Husband of one wife

An overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife. The Greek — mias gunaikos andra, "a one-woman man" — is cited as the main scriptural basis for restricting pastoral office to men.

1 Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:6 list qualifications for episkopos (overseer, elder). The phrase mias gunaikos andra is literally "a one-woman man." Complementarian readers argue the male gender of the qualification is definitional: elders must be men. Egalitarian readers argue the phrase is a fidelity requirement (one wife, not many; not a divorcee; not a philanderer) in a culture where polygamy and concubinage were common, and that it no more requires elders to be male than it requires them to be married — Paul himself was not. Church polity has divided on this verse for two thousand years.