Why is polygamy wrong?

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Thorolfr said:
Abraham had two wives at the same time (and more later on after Sarah died) but he lived to be 175 years old. That doesn’t seem like a very short lifespan. Jacob also had two wives at the same time (Leah and Rachel) and he lived to be 147 years old. That’s also not a short lifespan.
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What do you conclude from this?
 
Rau said:
What do you conclude from this?
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I was just responding to ericc’s claim that " Polygamy was tolerated because in those days, lifespans were short ." That’s obviously not a reason it was once tolerated (but supposedly isn’t any more) since two very famous polygamists, Abraham and Jacob, did not have short lifespans. In fact, they had quite long lifespans, longer than those of any modern humans at 175 years and 147 years.
 
Thorolfr said:
I was just responding to ericc’s claim that " Polygamy was tolerated because in those days, lifespans were short ." That’s obviously not a reason it was once tolerated (but supposedly isn’t any more) since two very famous polygamists, Abraham and Jacob, did not have short lifespans. In fact, they had quite long lifespans, longer than those of any modern humans at 175 years and 147 years.
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Ok! I wondered if you were arguing the prevalence of something in the Old Testament, and not condemned therein, amounted to some kind of endorsement.
 
Joie_de_Vivre said:
And? Historically marriage was transactional and that isn’t actually immoral.
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Glad to hear that. Ok. You’ve completely changed my mind. Let’s go back to the good old days. Let’s undo partnership of equals and redo Dad gets to choose. Because history. Is always. Better. :rolleyes:
 
Trident_H said:
Glad to hear that. Ok. You’ve completely changed my mind. Let’s go back to the good old days. Let’s undo partnership of equals and redo Dad gets to choose. Because history. Is always. Better. :rolleyes:
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Studies of arranged marriages today show that they are about as happy and have lower divorce rates than love marriages.
 
Reading how dysfunctional Abraham’s family was, how dysfunctional Isaac’s family was, how dysfunctional Jacob’s family was and horribly dysfunctional David’s family was, I can see why over the centuries it became quite obvious why polygamy was and still is a bad idea.

However, logically, since same sex marriage is legal, I can see no legal reason why polygamy will not be made legal.
 
Joie_de_Vivre said:
Studies of arranged marriages today show that they are about as happy and have lower divorce rates than love marriages.
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Great. Go get one. But what has that got to do with Polygamy? Do you want a harem? Or do you want to be part of one? Is that the real deal here?
 
mikekle said:
This is a very common sin in our times, but many people would not think it is.

Todays generation, its fairly common for most people to have had multiple sex partners over the years, (around 30-50 seems to be the norm),
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I think this is way off the mark.
I know people are less circumspect today, but I don’t know anyone except prostitutes who achieve this number of partners. You wouldn’t have time to do anything else.
I found a quote:
“According to a survey of adults aged 20 to 59, women have an average of four sex partners during their lifetime; men have an average of seven.”

.
 
Viki63 said:
I think this is way off the mark.
I know people are less circumspect today, but I don’t know anyone except prostitutes who achieve this number of partners. You wouldn’t have time to do anything else.
I found a quote:
“According to a survey of adults aged 20 to 59, women have an average of four sex partners during their lifetime; men have an average of seven.”

.
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I strongly disagree, this may have been the case decades ago, but certainly not in my time, I graduated high school in 1994, and while I do regret my lifestyle from late teens to around mid 20s, I had more than a few friends during this time, it was quite normal and common for people to have slept with 4-6 partners by the time they were 18yrs old, majority of people I knew had been with many more actually, I knew a handful of people that liked to call themselves ‘players’ or lotharios, who had topped 100+ partners, and this was when they were in their early 20s!

Personally, my fellow classmates and myself started engaging in sexual behavior around 12-15 yrs old, (6th or 7th grade), I know a few people that started earlier, but for the most part, it was around this age range, if you start this early, and run with the wrong crowd of people, it does not take long to accumulate a large number of partners, keep in mind, when we were this age, most of us only worked part time, many did not work at all, and partying was an every day thing.

Sadly it was a normal thing for people to try and achieve the highest number of partners, and a lot of time, ones popularity was dependent on this number, looking back, I recognize how wrong that kind of lifestyle was, I would never do the same if I could go back, Im sure a lot of my former friends feel the same way now that they have grown up.

Also keep in mind, the mid 90s, we did not have cell phones, sexting, the internet, so it we did not have access to porn as easily as kids do today, I take all the studies on this type of thing with a grain of salt, because I know from experience, especially when it comes to females, many do not openly admit their number of partners (outside their group of people that is).
 
Trident_H said:
And Africa’s the model of a stable society we should all try to be more like.
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? I guess that you are being sarcastic and that you consider America to be a much better country with all of its great features such as rendition where they kidnap innocent people, drag them to Jordan and other countries where they torture you. In the American presidential election, the candidates focus their thoughts on the size of a candidates hands, as Americans consider this to be an all important topic worthy of discussion in choosing their president. Americans such as Victoria Nuland go around the world discussing in secret the ;policy of America to **** the European Union. How many millions of unborn American children are murdered in America legally? So before you sarcastically condemn the people and country of Africa, you should be aware that America may not be the utopia that some people claim it is.
 
Tomdstone said:
? I guess that you are being sarcastic and that you consider America to be a much better country with all of its great features such as rendition where they kidnap innocent people, drag them to Jordan and other countries where they torture you. In the American presidential election, the candidates focus their thoughts on the size of a candidates hands, as Americans consider this to be an all important topic worthy of discussion in choosing their president. Americans such as Victoria Nuland go around the world discussing in secret the ;policy of America to **** the European Union. How many millions of unborn American children are murdered in America legally? So before you sarcastically condemn the people and country of Africa, you should be aware that America may not be the utopia that some people claim it is.
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Hey. Just a minute. You threw the ball. I just threw it back.

If Africa was a model society then saying that polygamy is practiced there would mean something profound. Right?

Or were you just telling us oranges grow in Florida?

Peace.

-Trident
 
DrTaffy said:
A secular reason would be the historical correlation with abusive relationships and poor social results (e.g rich men with many wives leaving too few wives for the regular guys leading to social unrest)

I don’t know if secular reasons are of interest, and am in any case on a tablet which makes digging up and linking to reports a pain, so I’ll just dump that there and see if there is any interest.

Also on a vague arm waving front, you can see that a guy with hundreds of wives necessarily has a less intimate relationship with each than would be the case in a monogamous relationship.
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This is a common objection but people forget that women overall were mistreated throughout history. In fact, even monogamy was practiced in deplorable ways compared to today’s standards. The modern-day monogamy of the Middle East was how monogamy was practiced everywhere the further back in history you go. This is because women were treated as property just as they were in polygamy.

The problem with polygamy nowadays is that we don’t see as many examples being practiced under a non-patriarchal system, but it is possible for it to happen. There are some examples out there.
 
What man in his right mind would have more than one woman telling him he is wrong?
 
Jesusonthecross said:
I know that if Jesus said it is wrong, that is a good enough reason for it to be wrong, but why? Why isn’t it OK to have multiple spouses? This is just out of curiosity, by the way.
Thank you, and God Bless you!
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It depends on how it’s practiced. If all adults are consenting then the harm is minimized. But if only the husband makes the decision and women have no say then you get into the neglect and other abuses.

To be honest, I really don’t see where Jesus said it was wrong. Jesus spoke out against polyandry but not polygyny.
 
I didn’t realise that polygamy meant one man marrying many women. Is this a sexist thread?
 
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