I stumbled across an interesting article regarding polygamy in the US

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/2004-10-03-turley_x.htm
http://www.biblicalpolygamy.com/

Polygamus relations in the US are not only on the rise (50,000 known cases to date in the US alone) but many started taking the matter to court fighting for the right of consent based multiple relationships.

Do you think we will see that in Australia?

Wow.. you are a cheeky possum arn't u :)

Ok.. I book your 9 yr old daughter to add to my 50 yr old wife.

On polygamy, forget anything 'doctrinal'.. there is no teaching about a man having only one wife in scripture EXCEPT in the new testament where leaders are called to have only one. There is good reason for this, and its usually found in the narrative sections of the Old testament where I fail to see even ONE harmonious or happy polygamous relationship.

They were without exception characterized by jealousy, enmity and strife. My namesake only had one :) "ruth".

You have Hagar and Sarah, Solomons multitudes of wives who led him after idols, Davids sons of different wives who created all kinds of intrigue and plotting for power.

Then there is the difficult issue of FAVORITES. Which while banned by the Quran, were totally embraced by the author of the Quran, i.e. Mohammed who loved the 'young one' most. (strange, I cannot for the life of me work out why....DUH!)

It must be so fulfilling for a 50 yrs old wife, to watch the man with whom she has spent a lifetime, doting over a 9 yr old kid, showering her with affection as though the older one did not exist anymore, apart from the 'obligatory' visit from time to time.

Polygamy is quite feasable even NOW... There is a Muslim in QLD who has 2 or 3 wives but only one is 'legal'. I think one is Leb or something but another is aussie. He reallllly didn't like Current Affair cameras peeking at his life and his manipulation of centrelink which is giving 'single parent' payment to the other wives .. NAUGHTY man...

So... if 'Scripture' (bible or Quran) cannot guarantee the best among humankind (Mohamed) follows it, then surely the wise course is not to flirth with trouble by having more than one wife.

I maintain that a man cannot possibly love equally 2 women. One WILL always feel neglected.

Hmmm u opened a can here didn't u :)

BD, thanks for a partly honest response to the issue.
I don't think that you are being particularly fair to the issue mixing child abuse and polygamy up though. We already have laws about guys your age and 9 year old kids. Should we ban adult heterosexual marriage because in some societies hetro's have married children? Much more reasonable to speculate about how the 50 year old hubbby will cope when his wife takes on a new 20 year old husband.

Polygamy within our society raises a lot of issues particularly when you consider the legal consequences (family/welfare payments, property settlements etc). Anybody entering into a polygamous arrangement faces a minefield if things don't go right.

My personal view is that consenting adults should be able to arrange their personal affairs without the involvement of the government or those who think they know best. Make their own choices and live with the consequences.

As long as they fit within the same town planning constraints as other people and don't get special legal benefits not shared by others then it's none of my business.

As to wether it will happen here. If so it would have to start with a build up of unofficial polygamous relationships until there were enough people in them and enough community acceptance of them for the government to realise that there was a some benefit in making it legal. Some way off yet I suspect.

R0bert

Could society accept female polygamy as easily as male polygamy?
With guaranteed financial income(working women), women actually need marriage less than men do because women always know who their children are.

Robert,

Good comment.
The issue with any new social trend is that it cascades lots of complications on legal, social, education and political system.

Boazy,

Stick to the topic my friend the polygamy mob in the US are your fellow mob and not Muslims. And its not about 'hidden' illegal one like your friend but 50,000 'in your face' cases who want to legalise it. The things Benny Hinn won't do for $$ :)

PS: the propaganda material you read should be for naive audience and you should not end up believing it. Its developed by good old 9th century missionaries like you.

Sharkin,

Interesting the article refers to polygamus societies for women in Asia and some parts of Africa. The thing is, in a secular world all relationships are consent based so technically its legal.

Fellow_Human, I doubt that BD has much sense of shared kinship with the mormons who are the main western "christian" sect where polygamy has some kind of acceptance. Likewise I'd be surprised if Benny Hinn gave any public support to the idea.

The points made in the article are good ones, child abuse should be dealt with as child abuse. Likewise the idea that serial unhappy marriage is legal but a group of people seemingly happily living together is not is somewhat strange.

Is there a generic word which covers all forms of group marriage, what about multiples of both genders?

R0bert

F.H. Mormons are not Christians... they are a cult.

How the heck did Benny Hinn enter this discussion ? SHOOO Benny !
I don't like his style at ALL, and consider him something of a charleton.... (Leap of Faith/Steve Martin)

Did you notice I said in my last post "Doctrine aside" ?

I was speaking down to earth common sense, and backed it up with some scriptural narratives.

Again..how did '9th century propogranda' get into this ?

Its as plain as dogs balls on a grasshopper that a man over 50 with existing wives and who marries again to a 9 or 15 or 18 yrs old, is going to be more sexually interested in HER than in the 'old wrinklies'... so, in the Islamic case, its just plain unjust, unfair and wrong and against the supposed law of Allah.

I am aware of some small groups of non mormon people calling themselves Christian, advocating polygamy, they are fruitloops :) to use a term often applied to me. Refer all the above regarding them.

Also, on topic, do you mean 'legally' or 'socially' in terms of next reality ?

Rob, having already been burned with 'one' r u wanting to be burned by 2 or more ?

F.H. just out of curiosity, why did you raise this topic ? Are u thinking of demographic or conversion trends re Islam ? come on..out with it or I'll push the bamboo further up under your fingernails :)

P.S. stop telling me I'm angry. Passionate anti-Islam does not translate to Muslim hater *slap* :)

Christians are not Jews... they are a cult.

Jews are not Zarathustrians... they are a cult.

And so on, ad absurdum.

BD, no current plans in that direction but then it might be nice at times to have another bloke around the house if he was someone I got on well with. On a more serious note I do have a strong interest in promoting a society where people keep their noses out of other adults bedrooms, lounges etc.

I suspect that there a whole lot of things which would be difficult for someone raised in our culture in a polywhatever relationship. There are also some things which might work well. Easy to get child care, share the chores etc.

I would hope that the wife might save some for her aging husband because of the bond and affection between them and not wear herself out with the yound stud she has brought into the marriage, if not there is probably not much to the relationship anyway.

The sagging belly and wrinkles may not set the pulse racing but intimacy with someone you care about has it's own merits. Is that worse than the current all or nothing approach which tears so many marriages apart?

R0bert

Boazy,

Its arrogant of you to say who is Christian and who isn’t. If you can hold your anti-Islamic obsessive grudge for a second you might understand my post.
I was talking about polygamy as a social trend in secular societies. If today’s society allow same sex marriages, what argument do we have against consent based polygamy?
(PS: I believe except for the Catholic and Orthodox church, remaining churches do allow same sex marriage, please correct me if I am wrong).

As for your insults to prophets (Mohamed and Solomon), it’s an Islamic belief that we are all witnesses on each other on judgement day. I will be on the witness stand (maybe sitting next to your keyboard:):)) on judgement day.

Dewi,

I saw the wisdom of your comment and that is we should not judge each other. Happy to stand corrected if I misinterpreted.

Robert,

I was attending an iftar with few friends that included a number of Muslims and non-Muslims and many new reverts (we don't call them converts). For the reverts, the negative 'boogey man' picture of the prophet is what intrigued them to start learning about Islam 3 years ago. So as dishonest as Boaz is, I started thinking maybe there is a wisdom there.

Peace,
T

My observation, over many years, is that there is so much insecurity, jealousy and lack of self esteem in both men and women, that many monogamous partnerships can't be happy and/or last. Some of this jealousy etc may be justified, some not, but there is no denying that it exists in possibly epidemic proportions.

So how many people could happily and comfortably be a willing part of a polygamous relationship, regardless of its make-up?

Wow.. you are a cheeky possum arn't u :)I maintain that a man cannot possibly love equally 2 women. One WILL always feel neglected.

Posted by BOAZ_David, Tuesday, 3 October 2006 4:38:10 PM

Wow...you are a patronizing old fart aren't u :)
Does this assertion also imply that a man cannot possibly love equally 2 children? If not, why should a person be able to love 2 children equally but not love 2 adults equally. Or, if you maintain that inequality is inevitable in all multiple relationships and a deal-breaker then, according to your rationale, people should also be legally restricted to one child because if anyone has 2 children 'one will always feel neglected' and that is enough to make it unacceptable.

Rob513264, good point. It got me thinking about BD's argument that the bible while not forbidding polygamy (most of the major players seemed to prefer it) does show some unhappy situations.

I thought about the sibling relationships in the bible.
- The sweet story of Cain and Able.
- The amazing affection of Ham, Shem and Jepeth
- That ever so inspirational story of Isaac and Ishmael
- Jacob and Esau and their determination to stick by each other dispite all odds.
- The wonderful brotherly affection shown by Amnon to his sister Tamar

I could go on but those familiar with the stories should get the picture by now, for the rest Google might help. If we use BD's logic we should ban multiple kids, it just seems to be a recipe for murder and misery.

R0bert

Quite hilarious to see Boaz taking Irfan's bait - hook, line and sinker. More worrisome is this:

"Its as plain as dogs balls on a grasshopper that a man over 50 with existing wives and who marries again to a 9 or 15 or 18 yrs old, is going to be more sexually interested in HER than in the 'old wrinklies'"

Boaz's assumption that a 9 year old is obviously more sexually "interesting" than a grown woman speaks volumes. A Freudian slip, perhaps?

Rob.. parental love is by nature equal... it is not INTIMATE or sexual.
If you think you can equally love from the depths of your soul 2 women, then go for it. But I somehow thing the women may have 'reservations' about it.
Can you imagine.. u goto bed with wife one.. "Sweety..I love you sooo much.. with ALL my heart" at which point her eyes roll and she silently mouths "yeah..right". Then he goes to wife 2.... same speech. C'mon mate.. get real.

Perhaps that criticism reveals something about your understanding of love and intimacy and the marriage union ?

C.J. trust u :) perhaps the slip was yours ?

There is a section in the old testament, where king david was on his death bed. The royal court went and searched for the 'hottest cutest virgin' they could find, and promptly sent her into the kings bed.
The hope was to revive his interest in life. I think she was in this case 16. The underlying premise of course is that old men appreciate young girls. Get it ? But you are above such things right ?

BD, "parental love is by nature equal" - I think that there is plenty of evidence of parents finding that's not really the case. Some manage it well enough for any inequality not to show either to themselves or others and others don't manage it.

Any thoughts on the unhappyness of sibling relationships in the bible?

The thing about King David might just be showing that your god has a soft spot for old men with a thing for young girls. David was a man after his own heart.

I've already said elsewhere that I think polygamous relationships would be very difficult but then so are monogamous relationships. If consenting adults want to have them the only role society should have is in ensuring that children from such relationships have at least the same protections as other children. The rest is vouerism.

R0bert

Polygamy isn't always just for the benefit of the man. It is not uncommon in cultures that support it for women to ask their husbands to marry a friend or sister of theirs.

Can you imagine the husband sitting on the couch watching the sport while the two women chat, share housework and childminding with both saying "not tonight dear--can't you go and pester your other wife?"

Given that most women have not been able to get the man to be much help round the house and with the kids and then they are supposed to work at an outside job that earns as much as he does, a second wife might be just the trick. But hang on, then again, maybe then the women will work out they don't need the man anyway ;)

Aziliz, I was thinking another guy round the house might be useful for similar reasons.

Someone else to help with the work that needs doing. Might be easier to just make sure future partners are the type who do their fair share. It'd be a bummer to have a spouse bring in a new partner who just created more work for whoever was already doing it.

R0bert

I must admit I was just predominantly being flippant Robert, while pointing out there are always other angles in every 'social variation'.

off topic, I finally came up with some suggestions of alternatives on the "Battle for Balance" as you suggested I do, and everyone has abandoned the thread. :(

Aziliz, I'd guessed you were having a play. Thanks, we need more of that :).

I've missed your additions on the other thread, I'll try and get back there in the near future and have a look. Have a nice weekend.

R0bert