do you disagree with Luther on this one? It seems to me, as I said, that the RCC actually disallowed something that was permitted in the OT and not explicitly forbidden in the NT, in order not to cause trouble for the Church with pagan Rome. And maybe that was a perfectly legitimate thing to do at the time. But aren't we at a spot now where this should be re-examined in terms of the what the Bible actually says?