Why is Bigamy wrong?

[Lewkowski]

So I'm discussing the issue with Romney being a Mormon with a co-worker and we got into the discussion about Bigamy. Yes Mormons no longer practice it (its illegal) but I've always wondered why Christians in America became so anti-Bigamy.

The bible is pretty clear that you can have "too" many wives and references Solomon however in the old testament plenty of the heroes of the faith had multiple wives and that was OK. In the New Testament certain positions in the church should not have multiple wives but that's about it.

How do other countries where Christianity is not a powerful influence view Bigamy? And no I'm not suggesting I want multiple wives (one is enough for me!) but from a freedom prescriptive I don't get the justification for the state nixing it.

[Khendraja'aro]

The irony in this post is mind boggling.

[ImAnOgre]

I tried dating two women at once. They both wanted to kill me after they found out about each other three months in (i kind of lied to them telling them I wasn't dating anyone else.... but that's another matter). I assuming marrying two women at once is going to be a bit more detrimental.

[Ominous Gamer]

I was thinking this same question, but within Sims Medievil. Woo'd and proposed to the first character i was supposed to befriend, but now that character appears to be long gone from the game. We are still engaged, but I've had "WooHoo" relations with 4 other characters already, and the game isn't allowing me to propose to them, and I haven't figured out how to break off the original engagement.

EA must hate polygamy too.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Adam and Eve. Not Adam, Eve, Christine, Jacqueline, Simone and Tessa.

[Kazuha Vinland]

Morally, I can't say it's wrong in anyway other than that in our society, it won't work. It's like having two best friends. They can't both be the best.

[Nessus]

By the end of it, you'd have to shoot one. And shooting people tends to be illegal. So it's best to prevent those kinds of scenarios, eh?

[Aimless]

It's not exactly a new aversion, and since when has the literal content of the bible been the totality of Christian thought? From what I've gathered, there may be many reasons for a [western? general] Christian opposition to letting a man marry several women, such as: aversion to lechery; aversion to "otherness", ie. something that characterises enemy religions/sects of which one disapproves; influence from respected churchy types such as Augustine who suggested that polygyny was not in accordance with God's real ultimate intentions, and that it was only okay once upon a time because of the great need for Jewish babies.

I dunno. Most of the male half of humanity seems to be pretty obsessed with porn featuring threesomes or even larger constellations in various configurations. I wonder if the same people also oppose polygyny.

[CitizenCain]

Same reason God hates fags, and drugs make baby Jesus cry. Because it doesn't have a fucking thing to do with Christianity, and is just small-minded morons using the nearest excuse (such as the majority religion) as an excuse to demand conformity from all and hate what they're too stupid to understand.

Please, Lewk, don't say this is a demographic you're turning your back on all of a sudden.

[Asmodian]

Adam and Eve. Not Adam, Eve, Christine, Jacqueline, Simone and Tessa.


And look how that worked out!!! If only there were more woman we could have had diffrent opinions on the apple issue!!

[RandBlade]

The irony in this post is mind boggling.

Can you point it out to me, or is it just a general hatred of the poster and not the post itself? Because to me this is one of the most open-minded and least bully-pulpit OP's I've ever seen from Lewk, it seems to me to be an honest question rather than a "Raargh, death of criminal is good" style.

[Nessus]

Can you point it out to me, or is it just a general hatred of the poster and not the post itself? Because to me this is one of the most open-minded and least bully-pulpit OP's I've ever seen from Lewk, it seems to me to be an honest question rather than a "Raargh, death of criminal is good" style.

Khen may correct me if I am mistaken, which is a very likely proposition, but to me his response was part of his on-going dialogue with Lewkowski about what it truly means to be a Christian.

[RandBlade]

And? Leek seems to be asking questions here. Don't see what's ironic?

[Nessus]

And? Leek seems to be asking questions here. Don't see what's ironic?

Again, I may be very much mistaken. But Khen is a man who, to me, seems to share a bond with his God, a bond that entails among other things respecting the right of others to live, and lovers being tied to one another on a partnership basis. These are themes that have a strong founding in modern Christianity.

Lewkowski is known here as a man who very feverishly wishes to kill his fellow men. The wailing, the gnashing of teeth. He revels in these. He loves them. He loves, in a word, misery. And he professes to be a devout Christian.

Now, after years, years of telling us about how good, moral and Christian the wailing, and the gnashing of teeth, truly are, Lewkowski has decided to inquire whether he should at least be faithful to his wife. Whether monogamy, one of the big themes of Christianity, is really such a big deal. This kind of questioning would, one'd think at first glance, lead to Lewkowski thinking the asker deserves some wailing, and some gnashing of teeth. And yet it is now he who is asking us about the morality of monogamy.

Therein, I suspect, lies what troubles Khen about this. What he perceives as a gross injustice done to his relationship with his God.

[EyeKhan]

I don't understand the irony Khen sees either, but that doesn't mean there isn't irony (obviously).

Regarding Bigamy, think the first thing to say is bigamy starts with bi- which indicates 2, meaning two wives/husbands. Polygamy starts with-poly- meaning more than 1 and opening the discussion to more than two wives and so on. Why limit it to 2? (For that matter, mono- means 1, hence monogamy.)

Ok, so why is polygamy wrong? The simple answer is because our cultural strongly accepts that it is. Done.

Why do parts of the Old Testament say different? The simple answer is because those parts were written within a culture that accepted polygamy. The OT predates christianity by thousands of years and the people that wrote it lived in a culture that was all sorts of different from those who wrote the New Testament. And the NT writers lived in a culture that was all sorts of different from ours today. The infant Christian faith sought the legitimacy of ancient continuity by hammering the old Jewish writings into a single theology with the new Christian writings and because the cultures and the faiths had some very fundamental differences the result was lots of inconsistances. Polygamy probably wasn't taboo in early christianity - Rome? - but subsequently European culture evolved to monogamy and the long-time monolithic and powerful Christian church helped to homogonize that moral throughout the region. But for some reason the Church didn't revise the inconsistant language in the OT to reflect the changing times (probably because the changes would have been obvious up against unedited Jewish writings. Done?

Lewk, the heart of your conundrum is your faith in the bible. You (seem to) understand it as the consistant inspiration of one god that has been guiding it's human creations over all of history. Having that faith it is difficult to reconcile how a Christian nation and Christian churches can disapprove of polygamy when it is clearly accepted in the OT. If the Christian god inspired the OT, then polygamy must be ok.

But if you understand the bible and Christianity for what it really is, then the inconsistancy is easily explained. And with that comes the understanding that much of morality is not fixed outside a specific cultural context - how a group of people in a given time and place live and interact. Culture evolves over time and within it so does morality, so the context is constantly changing. The Christian belief in one eternal god that never changes, that inspired a book with teachings that never change, set within a culture that does change creates conundrums like this.

IMHO polygamy isn't immoral or wrong. I would vote to legalize polygamy to the point that any number and combination of men and women who want to enter into a marriage contract with each other ought to be able to. Much of morality is not fixed, but I believe some is; like the maximization of personal freedom. Because I believe marriage is an area of morality that is not fixed, where restrictions on it conflict with personal freedom I believe the latter ought to take priority. So if you want to take another wife or husband I believe it is moral for you to be free to do so. You asked "Why is Bigamy (polygamy) wrong" but the better question might be "Is polygamy wrong?"

[Khendraja'aro]

Nessus already answered for me. Heh. The irony hence lies within Lewk's firm stance on Jesus et al. and his insistance that certain viewpoints of his are covered by the almighty Bible (even when the actual support for his stances is only flimsy at best).

It is thus highly ironic that he questions his Bible when at other times he remains firm that he's covered by this book completely and unfallibly.

[ImAnOgre]

Nessus already answered for me. Heh. The irony hence lies within Lewk's firm stance on Jesus et al. and his insistance that certain viewpoints of his are covered by the almighty Bible (even when the actual support for his stances is only flimsy at best).

It is thus highly ironic that he questions his Bible when at other times he remains firm that he's covered by this book completely and unfallibly.

So people can't change? I've definitely changed a lot since chatting with all you jerks since I joined AtariCC so long ago.

[Khendraja'aro]

One point of data a trend does not make.

[Loki]

So I'm discussing the issue with Romney being a Mormon with a co-worker and we got into the discussion about Bigamy. Yes Mormons no longer practice it (its illegal) but I've always wondered why Christians in America became so anti-Bigamy.

The bible is pretty clear that you can have "too" many wives and references Solomon however in the old testament plenty of the heroes of the faith had multiple wives and that was OK. In the New Testament certain positions in the church should not have multiple wives but that's about it.

How do other countries where Christianity is not a powerful influence view Bigamy? And no I'm not suggesting I want multiple wives (one is enough for me!) but from a freedom prescriptive I don't get the justification for the state nixing it.

Polygamy seems to have been dying out by the time Christ was born, and Roman implementation of Christianity didn't allow for polygamy (since Roman customs didn't allow it). There were only a few minor attempts since Rome's adoption of Christianity to bring back polygamy. As for why mainline Christians in the US hate polygamy, it's probably because they thought Mormons were heretics for making up new stories about Jesus, and thus viewed all unique Mormon practices with extra suspicion.

[Hazir]

I never thought very much of monogamy and I still don't. Funnily enough it's been the norm also in the one muslim dominated country I am in at a regular basis. Only in areas of the country that are seen as backward you will still find polygamous situations which are not recognized by the state by the way. People can have more than one religious marriage simultaneously, but the state will only recognize marriages performed by the state, and it is illegal to be married to more than one person at the same time.

What I know about polygamy in Iran is that is is a poor veil for the use of the services of prostitutes; one can marry a woman for a limited time, but a dowry will be agreed upon beforehand. Limited time can mean anything, as little as an hour is not unheard of.

[RandBlade]

Nessus already answered for me. Heh. The irony hence lies within Lewk's firm stance on Jesus et al. and his insistance that certain viewpoints of his are covered by the almighty Bible (even when the actual support for his stances is only flimsy at best).

It is thus highly ironic that he questions his Bible when at other times he remains firm that he's covered by this book completely and unfallibly.

Actually that's not ironic, as he's questioning society and not the Bible. His position is (if I understand it rightly) that his reading of the Bible permits polygamy.

Interesting to read Loki's response. The thing with western Christianity is that it has as much to do with Roman adoptions in the 4th century or so as it does the teachings of the Old Testament and Jesus.

[Aimless]

It is a bit strange given that Biblical law explicitly prohibits things he does not think should be prohibited by law (eg. adultery), while permitting things I assume he would not wish to permit (eg. slavery?). Bible-based reasoning about these things are bound to lead a man down twisty paths

[Nessus]

So people can't change? I've definitely changed a lot since chatting with all you jerks since I joined AtariCC so long ago.

So what can change the nature of a man?

[Ominous Gamer]

grass or ass

since this is about bigamy, i'm going with ass.

[Lebanese Dragon]

I know in Islam the idea is if you can love them all eqaully you can have more than one wife. I do know that in the new testaments there is a line about two halves making one whole. Suggesting the idea that you should have one wife. As far as legality though, I think though it shouldn't be illegal.

[Hazir]

I know in Islam the idea is if you can love them all eqaully you can have more than one wife. I do know that in the new testaments there is a line about two halves making one whole. Suggesting the idea that you should have one wife. As far as legality though, I think though it shouldn't be illegal.

The way I know the Islamic version of polygamy it's more materialistic; the husband needs to be able to maintain all of his wives in the same style. That means you need quite a bit of money before you can marry a second, third of fourth wife. Ordinary muslims (all living ones) are not supposed to have more than 4 wives. The big harems you used to hear of were very often not filled with wives of the sultans but with his wives and other women who aspired to be a wife. With the padisah's of Turkey the best way to rise to wife status was giving birth to a male child.

[wiggin]

Indeed, AFAIK the only Biblical restriction on polygamy for common marriages is from Shmot/Exodus 21:10, indicating that if a man takes a second wife, he is still required to provide food/clothing/sex for the first. So that pretty much limits it to the relatively wealthy. (There are some other biblical rules as well, but of a more esoteric nature.)

[LittleFuzzy]

It is a bit strange given that Biblical law explicitly prohibits things he does not think should be prohibited by law (eg. adultery), while permitting things I assume he would not wish to permit (eg. slavery?). Bible-based reasoning about these things are bound to lead a man down twisty paths

I don't see what's strange. The legal and the religious are certainly separate spheres. Even the moral and the religious are not the same though many choose to overlap them.

[ImAnOgre]

So what can change the nature of a man?

Define 'nature of a man'

grass or ass

since this is about bigamy, i'm going with ass.

I laughed out loud on this one do hard, I spit on my dog

[Lewkowski]

Polygamy seems to have been dying out by the time Christ was born, and Roman implementation of Christianity didn't allow for polygamy (since Roman customs didn't allow it). There were only a few minor attempts since Rome's adoption of Christianity to bring back polygamy. As for why mainline Christians in the US hate polygamy, it's probably because they thought Mormons were heretics for making up new stories about Jesus, and thus viewed all unique Mormon practices with extra suspicion.

That makes sense.

Huffpo had a front page about Santroum comparing polygamy to gay sex... of course liberals are all up in arms because of course its totally different and that's just horribly homophobic. Ah hypocrisy...

Note - Santorums comment came after I started the thread.