Polygamy Essay, Research Paper
What exactly do you mean by “polygamy”?
“Polygamy”, as referred to on this site, is meant in its popular usage, where one husband has more than one wife at the same time. This is technically known as “polygyny”, but you would have to be really keen to know that. On this site “Polygamy” does not refer to “polyandry”, where one wife has more than one husband at once. That is a practice which has never been prevalent in human societies and which major world religions condemn. It is also a practice that the site administrator feels personally unable to support.
But surely polygamy is illegal!
Ah yes, well spotted! It is illegal, if you are the sort of pedantic person who insists on registering all their marriages in the standard legally-binding sort of way. However, if you’ve decided to be a polygamist and put Multiple Marriage into practice, then you’re hardly the sort of person to let social conventions about registering marriages get in the way. You can have a perfectly pleasant and happy marriage without the tedious requirement for bits of parchment. And you can have a better marriage than provided for by modern states, because signing up to their view of marriage means signing up to their view of divorce. Proper Polygamists don’t see such a big need for divorce. If you want to start a new marriage, that’s fine, but you shouldn’t have to wreck an existing marriage to do it.
In fact, to be absolutely accurate, it is bigamy which is often illegal. Bigamy is the criminal offence of registering a second marriage when a first marriage is still recognised. Polygamy can be practiced without breaking the law simply by registering no more than one of the marriages.
Where bigamy is illegal, polygamy can often be lawfully practiced.
But shouldn’t it be illegal?
Yes – registering multiple marriage in today’s society should be illegal, as long as people have the understanding that marriages are monogamous. If people break the law, then they deserve to be punished, for often they are deceiving the state, and also deceiving their wives. Brides should understand they are entering a polygamous state. But if they understand that, and if they don’t break the law by registering the marriage, then they can be polygamists with a clear conscience.
Practical Aspects of Polygamy
Here are a few words on the benefits polygamy has for women and the controls it places on men.
Benefits
Automatic childcare in a sexist society gives women more effective choice to have a career without devaluing the role of homemaker.
Being able to marry men who are already married means that women can marry men who have already proved themselves, therefore minimising their risk.
Being able to marry the men who attract most women means they don’t have to settle just for what’s left after other women have the best pickings.
Having the possibility that a husband can remarry without divorce extends practical security to a woman. She needn’t worry about losing her husband and income as she loses her looks, because if her husband is attracted by a younger woman, he doesn’t even have to think about leaving his wife.
Polygamy removes the pressure on a husband to commit adultery, and removes damaging deceit from a marriage.
Polygamy provides a method where a woman can have a female friend for life as well as a husband.
Polygamy therefore provides more people and a better chance of meeting diverse needs.
Polygamy provides a potential for at least three adult incomes, reducing state dependance and the fear of unemployment.
Controls
If a man wants to have another sexual partner in a polygamous system then he has to meet his responsibilities – pay for any children produced from all his relationships without priority being given to those from a ‘legal’ relationship.
Polygamy removes or reduces the seduction of innocent young women – If a man promises to marry her, he cannot use his existing marriage as an excuse for not fulfilling a promise.
Polygamy reduces the number of women who are available. Currently, with more women than men, this ‘cheapens’ women. With less women available their ‘value’ goes up. In other words, polygamy makes men have to try harder and do better with women if they are to win them in competition with other men.
Should a woman be allowed two husbands?
If not, why not?
This site teaches that polygamy is a morally acceptable lifestyle. But we use “polygamy” in its
popular sense of a man having a number of wives. We do not support group marriage,
promiscuity or “polyandry” – that practice where a woman has more than one husband.
There are a number of reasons why.
For Christians:-
The first and most basic reason is that God made it that way. The rest of the material on this site
shows that God allows men to have more than one wife – The Bible shows that a woman can only
have one husband living at once.
“So then if, while her husband is living she
marries another man, she shall be called
an adulteress, but if her husband has
died, she is free from that law, so that she
is not an adulteress, even though she
marries another man.”
Romans Chapter 7 v 3
This verse stops women from having more than one husband living at any one time. It does not
stop men from having more than one wife because firstly, it quite simply doesn’t say it, and
secondly, it is clearly not a general principle which applies regardless of sex. That can be seen in
the immediate context. The reason the Bible gives is that a woman is under the law of her husband
until he dies. While the Bible does talk of marriage partners having authority over each other’s
bodies, it never talks of a man being under the law of his wife. In fact, it numerous places the Bible
indicates that that would be intolerable, such as 1 Timothy 2 v 12 “I do not allow a woman to
teach or to usurp authority over the man”.
In fact, Romans 7 makes this clear. The passage is comparing the woman to the individual
believer, being dead to the law of Moses so that they can be married to Christ and be under his
law. Now it would be inappropriate to say that Christ was under the law of the believer. And in
the same way it is inappropriate to say that a husband is under the law of his wife. And because of
that it is clear that the restriction in Romans 7 of a woman to one husband cannot be transformed
into a restriction of a man to only one wife.
The second reason is related to the first through God’s system of leadership. 1 Cor 11 shows that
this is:-
God is the head of Christ
Christ is the head of man
Man is the head of woman.
This would be defined by our society as sexist. The Bible clearly treats men and women differently
- so does God – otherwise I would be able to have babies too!!
The order does not signify inequality. The Bible teaches that Christ is God just as much as the
Father. They are co-equal but have different roles.
Obviously, man is not equal to Christ – so the passage does allow for inequality.
But when we return to man and woman we can see that they are equal, perhaps in the same way
that the Father and Christ are equal.
But equality does not mean they are exactly the same or have the same rights and responsibilities.
Hence the man is the head of woman – he takes the lead. The Scriptures show that the man must
love his wives and obviously this will affect his decisions.
In case you think I am now talking about a different subject, here is the punchline – “no man can
serve two masters”.
Christian teaching is that you cannot follow different leaders – you will hate one and love another.
So it is in marriage. A woman cannot have two husbands because she cannot follow two leaders.
A man can have two wives because it is perfectly possible to lead more than one person.
This can be seen in the phrase in 1 Corinthians 7v2 which many monogamists quote out of context
- “Let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.”
The words for “his own” and “her own” in this verse are different, and it is not simply a gender
difference. This is what we would expect if the way in which they are the other’s own differs
according to gender. If you check the word for “her own” and look up Romans 14, you will see it
is the same word used there of a servant and “his own master”.
This shows that, if Paul had believed in monogamy, he could have used the same word for both
sexes in 1 Corinthians 7. But he didn’t.
It also means that a woman has her own husband in the same way that a servant has his own
master. Just as a master can have more than one servant, so a husband can have more than one
wife, and in the same way as a servant can only have one master, so a wife can only have one
husband.
For Everyone:-
Anything beyond what the Bible teaches is speculation. You can read on and consider my
speculation if you wish, but it is still speculation. My acceptance of polygyny and rejection of
polyandry is based on my belief in the infallibility of the Bible – and I would encourage you to base
your beliefs on the Bible and not on my speculation.
So, here goes…
1.The first thing to note is that polyandry is very rare – to the extent of being a freak of nature
– the vast majority of societies which allow polygamy allow it for men and not for women. I
do not know of anywhere where the two systems run together – it has the potential to get
horrendously confusing if it does. It is likely to be more than just chance which makes this
the case.
2.A woman always knows whether a baby is her baby. A man doesn’t – unless he knows that
the woman was only sleeping with him. To preserve the bond between parents and
children, women cannot have more than one partner of the opposite sex. Men can. If a man
suspects he is paying for a child who is not his he may want to leave. If a man wants to
leave, in a polyandrous situation he can always deny responsibility for the children in the
relationship. This leaves the family at risk. Practically speaking we know that men tend
towards providing for the family – polyandry greatly increases the risk that the family will
break apart and everyone will be poorer.
3.There are more women of marriageable age in the world than there are men. This means
that many women who want to marry cannot, because of the sheer weight of numbers. For
more detail on this see the “Vital Statistics” part of this site. Polyandry makes this problem
worse. Polygamy can remove the problem all together.
4.According to leading economists, the problem should be thought if in terms of demand and
supply. When men are allowed more than one wife, there is suddenly an increase in
demand for women (as married men can be legitimate prospects as well as single men).
This means that their “price” (what a man is willing to do for them to get and keep them)
goes up. Similarly there is a decrease in demand for men (as women who may have
married them now have a far wider choice). This means that their “price” (what a woman is
willing to do for them to get and keep them) goes down. So – according to leading
economists, if a man is allowed more than one wife the situation for all women is improved
– they have more done for them, and don’t have to do as much, but if women were allowed
more than one husband their situation would be much worse – they would have to do a
great deal to get a man, and he would have to do even less than he does now. Put simply,
economics teaches that when men have more wives it is better for women, and that when
women have more husbands it is worse for women. This combines with the imbalance in
numbers of men and women to mean that polyandry and compulory monogamy are both
bad for women.
5.It has been suggested by some that women are naturally monogamous and that men are
naturally polygamous. From the viewpoint of natural selection, men have more to gain from
multiple partners because they can have more children and propogate their genes, but
women can at the most only be pregnant once every nine months, and the number of
partners they have does nothing to change this. Indeed, some biologists now adopt theories
on reproduction which take account of sperm competition – whereby seemingly excess
sperm lie in wait to prevent sperm from another partner fertilising an egg. There is no similar
response in the female. The natural order seems to uphold the idea of women having one
partner.
6.Many who do not accept Christianity would still accept the basic point that leadership
tends to be male. This means they can accept the basic logic of the Christian leadership
argument – that a family needs only one leader and that two leaders is not viable.
7.There is more to come – I just haven’t had chance to write it yet.
Vital Statistics about Polygamy
An email to this page alleged “in the western world, there are barely more women than
men; it is essentially 50/50″. Such a view is untrue and misleading. The reply is printed
below so that people may be able to appreciate the negative side of enforced monogamy.
You cannot have it both ways – it is either equal or there is a surplus. There is no way a surplus is
‘essentially’ 50/50. The truth is that the size of the excess varies from country to country. Left on
its own there is a statistically significant excess of women. The surplus is actually greater than a
first examination of statistics will show – as an excess of young boys is quickly turned into a
surplus of females due to differential mortality rates.
For your information, my examination of the official statistics for 1994 in the United Kingdom
shows that a population of 58.4 million people breaks down into 28.6 million males and 29.8
million females. In other words there were 1.2 million more females than males in the United
Kingdom at this time. That represents a male:female split of 49:51 (with the male ratio rounded
UP to 49).
If you just count those above marriageable age (which is sensible when you are talking about
marriage) there are 22.31 million males and 23.84 million females. That is a surplus of 1.53 million
females. The ratio is then 48.34 males to 51.66 females – closer to a 48:52 ratio.
This introduces competition when men are restricted to one wife. Any surplus combined with
monogamy has a tendency to increase the size of the effective surplus. It goes like this…
If the numbers are 49:51 that means that there is a 2 per cent surplus. This means that 4.08 per
cent of the female population cannot marry if they want to. (According to the British figures it is
actually 6.41 per cent of women above the legal age of marriage). If they are determined it means
they have to find a married man and separate him from his wife. Otherwise, in their competition
with other single women they just have to offer a better deal – which may often simply mean sex
without marriage. Other women will just play the game differently – rather than marriage they will
find another way of obtaining support from men – prostitution.
This means that, in an allegedly monogamous society, men do not have to marry to get sex, or
even female companionship. They can have prostitutes from the excess of women. They can have
casual sex with the competing single women, and if they do get married they needn’t be faithful
because they still remain the target of that 4.08 per cent (or higher) of the female population who
are forced to be single.
Therefore, if a man does not need marriage for sex he is less inclined to get married – so the fact
of an insistance on monogamy works against itself. Men don’t need to get married – they can carry
on being single – and this means that less men are in fact available for marriage. This in turn means
that an even greater section of the female population cannot get married, and therefore faces the
choice between fornication, adultery or prostitution, and so the vicious circle continues.
And to these facts must be added a couple of other variable factors. Firstly, the surplus of women
increases as they get older. But, in general, women tend to marry men slightly older than
themselves – usually around 2-4 years older on average. Thus, even if their own age cohort has a
49:51 split, the market that they are in is likely to be a 48:52 split. In such an example, 8.33 per
cent of women cannot get married, without the extra complicating features. And when they try
their own age or younger men they are competing against younger, more attractive, more fertile,
women.
Secondly, the figures are complicated by the ‘impressions’ that the facts create. A significant
excess of women over the number of desirable men puts them into competition even before they