Difficult Questions: Where Did Cain Get His Wife?

From time to time, we dig into Scripture and seek answers to difficult questions from the Bible. Today, we are asking the question: “Where did Cain get his wife?”

And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch. Genesis 4:16-17 (KJV)

We see here that although Cain was sent out from the presence of God, he found a wife and married her. Who was she? Maybe the following verse will shed some light on things.

And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth: And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. Genesis 5:3-5 (KJV)

Adam and the generations that immediately followed lived hundreds of years and had many sons and daughters. Just as God had instructed Adam and Eve, they multiplied and repopulated the earth. It is not difficult to imagine that the descendants of Adam spread out across the earth in many directions and had sons and daughters of their own. We do not know for sure if Adam had other children before Cain, but it is possible. And we don’t know how old Cain was when he killed his brohter. So, by the time Cain killed Abel, and was banished, there may have been multitudes of Adam’s descendants on the earth.

In the beginning, man had to marry sisters and other close relatives since that’s all there was. The amount of sin and contamination in the human bloodline wasn’t as great and intermarrying was not considered wrong. It was later, in Leviticus, that God forbid marriage between brother and sister.

The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, whether she be born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover. Leviticus 18:9 (KJV)

Given all that we have discussed, it is obvious that Cain got his wife the same way any other man got his wife at that time- by marrying a relative. Whether she was a sister, cousin, niece, or some other relation, we don’t know. But we can be assured she was a family member of some kind. She likely lived some distance away from Adam and Eve since Cain had been banished and was sent away.