What's so wrong with polygamy?

[Aquila]

I don't think we can paint a broad picture of polygamy as being lust in every instance.

I know of a situation wherein a wife had a friend at work. They were like sisters separated from birth. Soon they were best friends and became inseparable. The husband had never seen his wife so happy. The woman and the husband were also becoming close friends. Both the women helped him handle the chores, shopping, and with the kids. Well, as it turned out, one evening the three of them had an "intimate encounter". The relationship between the three of them began a two year love affair, the woman even living with them. When the wife's mother found out about it she rebuked her daughter and demanded the love affair end, or she'd tell all. At first the couple wanted to stand by their love for the second woman. But the second woman didn't want to be the cause of a rift in the extended family. The second woman decided to leave one day and called off work, packed up, and left. She quit her job and moved out of state with a member of her family. She left a moving letter professing her love for them and explaining why she chose to leave, begging for their understanding. The couple was heart broken. You'd have thought someone died. For weeks they tried to contact her, to no avail. They never saw her again. Today they admit, right or wrong, they both fell in love with her and a day doesn't pass that they don't think about her. They say they had never been happier or felt more free, more themselves. They've grieved the woman's leaving like a death or divorce.

It's like some tragic European love story.

Considering this, I can't say that a relationship with multiple partners is always "lust". Sometimes there is deep emotion, closeness, and what they profess is love.

Maybe if they could have legally married and been accepted, things might have ended differently. But most likely not.

My biggest concern is the closeness involved. Two people trying to live as one fails almost half the time. Add one other will of a human being, and people are more than likely to experience deep heart break.

Polygamy...Sin? I'll let God be the judge. But I'd strongly admonish against such a complicated marriage for the emotional well being of all parties involved.

Frankly, if a couple wants this sort of thing, society need not embrace polygamy. It's not unheard of in the West for a man to have a mistress with his wife's knowledge. It's essentially the same thing as a concubine.