What's so wrong with polygamy?

[MissBrattified]

1. I think in Bible days (and in certain cultures now) it was practiced because they wanted to have as many children as possible. Certainly that was the case for kings who needed to produce heirs to the throne, and with a much higher infant mortality rate, they needed to have a lot of babies in order to end up with a few heirs.

2. From a practical standpoint, polygamy should be discouraged for many different reasons that I don't have time to explore today, much of which have to do with the integrity of the husband/wife relationship. There are other complicating factors, such as the possible increase in abusive behavior (due to being a secretive union), favoritism and the neglect of one or more wives. Since it isn't necessary in our culture (or our religion) to produce lots of children, then it does boil down to being essentially a lust issue. A man wanting more than one woman, for the sake of variety and not much more. If my husband wants another wife--he can have one. Without me. I don't share. If a woman willingly participates in a polygamous relationship, I'll question her sanity, though not necessarily her morals. Mormonism in particular falls into the category of religions that want to produce as many children as possible, so I can understand someone in that religion seeing it as necessary to be in a polygamous relationship. Also, it's illegal in the United States, and no Christian should participate in an illegal activity that would bring a reproach on the church. However, IMO, polygamy shouldn't be illegal. Children and women could be protected better if such marriages were out in the open.

3. From a scriptural standpoint, we don't have much to go on, other than the stipulations for bishops or deacons and the fact that in the beginning God gave one wife to one man.

[Hoovie]

Ms Bratti, I think you take a leap when you say my motivation would be lust while others like Mormons are motivated simply by multiplying their offspring.

How could you possibly know that?

[MissBrattified]

Originally Posted by Hoovie

Ms Bratti, I think you take a leap when you say my motivation would be lust while others like Mormons are motivated simply by multiplying their offspring.

How could you possibly know that?

I only read the OP before I responded, so I didn't see your theory about repopulating the earth with Christians until after I posted.

If that's your motivation, then that would fall under religious reasons. Can you think of any motivations other than that? If someone didn't feel the need to reproduce for religious reasons, and they have no cultural need to produce many children or multiple heirs, what other reasons are there?

[Hoovie]

Originally Posted by MissBrattified

I only read the OP before I responded, so I didn't see your theory about repopulating the earth with Christians until after I posted.

If that's your motivation, then that would fall under religious reasons. Can you think of any motivations other than that? If someone didn't feel the need to reproduce for religious reasons, and they have no cultural need to produce many children or multiple heirs, what other reasons are there?

I don't want to defend the practice. Just saying the motivation for two may be the same as the motivation for one if the culture and religion allowed it. In addition to populating your descendants it might include economic, social, and religious reasons.

[Cindy]

Why are there only multiple wives? Why not multiple husbands?

[canam]

Several things!!

[TJJJ]

Living in Utah like I do, we have polygamist friends and neighbors. This is still a real issue here and a real thing that does still go on.

I was talking to one just last tuesday who is going to be taking his first wife out of the allard clan up in montana.

This clan where I live is the kingston clan.

There are many clans and they intermarry among the clans.

They are getting more and more outspoken about their lifestyle and their clans are growing. This is not getting less but more common as the homosexual agenda is changing the way america looks at marriage. They are ecstatic about what is going on.

What I see as the problem is the lack of ability to interact as a father to the many children that a man might have. There is just no time to be daddy to 32 children,

They do enjoy their lifestyle though.

[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.

[TJJJ]

Aquila,

It is still perversion.

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by TJJJ

Aquila,

It is still perversion.

Polygamy? Eh, God's law commanded it in certain contexts. Legislated it in others. And God even told David he had no reason to sin, because God Himself had given David wives from the house of Saul...and if that were not enough, God Himself would have given David even more. I find David's adultery is clearly sin, his polygamy wasn't condemned.

I have a handful of books on ancient manners and customs like this one. We have to read the Bible in an Eastern mindset or we miss judge. They didn't view sex the way our Puritan ancestors did here in the West. If you have a grasp of Hebrew euphemism, you'd be shocked at some of the allusions right under our noses.

The Bible spares nothing on calling perversion and abomination what they are. If polygamy was among them, God's Word would be clear.

In the NT polygamy was already banned by the Romans, and only practiced in rebellion by a few Jewish sects. Paul did well to admonish elders and deacons to be husbands of one wife. NT symbol of one Lord and one bride also fitting.