Lila said:
Eristhophanes said:
Men are almost always fine with one good wife and when we see more than one wife at the lower levels it means there was a problem, but the system is working correctly ...
Eristhophanes, what are you referring to here? I keep hearing that the reason why a man takes another wife is for the same reason as he took the first one so why would you say that it's to fix an obvious problem?
The situation in the Bible is not the same that we see today and unfortunately this isn't a twitter-style answer. Sorry. But I did try to make this a complete answer. <grin>
Today, I observe that for some men, poly relationships literally jump in their lap or crawl into their bed. If he accepts her, the woman he is already with doesn't normally protest. In socio-sexual terms that man is of sufficiently high value that women will willingly share him rather than lose him. If the women in this situation are in their twenties and good-looking (they have options) then that man is probably in the top 5% of all men. As women age what they are attracted to in a man (in general) changes from a focus on raw masculine dominance to more of a focus on provisioning and comfort traits. For women in their thirties, the top 10% of men could accomplish this. By the time women hit their 40's, perhaps the top 15% of men could manage to attract women willing to submit to a polygynous relationship.
(By definition, any time you see a man today with more than one wife he is in the top 10%, unless- in very rare cases -the 1st wife is incredibly extraordinary and subverts her "rights" in favor of obedience to Scripture in an area that is completely contrary to the culture and church tradition. I have only met 2 such women in all my life)
I am really only talking about the high-value men because fundamentally, in this day and age, it's all about attraction and there is NOTHING to keep a woman in a marriage if she doesn't want to be there. It is literally easier to end a marriage than a cell phone contract. In addition to that, the laws are now skewed sufficiently in favor of women that the incentives are aligned to literally reward women for destroying their marriages. So, in terms of observations on polygyny with regard to the modern day, it's all about attraction. The idea that a man and woman were married and the relationship was so bad that the husband had to get another *concurrent* wife is ludicrous today because that can and does happen all the time... but in the interval between the relationship going south and getting another wife is a divorce. In other words polygamy (many marriages- serial monogamy) rather than polygyny (many wives).
Lower tier men might desire more than one concurrent wife, but practically speaking it's impossible for them, regardless of what the Bible says.
That was not the case in the OT times, when adultery was literally a death penalty offense and marriage was for life. (Yes, Moses permitted divorce, and then Christ forbid it to Christians but this isn't the place for a discussion of divorce.) At that time the standard of marriage was clear: the man gave the woman permanent but non-exclusive commitment and in return for that the woman gave him (enforced) exclusive commitment. Should her performance not measure up, he had the option to take another wife, but at a cost of household conflict. Observe that even the heathen Chinee understood this: the pictogram for trouble is 2 women under 1 roof. Taking another (rival) wife raised the level of conflict in the home and if the man was willing to endure that, he was free to do so. Because of the social structures in place, I would say that unlike today, at least half of the men at that time could attract another wife. Then too, all it took was money to negotiate marriage to a second wife with her father or simply to purchase a virgin to be his concubine.
This situation is where you get the references to the rival wife or the man who had two wives, one loved and the other hated. God's design for marriage requires permanent commitment, but not exclusive commitment. Whatever the problem was in the relationship, his final "tool" to fix things was to bring in another wife. However, keep in mind that the option of polygyny is a solution for many problems, some of which may have nothing to do with misbehavior or infertility on the part of the first wife.
Deuteronomy 22 lists the various judgments on the crime of what we call rape, but there are two classes of women not even mentioned who should have been: widows and legitimately divorced women. Does God love these women so little that He provided them with no protection under the Law against rape, or is it that under God's design these women, once free from their marriage, were expected to re-marry quickly. In that case the numbers would be so insignificant that they aren't worth mentioning and I think Scripture supports that. I argue that this is the case and it is part of God's plan that women be married. That being the case, there is absolutely no reason a woman must be judged on her "sexual market value" (youth, looks) for marriage because men are not restricted to a single wife.
A young man with a young wife could add a much older woman to the family because she is in need (a destitute widow, for example) and she has valuable household management skills. It isn't about sex. Yes, they both obtain conjugal rights, but so what? She's protected, provided for and a valuable addition to the household. I know one family in which this is the case, the older woman in question being almost 30 years older than the husband. He has two wives younger than him and she guides them and instructs them. When he's downrange (up to 9 months at at time) she's in charge of the home. That woman will never cross the threshold of a nursing home, she will die surround by her people who love and respect her. Which is as it should be.
Men back then married second or third wives for many different reasons. They still do today, but often not for the same reasons.
One example is ignorance. Observe all the unintentionally polygynous families in which a Christian wife left (divorced) her Christian husband and he later married another woman. According to 1st Peter 3:1 and 1st Cor. 7:10-11, wife #1 is still married to him and he now has 2 wives. If wife #1 ever repents of what she did and wants to come home, her husband has no choice but to reconcile to her (
Ephesians 5- "love her like Christ would, He never turns away a repentant sinner" and 1st Peter 3 "live with your wives"). All of which puts wife #2 in the rather interesting position of thinking she got into a monogamous marriage and then learning that it wasn't... and not only that, she was the second wife. I know a woman who is seriously struggling with this right now.
