Hello, all. I've been reading this forum quite a bit over the last few weeks, trying my best to test you guys for Biblical legitimacy and finding this forum, much to my delight, to be a great source of Biblical doctrine, wise counsel, and creative thought.
I feel like the best way to learn together is to understand each other, so I'm going to be a bit long winded here. Fair warning.
I'm twenty, currently living with my wife (also twenty) in the St. Louis area. We've only recently been able to have our wedding ceremony, but we've been in covenant, both through sex and total, conscious commitment, for four years now. (It's nice to find a place where people understand that marriage is a covenant between two people, under God, and should have nothing to do with the State or its dictations.) She's on here, too, under the username Sydney V, but I don't think she's posted anything yet.
Anyway, I first began to question the tyranny of monogamy a couple of years ago, thanks to quite a few different influences. I think it started soon after I left the church of my childhood, feeling trampled and totally disillusioned regarding the disparity between "Church" doctrine and Biblical truth. I had found out that, when people try to use religion as an instrument of control and profit, they don't like being asked pokey questions.
Well, I have to say, I'm glad that this forum seems like the perfect home for anyone seeking the truth, and pokey questions are welcomed heartily. In one Gents-only thread, CecilW said that "Iron sharpens iron around here." Well, that's what I've been looking for for a very long time.
So, to bring us back to the present... I came to the conclusion, last summer, that it was just impossible to make any cohesive, exclusively Biblical argument against polygyny, having uncovered many of the concepts that this forum put forth in the Common Misconceptions topic for myself (though not all of them; I was overjoyed to be learning even more about an issue that has grown more and more important to me.) I was pretty surprised when I brought the topic up to my wife, the aforementioned Sydney, and she was very accepting of the idea. After more and more searching and researching, we've both become very confident in supporting polygyny as part of God's perfect design for marriage.
So where does that leave us? Well, right now, after so much thought and prayer, and even on instance of heartbreak behind us, we were feeling rather... alone. As if no one else could possibly understand the truth. How could they, when the overwhelming majority seems so... well, huge? Stewing in my fellowship-vacuum, I was growing more and more frustrated, and I know it was taking a toll on my dear wife. So, she did something terribly wise, making me feel like a fool in the process. I may be the tech-savvy one, but she was the one who thought to go to the internet. Thus, she found this forum and proved to me that we are not alone. (Wives are the best, aren't they?)
On another note, I'm a self-publishing fantasy author just getting out of the gate. That's not related to this, in itself, of course, but I've been planning to take the route of polygyny with one of my main characters, and while I'm excited for all the awesomeness that that will entail, I've been feeling very adrift and ill-equipped to write such a thing, thanks to my lack of any personal experience with it. This site provides a huge amount of insight into the workings of such a family, and I'm very pleased to have a contemporary, Bible-based source to confer with. Do not be worried; I'm not going to reproduce any life stories listed here. Absolutely not. I am just thankful to, basically, see that people can live in a plural marriage and be a happy, healthy family, and to be able to see what issues such a family faces and how they can overcome them.
To be clear, I do understand the heavy weight of responsibility comes from plural marriage, and, while I do feel that my family is meant to, one day, have more than one wife involved, I'm in no haste to get there, especially after my wife and I experienced a rather painful episode back in February. Rushing something like marriage is... well, ludicrous and dangerous. I understand that. So, my wife and I are waiting for God's provision, and until then, we are filled with love and joy by our current marriage and family state.
I'm glad to be here, and excited to learn in a place where both men and women understand their responsibilities and seek the Truth through Scripture. I hope to grow alongside all of you as we share the bits of wisdom that God continues to give all of us through our marriages.
-Curt
'
P.S.: It's hard to hit the "Submit" button sometimes, isn't it? ...Here goes anyway.
I feel like the best way to learn together is to understand each other, so I'm going to be a bit long winded here. Fair warning.
I'm twenty, currently living with my wife (also twenty) in the St. Louis area. We've only recently been able to have our wedding ceremony, but we've been in covenant, both through sex and total, conscious commitment, for four years now. (It's nice to find a place where people understand that marriage is a covenant between two people, under God, and should have nothing to do with the State or its dictations.) She's on here, too, under the username Sydney V, but I don't think she's posted anything yet.
Anyway, I first began to question the tyranny of monogamy a couple of years ago, thanks to quite a few different influences. I think it started soon after I left the church of my childhood, feeling trampled and totally disillusioned regarding the disparity between "Church" doctrine and Biblical truth. I had found out that, when people try to use religion as an instrument of control and profit, they don't like being asked pokey questions.
Well, I have to say, I'm glad that this forum seems like the perfect home for anyone seeking the truth, and pokey questions are welcomed heartily. In one Gents-only thread, CecilW said that "Iron sharpens iron around here." Well, that's what I've been looking for for a very long time.
So, to bring us back to the present... I came to the conclusion, last summer, that it was just impossible to make any cohesive, exclusively Biblical argument against polygyny, having uncovered many of the concepts that this forum put forth in the Common Misconceptions topic for myself (though not all of them; I was overjoyed to be learning even more about an issue that has grown more and more important to me.) I was pretty surprised when I brought the topic up to my wife, the aforementioned Sydney, and she was very accepting of the idea. After more and more searching and researching, we've both become very confident in supporting polygyny as part of God's perfect design for marriage.
So where does that leave us? Well, right now, after so much thought and prayer, and even on instance of heartbreak behind us, we were feeling rather... alone. As if no one else could possibly understand the truth. How could they, when the overwhelming majority seems so... well, huge? Stewing in my fellowship-vacuum, I was growing more and more frustrated, and I know it was taking a toll on my dear wife. So, she did something terribly wise, making me feel like a fool in the process. I may be the tech-savvy one, but she was the one who thought to go to the internet. Thus, she found this forum and proved to me that we are not alone. (Wives are the best, aren't they?)
On another note, I'm a self-publishing fantasy author just getting out of the gate. That's not related to this, in itself, of course, but I've been planning to take the route of polygyny with one of my main characters, and while I'm excited for all the awesomeness that that will entail, I've been feeling very adrift and ill-equipped to write such a thing, thanks to my lack of any personal experience with it. This site provides a huge amount of insight into the workings of such a family, and I'm very pleased to have a contemporary, Bible-based source to confer with. Do not be worried; I'm not going to reproduce any life stories listed here. Absolutely not. I am just thankful to, basically, see that people can live in a plural marriage and be a happy, healthy family, and to be able to see what issues such a family faces and how they can overcome them.
To be clear, I do understand the heavy weight of responsibility comes from plural marriage, and, while I do feel that my family is meant to, one day, have more than one wife involved, I'm in no haste to get there, especially after my wife and I experienced a rather painful episode back in February. Rushing something like marriage is... well, ludicrous and dangerous. I understand that. So, my wife and I are waiting for God's provision, and until then, we are filled with love and joy by our current marriage and family state.
I'm glad to be here, and excited to learn in a place where both men and women understand their responsibilities and seek the Truth through Scripture. I hope to grow alongside all of you as we share the bits of wisdom that God continues to give all of us through our marriages.
-Curt
'
P.S.: It's hard to hit the "Submit" button sometimes, isn't it? ...Here goes anyway.
Aaron
