I don't know about you all, but it strikes me as though monogamy-only regulation is like a socialist economic policy where everyone is guaranteed a job, work ethic suffers massive disincentive and so many stop even trying.
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Socialist marital regulation?
- Thread starter Shadowjak's Dancer
- Start date
Relevant is what Marx writes about the abolition of the family in the Communist Manifesto. (extended quote below)
People oft argue that the ratio of males to females is near, if not quite, balanced.
I contend that the ratio of good husbands to females is much different. There are plenty of men who have no business being called men let alone husband or father.
Therefore, a socially imposed ratio of 1 to 1 will leave people who need good leaders, providers and heads without a reasonable solution. This manifests in so many societal ills. We can see the family breakdown, public and private, in the more socialist-leaning areas of our country.
I contend that the ratio of good husbands to females is much different. There are plenty of men who have no business being called men let alone husband or father.
Therefore, a socially imposed ratio of 1 to 1 will leave people who need good leaders, providers and heads without a reasonable solution. This manifests in so many societal ills. We can see the family breakdown, public and private, in the more socialist-leaning areas of our country.
This is an interesting idea, monogamy being a "redistribution of wealth".
If the regulation of monogamy was removed this would mean that men would need to improve themselves if they wanted a godly wife. Much the way companies compete for customers in a "free market" system.
On society as a whole I can see how this would be fantastic and solve a lot of problems in godly society. The value of women would increase. Those at the bottom that want a wife and family would need to shape up and rise up towards the middle. Those at the top could amass a lot of wives and therefore a lot of children among which the inheritance would be divided and they would fall towards the middle. I think this would bring a lot of balance to a society. However given the current American societal views of God, women, family, and children, as well as surveying those that are currently at the top of our society I don't think we would want those currently at the top of American society to explode in population.
However if the Christian churches in America no longer punished those that are in biblical families, and America kept the current regulation of monogamy I think this is where the explosion in population to take place.
If the regulation of monogamy was removed this would mean that men would need to improve themselves if they wanted a godly wife. Much the way companies compete for customers in a "free market" system.
On society as a whole I can see how this would be fantastic and solve a lot of problems in godly society. The value of women would increase. Those at the bottom that want a wife and family would need to shape up and rise up towards the middle. Those at the top could amass a lot of wives and therefore a lot of children among which the inheritance would be divided and they would fall towards the middle. I think this would bring a lot of balance to a society. However given the current American societal views of God, women, family, and children, as well as surveying those that are currently at the top of our society I don't think we would want those currently at the top of American society to explode in population.
However if the Christian churches in America no longer punished those that are in biblical families, and America kept the current regulation of monogamy I think this is where the explosion in population to take place.
I don't think we really need to worry about many at the top right now. A lot of them are already sleeping with whomever they want without making marital commitments and many of them would want to protect their assets from multiple spouses. Besides, the sort of woman who would chase down some of those sitting at the top of our society... well, it'll help to weed them away from the righteous potential spouses (or is the plural "Spice"?)
Very good point.
That's what we use!
That's where it's at. This is also the missing element that guys who want additional wives but have trouble finding them sometimes miss...
becoming excellent, living excellently, having purpose, a mission, drive, constantly improving oneself... in short becoming that amazing guy that the gal says to herself "you know, I'd rather share him than have anyone else to myself; he's just that awesome" .
You're really really close Jacob, its a good observation. But let me drill it one level deeper: it's a Utopian mindset.
Leftism in general and Marxism in particular is a Utopian project. Trying to create an ideal world. Heaven on earth so to speak. That is the same idea behind monogamy being necessary to make sure every man has a wife. Chicken in every pot and wife in every bed so to speak. Socialism for mating as you say.
It is actually at the base of one of the strongest rhetorical arguments of monogamy: Western Civ was successful because we made sure every man got a woman. That allowed the beta's to have skin in the game so they'd help build and maintain civilization. If you don't have monogamy you'll have trouble from disaffected males as all the women are taken up by the top dogs.
That argument sounds good. Loving even. It stokes our western cultural ego and its hard to see why it is wrong. But it is. And realizing its a Utopian mindset is an important key to seeing why.
I've thought a lot about this because even after I realized God didn't have a problem with polygamy, it still seemed wrong and unjust under that line of argumentation. But I knew that couldn't be since God blessed it. Here is what I came up with:
Leftism in general and Marxism in particular is a Utopian project. Trying to create an ideal world. Heaven on earth so to speak. That is the same idea behind monogamy being necessary to make sure every man has a wife. Chicken in every pot and wife in every bed so to speak. Socialism for mating as you say.
It is actually at the base of one of the strongest rhetorical arguments of monogamy: Western Civ was successful because we made sure every man got a woman. That allowed the beta's to have skin in the game so they'd help build and maintain civilization. If you don't have monogamy you'll have trouble from disaffected males as all the women are taken up by the top dogs.
That argument sounds good. Loving even. It stokes our western cultural ego and its hard to see why it is wrong. But it is. And realizing its a Utopian mindset is an important key to seeing why.
I've thought a lot about this because even after I realized God didn't have a problem with polygamy, it still seemed wrong and unjust under that line of argumentation. But I knew that couldn't be since God blessed it. Here is what I came up with:
- Its a utopian approach. If the 20th century taught us anything it is that utopian approaches always end in disaster.
- Some men just won't be fit to reproduce. A fundamental characteristic of male biology is an increase of genetic variability compared to women (for good and ill). This means there will always be more men than woman who are reproductively unfit and so some men will need to take two wives to ensure all reproductively fit women have a mate. This is all the more the case after a war, pestilence, or MGTOW movement.
- It is disgenic. The health of all animal species depends on survival of the fittest. Something any good animal breeder will tell you is that saving every animal for breeding is one of the quickest ways to destroy the genetic fitness of the herd/breed/species. Monogamy is unhealthy for us genetically; many genes SHOULDN'T be propagated. That is harsh, but it is the biological truth. That is how God designed creation to work and there are many other polygamous species. And biologists will tell you that the human's level of sexual dimorphism indicates we are a mildly polygamous species.
- You'll never stop the apex males from sleeping around. By enforcing monogamy you force them into disfunctional relationships (one night stands, secret affairs, adultery, single motherhood, etc). But by allowing them to marry multiple women, you channel that energy into functional civilization building marriage and family.
- Hypergamy (women mating up) means the bottom tier men will always go without mates, monogamy or not. But monogamy means the top tier women are more likely to go without as well, rather than doubling up with men in polygamy, thereby increasing total matelessness. But it is worse than that. In a vain effort to increase the spread of your least valuable, most disfunctional genes (bottom tier men) you sacrifice your most valuable genes (top tier women). Again, disgenic.
- The choice isn't between monogamy and polygamy. Virtually no societies have been purely monogamous and we have polygamy now. Except it is the dysfunctional form: divorce bserial monogamy, soft harems, polyamory and the like. They question is: what kind of polygamy do you want? We would be better off with traditional polygamy than what we have now.
- The delirious affects of affairs, single motherhood, high divorce rates, old maids on our society vastly vastly vastly outweigh the harmful affects of a few men who can't find a wife. Basement dwelling incel's won't destroy our civilization but both divorce and single motherhood very well may.
- There is still the question of unmatched males. But not all men want a wife and we have many ways of dealing with excess males, some better than others, such as military, monks, and porn. It is not a forgone conclusion that mateless men will crash the economy and burn down our cities. To the contrary, near East monasteries have been credited with preserving the essential knowledge's of civilization after the fall of Rome; ultimately leading to the European rebirth. And European monasteries have been credited with being the incubator for eventually jump starting commerce in Europe after it had earlier failed with Rome.
- The last problem with their argument is exaggeration. They characterize it as if the top men will grab all the women and huge percentages of men will go without wives. But that is simply not the case. Most numbers I see cite about 10-20% of men in various polygamous societies having multiple wives. That also happens to be about the amount you'd need to offset the affects of hypergamous associative mating to ensure maximum motherhood rates among women.
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@Jacob you've connected two concepts(utopian ideals & enforced monogamy) which turn into church governing policy. And so @rockfox has unwrapped many of the real consequences. Visit any presbyterian church and you will see a social contract/policy of enforced monogamy being played out in a Calvinist/Genevan community. One man one woman policy simplifies the government of a church. Issues springing forth from strong-headship males to express a desire to take or court more than one woman are considered "sinful/lustful". These strong males are commanded to repent or be outcaste. And yet the eldership guard themselves while pondering dwindling numbers...instead of allowing real men to grow into the full measure and stature of Jesus Christ(Eph 4:13)
You bring up an important point about strong male headship. It is just like this in most denominations. Because they inherited the problem from the RCC. There was a time period during the Reformation, when the world was turned upside down and it could have changed. But it seemed to have been a bridge to far for them. It is worth remembering that sometime after Christ the RCC seized governing power over marriages from fathers. I'm not sure when that was but I would not be at all surprised to find out that to accomplish this they cut a deal with women to elevate them over men. Banning polygamy goes along with this since it is radically easier for a single wife to control her husband.
This ties into socialism too. All the socialist movements of Europe (Italian Fascists, NAZIs, and Bolsheviks) had as part of their program some form of liberation of women from social constraints. For the first two it was voting rights (Germany had already had its free love movement and Italy I'm less knowledgeable of but I suspect it was too Catholic for that to fly). But in Russia they attempted a whole sale destruction of the family: easy divorce, communal housing and kitchens and even private banning family dining. But that program went so horrifically wrong Stalin had to walk it back. But it was a very important task for them as they saw family as a hindrance to their revolution. And this is why even today in foreign aid women's lib is one of the first things pushed (foreign aid being a primary tool of the globalists as they attempt to destroy the native family and culture, which are hindrances to media influence and high consumption consumer lifestyle).
The free love movement in the early hippy period of the US has also been characterized as a sort of women in every bed socialist experiment as well. However absent social constraints on women that quickly devolved into what we see today where women chase primarily the top men while lessor men go without. Polygamy with strict social controls on premarital sex would actually result in more men and women in successful marriages than our present order. You see glimpses of the original free love women in every bed idea yet in the polyamory and sex positive feminist movements. But most of feminism when full man hating.
Of course the traditional Christians want to stuff the cat back in the monogamy bag but its too late for that. Monogamy already lost the cultural war; it isn't capable of winning a rejoiner on its merits. It may piggy back on a different revival movement, much like monogamy spread like a virus with the growth of Christianity. But given the current legal status of the sexes in the US it looks to me more like a poison pill to prevent success of any movement that has it as a core philosophy. In this context I see polygamy as a sort of sanctified "if you can't beat em join em" strategy in the culture wars.
Nailed it.
Could you elaborate on this a little please? I don't see us caving in to cultural pressure as much as restoring a traditional/biblical understanding of marriage (and in these interesting times, a traditional/biblical/biological understanding of what it means to be "male" or "female"). In what sense are we "not beating them" and in what sense would be "joining them"?
Ya so people like you and me are anchored to scripture and not culture so we're just trying to follow God. Different motives. I'm not talking about motives but strategy. How being woke about polygamy can play a role in bringing people back to God.
What is the situation we find ourselves in? The church lost the culture war (speaking of the US in the 19th century). Free love defeated monogamy. And we didn't even just loose the war over premarital sex or over the meaning of marriage but we lost the war on even the very definition of man and woman and who uses which toilet.
But the church keeps banging their head against the wall with the same old message; refusing to be introspective and realize why they lost, what was wrong with their message or how they should adjust their message (or their behavior) to appeal to the next generation. And I don't mean by that we should take on the beliefs or attitudes of the world like so many popular preachers have done in attempts to gather numbers and dollars.
Think of it like this. Generally speaking men are naturally polygamous; this is how God made them. What happens when the church contradicts what their biology tells them is true? In todays world sex with a wide variety of women is readily available. On top of that you have the legal regime stacked against men and the word is out that sex often dramatically reduces when you get married. Into this context steps the church saying if you want to be one of them you need to get married to one women, too often an aging girl who gave you the cold shoulder while sleeping around for a decade, about which they made nary a peep. And then once you join they'll do everything in their power to undermine your authority in marriage. Too often this plays out like a double bind where they tell you only sex outside marriage is acceptable but if you go and get married you don't get much, or good, sex there either.
It is no surprise then men say no thanks to what the church is peddling.
But when you embrace polygamy you're able to sanctify their sexual impulses; giving them a healthy, moral, pro-civilization framework to express their sexual drive. And they know that a marriage with two wives is much less likely to suffer a dead bedroom and much more likely to have the husband in charge and respected. And a church that embraces polygamy is highly unlikely to be a man-hating feminist church that will undermine their marriage because they are fundamentally embracing the male sexual strategy. And this could look very attractive to men; especially if fathers and leading their marriages to set good examples and raising married minded, chaste daughters.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we emulate the world, or that the gospel doesn't matter, or that polygamy is all about sex, or that doctrine should be based on practical considerations. But these practicalities do matter. Feminism is one of the most important problems in the church and culture. And the culture war was primarily fought around sex, mens/womens roles and expectations in society, and what family should look like. And for young men trying to find their way in the world these questions about sex do matter a lot; especially if they're even just trying to abstain from pre-marital sex.
And this isn't necessarily about evangelism as much as about our sons. Do our communities provide a future for our sons? Are they promising places to stay and find wives and raise a family or will they have to go off into the world and sift through the morass in an attempt to find a women who hasn't been too badly corrupted?
And this will affect your daughters too because if you don't have a man affirming culture then the masculine men will all leave and your daughter will not be interested in the men who do stick around. Which means they chase that bad boy and leave the faith or settle for some soft church manlet and make each other miserable.
100 times, yes!
Manlet... LOL!!!
Marx's ideas weren't new. Read Plato's "The Republic":
Both enforced monogomy, and enforced free love, appear opposite but are both different ways for government to control the population and centralise control in the rulers rather than having people have their loyalty to their family and tribe.
Plato goes into his plans for marriage in enormous depth, it's hard to find a concise quote that outlines it all. But basically, he intended to give women the same jobs in life as men, no longer being tied at home but working most of the time indistinguishably. Replacing marriage with communal sex but under the strict controls of the government who would pair up "desirable" matches in particular religious ceremonies by "chance" (so most people didn't know what was happening) to run a breeding program, and ensure that the children of unfavourable matches were either aborted, killed or outcast. Children to be taken at birth and raised communally, educated by the state, with nobody knowing who their children were. Marx's ideas are basically a watered down, more palatable version of Plato's extreme system.
Both enforced monogomy, and enforced free love, appear opposite but are both different ways for government to control the population and centralise control in the rulers rather than having people have their loyalty to their family and tribe.