I don’t know if I’d go as far as to say that God “permitted” a man having many wives, since it went against God’s plan of Adam and Eve (not Adam and Eve, plus Beth, and Maggie, and Karen). I’d say the whole polygamy thing was born out of a flawed and sinful culture, which as you can see, God dealt with.
Jesus raised marriage to a Sacrament, one man married to one woman. And to know how sacred it is, just read how many times He compared himself, (the Bridegroom), and His Church, (the Bride) to the married state. This is the Truth, no matter how far mankind strays from that truth. God Bless, Memaw
The natural state would be anywhere between Alabama and WyomingI think, OP, you are asking about the natural family state in terms of an anthropological sense so I’ll answer (since I majored in anthropology in college but didn’t graduate
The natural sense, in terms of what life was like 25k or so years ago, is that people lived in large family groups. Not all were related, but most were to some extent (distant cousins, etc). While it’s impossible to say with any confidence that men and women were monogamous to each other, anthropologists can use current tribes of people that are relatively untouched by modern civilization as examples. People are, in general, monogamous. The real main differences between ancient peoples and us today is the extended family groups, and for that, I think they were better off than us.
Yes, this is what I’m trying to get at. With no religion nor culture, what would our natural state be in terms of anthropology?I think, OP, you are asking about the natural family state in terms of an anthropological sense so I’ll answer (since I majored in anthropology in college but didn’t graduate
The natural sense, in terms of what life was like 25k or so years ago, is that people lived in large family groups. Not all were related, but most were to some extent (distant cousins, etc). While it’s impossible to say with any confidence that men and women were monogamous to each other, anthropologists can use current tribes of people that are relatively untouched by modern civilization as examples. People are, in general, monogamous. The real main differences between ancient peoples and us today is the extended family groups, and for that, I think they were better off than us.
As men and women are approximately equal in numbers, monogamy would appear to be
That would be a terrible thing for companies like Wrangler, Levis, Osh-Kosh, and Lees who make and sell “Genes”!
It appears to tend toward monogamy, which is different from being solely monogamous. When examining some of the still-existing primitive cultures, it’s hard to make generalizations, other then most tend toward monogamy. When you start looking at the specifics, you’ll see a wide variety of differences between the groups; e.g., sex before marriage, a man with a wife though occasionally having sex with other woman, etc. There are also some very primitive groups where men and woman are polygamous (e.g., Zo’e tribe).
What was Adam’s?
I agree the same way that Our Lord never intended for divorce, but divorce still happened. It is because of men’ will, not God’s will.
Our Lord also never intended His Church to be split up 30,000 different ways but that happened too, thanks to man’s will.
Well… considering God created us, how can we seperate religion from our natural state???
My natural state is Illinois, Someone else’s is Alaska, Another’s is Wisconsin, Florida, etc.
The beauty of catholic teaching is that it’s observably true! Religious truth is totally relevant to everyday life, you simply can’t separate the two.