"When a man takes a woman to a wife and becomes her husband...." (Deuteronomy 24:1)

Is there a positive commandment in the Bible to get married? If there is, where is it to be found? What about polygamy and the possibility of "legal mistresses"?

And finally, how seriously do we take the Talmudic principle, "One cannot completely remove a verse from the context of its plain and simple meaning" (Ein mikra yotzei midei p'shuto)?

The verse we quoted above, describing what is liable to happen when a man "takes" a woman, provides Rambam
Rabbi Yosef Karo agrees with the Rosh: the major purpose of marriage is procreation.
with the basic source for the Biblical commandment for a man to marry a woman (Book of Commandments, Positive Command 213). Interestingly enough, however, the "Rosh", Rabbenu Asher, basing himself upon the unique and unusual blessing of the groom under the nuptial canopy, which is not at all the usual blessing preceding a commandment, insists that the Biblical command is, "You shall be fruitful and multiply." For this great decisor, marriage is merely the means (and perhaps only one of several means) for performing the commandment to procreate (Rashi to Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot, commentary to Chapter 1,12).

This difference of opinion continues in our codes of law. The Shulhan Arukh, Even HaEzer (the 16th Century Set Table Code of Jewish Law, "Laws of Procreation and Marriage", 1:1), opens with the words: "It is incumbent upon every individual to marry a woman in order that he may procreate, and whoever does not occupy himself with procreating is likened to someone who sheds blood; he is lessening the image of G-d within humanity and causing the Divine Presence to be removed from Israel." Clearly Rabbi Yosef Karo agrees with the Rosh: the major purpose of marriage is procreation.

However, the "Ramah", Rabbi Moshe Isserless of Krakow, the great 16th Century Ashkenazi decisor, seems to be taking his Sephardi counterpart to task when he adds to his words (in his comments which are called the "Table Cloth" to the "Set Table"; i.e. the Shulhan Arukh): "Whoever is without a wife is left alone without blessing and without Torah and cannot be called a whole person...." (ibid.) And Rabbenu Asher's own son, Rabbenu Yaakov, author of the Turim, seems to depart from his father's position when he opens the "Laws of Procreation" in his codified Halakhic forerunner to the Set Table, the Four Turim: "Praised be the name of the Holy One blessed be He, who wishes only for the good of his creatures, and who understood that it is not good for the human being to be alone. Therefore, He created for him a counterpart (in the form of woman and in the institution of marriage). And additionally, since the purpose of creation is for the human species to procreate (and continue the species) which would be impossible without his female counterpart, the human being is commanded to cleave unto his counterpart whom He created for him...." Apparently, for the Ramah, procreation is an additional, but not the main, reason for marriage.

There are many ramifications to this difference between these great Halakhic commentaries and decisors: the basic purpose of marriage (and therefore what one must look for in a life's partner); the permissibility of birth control; the possibility of marriage even if a young couple is not yet ready (for valid reasons) to have children; and the role of sexual relations within married life, etc.

Fascinatingly, however, although Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik has spoken and written widely about marriage (see for example The Lonely Man of Faith and Family Redeemed), he has not (at least in these writings) made reference to this fundamental dispute. The axiom of all of "the Rav's" thought is the tragedy of human loneliness, human redemption through the marital relationship (which must include a meeting of souls and minds, as well as of bodies) and the necessity of profound communication between husband and wife in order for a family to ultimately enter into community with the Divine.

It seems to me that, for the Rav, the Biblical description of the first marriage between Adam and Eve must be considered as the deciding statement regarding the meaning of marriage for Judaism. "It is not good for the human being to be alone," and the formation of Eve from Adam's side pictures husband and wife as two parts of one
There are many ramifications to this difference between these great Halakhic commentaries and decisors.
whole, demanding a relationship of mutual respect rather than unilateral conquest. They are "flesh of one flesh, bone of one bone." And the concluding crescendo, "Therefore shall a human being leave his/her father and mother, cleave unto his/her spouse, and they shall be one flesh" (Genesis 2:18-25), made the positive commandment of marriage a foregone conclusion, with polygamy and mistresses an aberration which was perhaps necessary during certain periods and in certain societies.

Story Post-Script
It is told of Moses Mendelssohn, 18th Century German Jewish philosopher and Biblical commentator, that he fell in love with a student whom he was tutoring, Frumit Guggenheim. The problem was that Mendelssohn, albeit scholarly, was poor, short and hunchbacked, whereas Frumit was tall, beautiful, rich and accomplished. One day, he began his lesson telling her how he had dreamt the night before that - as the Talmud explains it - he heard the Divine announcement forty days before his birth that the two of them had been ordained to marry. However, he also saw in his dream that she was to be born a deformed hunchback. He then went before the Divine throne, argued that since a husband and wife are truly "one flesh," one human being, he would request that her hunchback go to him, and G-d granted his request.

She then demurely said, "If this is a proposal of marriage, I accept."