Do you think polygyny will ever be widespread in the U.S.? I'm talking about marriages, not just bedding multiple women.

I recently befriended a Mormon and started picking his brains about polygynous marriages (his father had mulitple wives). I've since completely flipped from "polygyny is a obviously a sin to" to "not only is it not sinful, it may be the only way that Christians can regain demographic ground in the U.S."

As I see it, the 3 main arguments against polygynous marriage are:

1) Scripture forbids it.

2) Whether or not scripture forbids it, it's the natural order designed by God for one man to have one wife

3) Polygynous marriages lead to abuse/exploitation of women


My refutations:

1) I don't see anywhere in scripture that a man having more than one wife is labeled as a sin. The most often pieces of scripture quoted to make the argument against polygyny are Leviticus 18:18 and  Deuteronomy 17-20. The former specifically says not to take a sister as a wife to create a rivalry, and the latter isn't even aimed at the common man; he was giving standards for the future king of the Israelites.


2) While it's true that a basically equal number of boys and girls are born every year, the number of marriageable men is not equal to the number of marriageable women. Basically every woman is an acceptable candidate to be a wife (fertile and virginal) at some point in her life. That's not true of men.

3) I don't really think this argument against polygyny is worth spending much time refuting. For one thing, there's not enough data to know if that's even true (since polygynous marriage isn't legal in any Western countries), but even if it were, so what? Because some men with multiple wives abuse those wives, that means that nobody should be allowed to do it?

Considering modern western woman?

One psychotic woman is more than enough

No, I don't believe polygyny will ever be widespread in the US.  It is not widespread even in countries where it is legally and culturally acceptable.  Basic economics work against it.
As for your arguments, I can readily see your points.  But outside some black swan event eliminating a large percentage of men I don't see it happening.

That's why you have several so you can rotate through them.

FPNI

Indian Style.

different wife in a different town. different families in different towns with the man rotating.

my grandfather did that. he was Choctaw.

Wide spread ….NO
Happen for some….YES

Women get jealous of each other …..

There are instructions in the New Testament on selecting church leaders that they should be the husband of only ONE wife, so there must have been some who had more than one.

Live like a King…. Report back ….

We already have that. Just because they're not dead, doesn't mean they haven't been removed from the marriage pool. Men have much higher rates of incarceration and homelessness, and general degenerate activity (drugs, alcoholism, etc) than women do.

For years, women have been choosing to share a "high quality" man, rather than having their own lower-quality man. There was a survey that found that something like 65% of men reported as being single, but only 35% of women reported as single. That means women are sharing the more desireable men (even if they don't know it).

FPNI x2

Get your T-levels checked, bro.

Seriously though, many women are the way the are because men allow/ed it.

On the points made by OP.



1) It seems to me that Matthew 19:1-6 is pretty clear.  This also makes an appropriate comparison, which is that of divorce.  It was permitted in the Old Testament, but not under the New.

2) I think you misunderstand natural law.  St. Thomas Aquinas treated this topic punctiliously.

No need for the women to live under one roof and bicker in modern times. Section 8 will provide. The Tom Cat makes his rounds and the taxpayer provides for the females and their kittens.

How is it that you're interpreting that to mean a man can only marry one woman? The point that He is making there is that the marital bond between a man and a woman cannot be separated. A man can make that bond with multiple women. Just like you and I could make sign some kind of ongoing business contract with each other, and then tomorrow I could make another business contract with somebody else. The creation of the second contract doesn't have any effect on the first one.

If you want to look at biology as proof of "natural law" with regards to how many wives a man should have you can look across the animal kingdom and see countless species that have a pretty even sex ratio, and yet often times the females of those species choose to mate with only a percentage of those males, meaning some of the males get zero "wives" and some get many. I would say that's a pretty good design if you want to ensure the continuity of a species. I don't see why that wouldn't apply to humans as well. What would make for a more moral and godly world? If every man got exactly one wife, even the drug addicts, murderers and rapists, or if the men that are held in high regard and are able to protect and provide get multiple wives, while the incompetent and degenerate get none?

First off, my position on the topic does not hinge on that single verse (or on Holy Scripture alone).  However, that verse does seem clear to me, as a confirmation of Genesis 2:24, that the man (a single, distinct person) joins his wife (another single, distinct person) and the two become one.  It makes no sense that this conjoined singularity should exist in multiplicity.  If I am one flesh with wife A and one flesh with wife B, then wife A and wife B must perforce be one flesh.  However, that's a claim that not even polygamists make to the best of my knowledge.  Further, if I am one flesh with wife A and one flesh with wife B, but wife A and wife B are not the same flesh, then I am not the same flesh within myself.  The conclusion is absurd, and as far as I can tell, the problem is not in the logic, but in the premise(s).

Another verse you could consider is 1 Timothy 3:2.  "It behoveth therefore a bishop to be blameless [therefore, not guilty], the husband of one wife [therefore, not of many wives], sober [therefore, not a drunkard], prudent [therefore, not rash], of good behaviour [therefore, not of bad behavior], chaste [therefore, not lustful], given to hospitality [therefore, not unkind toward others], a teacher [therefore, not impatient or unwilling to educate]..."  In this verse we see positive requirements, but the negatives of those seem to all be blamable (guilt, drunkenness, rashness, etc.).  Why should I assume that the "more than one wife" would be the exception in that list of blamable things?

On natural law, I'm not sure I follow how your response relates to the material I provided from St. Thomas Aquinas.

[Deleted]

Lust is the only to motive to multiple wives, because it's the only logical reason to have more than one wife.  It's falsely convincing yourself that adultery and fornication are okay for the greater good, which violates the 1st and 6th commandments.

One wife can give a man far more than a simple net positive, more than one wife can give a man more children than he can father.  

Contraception is a sin against God, it is a false promise of consequence free fornication and adultery, it stops life from happening, and it leads to abortion.  

The family glorifies the Trinity, it symbolizes the Godhead, the marriage of husband and wife are symbolic of Christ and the Church as the one Church is the bride of Christ.

To address the practical implications of having multiple wives, I think you're incorrect. There are several benefits to having more than one wife. For instance:

1) More available labor within the household. One wife can take all the kids to dance class/karate/whatever, while the other(s) tend to other things.
2) Greater household earning potential. One wife can work and the other can stay home to tend to the kids and the house, or they could both work part time.
2) You can have more kids.
3) The wives can find companionship in one another.


With regards to the moral implications.

Lust is the only to motive to multiple wives, because it's the only logical reason to have more than one wife.  It's falsely convincing yourself that adultery and fornication are okay for the greater good, which violates the 1st and 6th commandments.

That is such a stupid statement, dude. If lust is the only motive to have multiple wives, how come lust isn't the only motive to have your first wife? The things that would motivate a man to take a second wife are the exact same things that would motivate a man to take his first wife.

One wife can give a man far more than a simple net positive, more than one wife can give a man more children than he can father.  

That doesn't even make sense.... There's virtually no physiological limit to the number of children a man could father.... Theoretically a man could impregnate several women per day for 50 years... A woman, on the other hand can, most optimistically, only have one child per year for about 20 years.

[i]The family glorifies the Trinity, it symbolizes the Godhead, the marriage of husband and wife are symbolic of Christ and the Church as the one Church is the bride of Christ.

And yet, scripture says that absolutely nowhere. If the bond between a man a woman is symbolic of Christ's bond with his Church, that still not a reasonable inferance that having multiple wives is wrong.

If God wanted us to take only one wife, don't you think he would have said so somewhere in scripture? I mean, he decreed eating pork and shellfish to be wrong under Levitican law. Did it just slip his mind to mention his prohibition on polygyny?

Right, but in case you haven't been outside lately, there are actually about 7+ Billion people on the earth, now. Many of them young women who are seeking Godly husbands....

Now would it have made sense for Adam to only have one wife? Maybe? After all, the only people he even could have married besides Eve would have been his own children.


The "oneness" of flesh between a man and his wife is obviously not to be taken literally... Obviously when a man marries a woman he doesn't physically absorb her into his body. The becoming of one flesh speaks to the unbreakable bond between a man and his wife. Nothing about that prohibits a man from forming that bond with multiple women. If you have kids, I'd assume you have a very strong bond with them. Did the strength of the bond with your first child prohibit you from forming a strong bond to your subsequent kids?



Well for one thing, the verse doesn't actually say exactly one wife. It does say not of many wives but how many is "many?"

Your reference to guilt, drunkenness, and rashness has nothing to do with how many wives that bishop might have. The only part of that verse that pertains to marriage is the husband of one wife, therefore not of many wives. The negative implications associated with drunkenness, being guilty of crimes, etc say absolutely nothing about marriage....


But, more importantly, even if 1 Timothy does prohibit a bishop from having more than one wife, most men aren't bishops are they?

"That is such a stupid statement, dude. If lust is the only motive to have multiple wives, how come lust isn't the only motive to have your first wife? The things that would motivate a man to take a second wife are the exact same things that would motivate a man to take his first wife."

Out of curiosity, how old are you, and are you married?  Children?  

"That doesn't even make sense.... There's virtually no physiological limit to the number of children a man could father.... Theoretically a man could impregnate several women per day for 50 years... A woman, on the other hand can, most optimistically, only have one child per year for about 20 years."

There's no realistic limit to how many children a man can father physically, but spiritually is a much different story.  Again, do you have children?

"And yet, scripture says that absolutely nowhere. If the bond between a man a woman is symbolic of Christ's bond with his Church, that still not a reasonable inferance that having multiple wives is wrong.

If God wanted us to take only one wife, don't you think he would have said so somewhere in scripture? I mean, he decreed eating pork and shellfish to be wrong under Levitican law. Did it just slip his mind to mention his prohibition on polygyny?"

All of your responses to my points show quite a disordered understanding of scripture and Christianity.  There's a reason Christendom has always rejected what it is you're proposing, because there is nothing new under the sun and civilization learned a long time ago that polygyny isn't the way.

If the plan is to outbreed the non-believers, you first have to raise believers.

Back to fathering, if you have more kids than one woman can give you, raising them all with a deep understanding of the faith is not going to happen.  Most likely the environment that it creates (especially the disorder of multiple moms) will do more harm to the culture than good because those kids are going to have severe issues.

One wife, will give you the optimal number of children, as God intended, to produce a net positive of properly cultured Christians.  Given the father is the strong, faithful leader of the family, not the mother, as has become so common unfortunately.  This is the way.

38. Married. 7 kids with baby 8 due in about 4 months.


What are you even talking about? What does that even mean? How many children can a man "spiritually" father? And how did you arrive at that number?


Okay, could you maybe just refute some of the arguments, instead of just insinuating that I am ignorant because I'm unmarried/childless?  

1) Nowhere in scripture are we told not to have multiple wives. I'll assume that if that was in there, you would have pointed it out by now, but you haven't.

2) Christendom has NOT always rejected it. Governments proliferated that idea. Primarily because small families make for a very easy to manipulate population.

It only works if there is a shortage of men. You can send the excess young men off to war to conquer new lands with the promise of captured war brides (or 72 virgins in paradise if killed) or literally dump them off outside of town with a backpack like some Mormon sects are known to do but these are horrible solutions.

Young men are NOT going to work hard to provide for other men's children or quietly accept their eunuch status while the polygamist leaders in the community are allowed to hoard all the nubile young women for themselves. "Sex and Culture" by J.D. Unwin should be required reading for anyone who cares about maintaining civilization.

“The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth”