Christian cultures claim to be guided by the New Testament in regard to their view on the position of a wife in society as well as her marriage. The New Testament condemns divorce for both men and women (1 Cor 7:10–11), and assumes monogamy on the part of the husband: the wife is to have her "own" husband, and the husband is to have his "own" wife (1 Cor 7:2). In the medieval period, this was understood to mean that a wife should not share a husband with other wives. As a result, divorce was relatively uncommon in the pre-modern West, particularly in the medieval and early modern period, and husbands in the Roman, later medieval and early modern period did not publicly take more than one wife.