Multiple Wives

I wish I'd seen that show. I think this is a fascinating subculture. The fact that it exists right under our noses with such little awarness and practically no intervention is downright amazing.

I really think you'd like "Under the Banner of Heaven" and another book well worth reading is "Red Water", although fiction it presents an accurate account of the Moutain Meadows Massacre - one of the dirtiest little secrets of American and Mormon history. Each chaper is told by a different wife. Very good book.

Many wives....and one man to rule them all, to reign as Lord and Master.

I don't personally see a problem with it, being as I suppose the concept of marriage is mere tradition, and who's to say having only one wife is right for everyone?

Granted, I see it as completely pointless to vow to anyone inparticular if you're going to give those same vows to someone else, but that's why I remain monogomous.

Marriage as we see it in the Western world had to evolve somehow; who's to say our current "standard" wasn't outrageous way back when? It's all a matter of personal opinion (in my personal opinion).

If the women willingly (now, I am not including the brainwashed women here, mind you - I suppose it could be considered straying off topic - I am referring to a man and a woman who willingly, without hypnosis or persuasion, marry multiple partners or would) commit to a man who has two + wives, then more power to them. However, you wouldn't catch me in their shoes.

The brainwashing, as I mentioned, is a much different story though...

Polygamy in sub-cultures doesn't bother me, the other aspects of extreme mormon religion do. I think I've been to CO City (is it really in AZ and not UT? Maybe it was a different hold out. Maybe I was unclear on the state line.

Anyway - my understanding as a person with minimal anthro training is that polygamy helps to increase population rapidly. More rapidly, by far, than with single-pair marriages.

I man and 300 women could make 300 babies in a year.
I woman and 300 men could make one or two babies in a year.

I would be happy if it were equal - ie women could choose polyandry, too.

Personally, I would be 'appy wiv a few 'ubbies - if they were good uns. And I like living with other women, too.

I imagine the demons of insecurity and jealousy would intrude eventually, though.

i know- but unfortunately some men think they can choose to take another wife whenever they please- regardless of the situations.

even if there is no real reason for the husband to take a second wife would it be allowed if both women were ok with it- (i think so)?

Hey, some friends of mine have a union of 3 men and 3 women, each with
primary and secondary partners of each gender.

And you think your feelings are complicated?

It works. Different things work for different people,
and even if the law doesn't provide certain "marriage" legalities for them ... they
have 99.9% of the benefits already, between the six of them and their kids.

They learn to communicate very well. And to care. And to constantly
grow and share as human beings.

Obviously that's not for me, but I'm glad people find their own ways . . . and that we all have that freedom.

I frankly consider what e_brown has offered here to nothing more than rationalization. In any sufficiently large population, there will be a rough parity between men and women--other than in those blockhead cultures which practice female infanticide. This parity suggests that if several men each have several wives, then a certain number of men have no wives. I can see in polygamy, which i know of as occurring only when men have more than one wife, a natural tendancy of the strongest to take and keep for themselves the best of everything they can appropriate to their own use.

I've never bought most "cultural diversity" rationales for justifying practices which are condemned by others, usually with good reasons. For most of human history, people have not lived very long, and it has been necessary to get busy reproducing as soon as children can physically consumate a sexual act and then carry a child to term. Tribal and clan values are the values of hot-blooded young people, with little or no education. Simply because something is evidence of cultural diversity, there is no reason to withhold justified criticisms.

Dlowan--



Of course--and feminine irrationality is one of the crosses that patriarchs must bear. Being in charge isn't all peaches and cream.

I have read several articles about the problems of young men in these cults who reach breeding age and who are suddenly homeless because the patriarchs have noticed there won't be enough women to go around.

What exactly, are the benefits of having multiple spouses...besides sex?

To a badly depleted population the benefits are more babies....

But as for benefits to individual men, I can't imagine. One is sometimes more than enough for me!

Way back in this thread someone stated that the opposite of polygamy, one woman having several husbands, almost never happens. Actually it does, in societies that need to keep the birthrate down. An example is Tibet, which is both infertile farming land (so cannot support a high poulation) and traditionally peaceful (so the natives don't regularly cull themselves through warfare). There it is quite normal for several brothers to work the family farm together and share one wife, and that way they don't produce more children than the farm will support.

If someone were to have three marriages and three divorces, each one lasting five years,
would it be better in your opinion for them to occur
one after the other, or all at once?



If marrying three spouses simultaneously:
1) Ten extra years of peace and quiet . . . :-)
2) They can keep each other entertained when needed.
3) Each additional dependent is financially easier to support.
4) It would be quite an experience.

Apart from the Christian Imposition, I'm surprised more people don't try it ...

Setana made the point I've always wondered about.
In the absence of war, or other conditions that could lead an imbalance in the ratio of men and women, there would be many men that wouldn't have the opportunity to marry and have their own families (adultery aside)

I'm sure this produces much frustration, leading to aggression, leading to violence - Not like they are consciously relating it to the absence of a spouse, but the situaiton of not being allowed a mate must be very stressful.

I've begun joking, and sarcastically postulating, that polygamy is probably no more common in Colorado City, AZ than anywhere else. It's just anywhere else you can nail two women, but it only becomes illegal if you start treating them both nice. I mean, everytime someone talks about polygamy, I love asking them if they think it's worse than having one wife and two mistresses.

Is that a dumb point, or as fun as I think it is...

It's funny; I'm LDS and you wouldn't believe how many of my good friends, after 20 years of knowing them, turn to me and honestly ask whether I'm planning on marrying a second wife one day... Alas...

I can share a lot of things. My man is an exeption. I think the only idea that he is in another room with another woman would've killed me.

Your becoming extremely emotionally concerning with a statement like that NoNe. Why could the thoughts of your man being in another room with a woman disturb you? Is he in your opinion likely to attack her?

Your out to possess and that is not the way it should be at all. Each and everyone of us is an individual, we give ourselves in marriage to a set of promises we 'mean to do well by at the time.' It's like getting a new car, you polish it, vac it out etc for the first 12 months or so, but it declines. The state of mind changes, and naturally so, so it is with marriage, either party is entitled to want a change. Either party is likely to lust after another, it is perfectly normal, of that I have no doubt. To be 'trapped' either by fear, religion or duty is totally immoral.

I notice this attitude of he/she {especially the he} belongs to me and thats that! is very apparent here and it amuses me.

Less than would happen if the society shrunk by the large amounts it would have from monogamy and still bred in the confined environment. Besides, polygamous cultures generally (and I do have to generalise here since polygamy was reasonably common) would raise the "half-brothers" as genuine siblings who wouldn't interbreed anymore than you and your sibling would.