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Thanks for the links. They provide helpful background and partial answers, but they don't address all the questions raised.

With regard to #1, I believe Frame would be in agreement with my missionary friend on admitting him to membership and not placing any restrictions on his relations with his wives.

With regard to #2, Frame discusses divorce for legitimate grounds (most surprising to me was that he allows both parties, rather than just the "innocent," to remarry others after one party commits adultery), but he doesn't spend as much time on illegitimate divorce, which was the premise of my question. I infer that illegitimate divorce could also be considered desertion, which would thus provide legitimate grounds for divorce and remarriage. So then, the end is the same, no matter how they got there, and in effect, there's no such thing as an illegitimate divorce. This seems to me to be a rather unsatisfying way of looking at it.

Moreover, what are the man's responsibilities toward his ex-wife and their children? She needs, not just money, but man-power (as it were) to help with the kids and the house and such. She'd like to be reconciled or to remarry, but her circumstances make it very difficult and rather unlikely that she will succeed with either. What is the nature of his responsibilities here? Would it be better or worse for him to turn his "serial polygamy" into simultaneous polygamy, with both of his wives and children in the same house? And if it is better, then should he refrain from being intimate with the one of his wives (but cf. #1)?

With regard to #3, Frame doesn't discuss this type of scenario. He says that the biblical view is that marriage is between one man and one woman, and I agree. The problem is that these two people have (imprudently) sworn an oath before God and covenanted together. Which is better, for them to keep their bad covenant or for them to break it? Does the fact that they have adopted children have any influence on the deliberations? Even if one suggests they stay together but be celibate, this will break their vow, which, like normal marriage vows, implied regular intimacy.

Again, I'd like to know the implication of the verses I mentioned for these scenarios.

Thanks for your reply, Jane.

I'm not sure about the separability of vows either (it reminds me of the line-item veto), but it seems to me that "wedding vows" (plural) could refer to the fact that two parties each took a single vow to the other before God. I have also heard it in the singular, as in, "Young man, you need to keep your wedding vow to your wife" or "Didn't you take a vow to 'love, honor, and obey' your husband?" In any case, even if we could find clarity on separability, I don't think it would resolve the problem. A vow made before the Lord is still a vow, even if one made several others at the same time.

The question with respect to those passages I mentioned is what to do with a bad (or rash) vow or covenant, like Jephthah's or Joshua's with the Gibeonites. It seems that for these two instances at least, they were obligated to keep them even though they were foolishly made. Likewise with a young woman -- her rash vow can be voided by her father, but she herself cannot void it. In a Q&A on this topic, Ra said:

[P]erhaps there are situations in which the greater sin is to keep the vow. Each case must be evaluated on its own merits. The point I would make is that we have no biblical examples of cases in which breaking the vow was the lesser of two evils. In the cases of Jephthah, Joshua, and Jacob's marriage to Leah, the vows/covenants prevailed. The same is true in the Law regarding rash vows in Numbers 30. There we are told that it is a sin to make a rash vow (Num. 30:8; only sin requires forgiveness) as well as to break a rash vow (Num. 30:15). We are also told that a rash vow will "stand against" the one who makes it (Num. 30:9). This language is reminiscent of an enemy in battle, or perhaps of a witness in court, implying that the vow will be the adversary of the one who makes it. That is, the vow will be binding, and the result will not be good.

Intuitively and emotionally, I would like to be able to say that sinful vows need not be kept. But I know of no way to support that idea scripturally, except to say that it may well be that in some cases the lesser evil is to break the vow. I would love to be wrong, and to learn that no vow to sin is binding. But at the moment I am persuaded that the Bible teaches that vows are very important, and that they are binding even when we have vowed to do that which is sinful. The question in my mind is: What is the least sinful course of action when we are bound by a sinful vow? And as I said, I think each case must be evaluated on its own merits.

On latitude regarding physical intimacy, we can stretch the example a bit to test the principle further. Let's say the gay or lesbian couple's vow explicitly included a commitment to regular physical relations with exceptions for infirmity and the like. On what basis can we say that it is better to break the sinful vow than to continue in regular physical relations? Jephthah and Joshua seem to militate against this conclusion.