Genesis 30:15
And she said unto her, Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband? and wouldest thou take away my son’s mandrakes also? And Rachel said, Therefore he shall lie with thee to night for thy son’s mandrakes. And she said unto her, Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband? and wouldest thou take away my son’s mandrakes also? And Rachel said, Therefore he shall lie with thee to night for thy son’s mandrakes.
The verse stands in the interval between Jacob's night at Bethel in Genesis 28 and his return to Canaan in Genesis 32, during his years in Haran in the land of the children of the East when he served Laban fourteen years for his two daughters Leah and Rachel. It belongs to the account in Genesis 29 and Genesis 30 of the marriages to Leah and Rachel and of the sons that were born to Jacob there. Within that account it records the bargain over the mandrakes between Rachel and Leah in Jacob's troubled household.
That household history belongs to an account of a patriarchal violation of the marriage institution. Such violations did not make marriage itself any less sacred and did not diminish or lessen its sacred character. Marriage retains that sacred character because it was established before the fall. The rivalry between Jacob's wives in Genesis 30 shows the very great unhappiness that polygamy brought into his family, proving polygamy was never anything but evil and wrong.
The period illustrates selfish plotting and reciprocal overreaching, for as Jacob had deceived his father he was himself deceived. Those who overreach others may themselves meet overreaching, and retribution comes in time. Despite Jacob's selfishness and unfaithfulness during this period, God cared for him.