Theres also a story that Mohammed got angry and had a woman stretched out between horses and pulled apart.
Nice guy.
What a founding father for a religion?
I heard that story at a seminar of Islam and its foundations and of Islams terrorism movements.
They want Australia you know?
Theyve been storing up guns for Jihad for years and Indonesia has plans to take all of the land north of Townnsille QLD as "SOUTH IRIAN" (NZ too).

I heard another story that Idi Amin had one of his wives' limbs amputated because she had his child aborted.
He didnt kill her, just had doctors remove her limbs so she couldnt function...then he left her like that.
This and the Mohammed story is what happens when people refuse to accept a loving God as their Lord and go for the satanic. You wont find committed Jesus' followers, despite their human weaknesses, slamming planes into buildings, storing up guns for an overthrow of a democarcy or abusing their women.

Stevenlmeyer,
I have been waiting for someone to answer your question with rational reasons against polygamy. The only one that comes close to rational is the last one about gender imbalance if we all partook in polygamy.

Basicly, I see little wrong with it providing all are willing participants and not presured in any way. As Mercurius said, it is far more honest than adultary. But I think it will only work in societies where the male is lord and master and the wives are completely subservient.

I can see too many practical problems for me to even consider it. Like spending time sorting out demarkation disputes instead of fishing or playing golf. Do they all live together or in seperate houses?

The biggest loser would be wife Number 1. The early years in most marriages are the toughest. Making do and loan repayments, etc. leave little for personal pleasures. It would only be when they are better off would he think about another wife, just when wife number 1 could start to enjoy hoidays or cruises, etc. Wife 1 would be understandably resentfull as she has done all the hard yards when they had little and low income. She probaby was also a big help to them becoming more affluent. From her point of view wife 2 is not only taking time with her husband but getting the benefits of their now more comfortable life. Then when the husband dies, she will have to share the estate equally with wife 2.

There is little doubt in my mind that wife 1 is losing out badly and she should have right to veto.

Are there any other real reasons against polygamy? See Stevenlmeyers post on page 2.

This topic has flushed out the sanctimonious cultural elites.

Sounds like a hangover of the colonialist paternalists, together with their swelling band of blowhards with deep seated Cassandra complexes who have joined their ranks... 'they are heathens and savages and we know best as we are THE MORAL standard of civilised society, because WE SAY SO.' Pfffft.

Funny how its apparently wrongs for 'them' to bring their polygamist ways into 'our' country, with its monogomy, established after expanionist land-grabbers came here and banged the indigenous polygamous tribalists over the head with their Cassnadra complexes of higher morality. Prententious twaddlers. Double pfffft.

Methinks that these topics that cast a pretentiously sanctimonious eye over other cultures is little more than veiled, plausibly deniable bigotry. It is the cultural pracitice of OUTSIDERS that is being judged, never OUR cultural practices. Then again its easier to criticise others for our own failings.

The cultural practices being questioned to the point of vilification are always aimed at the same groups... moslems/arabs, asians and aborigines. Them a-rabs oppress women thru polygamy (but its ok for white bread to have 3 boyfriends/girlfriends), them asians kill whales (but nary a whisper about our white scandanavian brethern who do it and lets not save the endangered dugong hunted by the traditional land-owners, for obvious reasons) and them aborigines cant control their drink and rape 12yr olds).

Double-plus pffffft.

Hypocrites, have another latte.

Over the years I've had a couple of wives, but not simultaneously. Having one wife at a time was bad enough - I can't imagine why any man living in a Western society would want to be burdened with more than one!

Maybe that's why so many of us these days eschew the whole outmoded institution, in favour of partnerships with equals. Mind you, I did have a feminist girlfriend back in the 80s who declared frequently that she'd like to have a wife... after she'd been one herself and rejected the whole patriarchal notion, of course. And then there's the gays who oddly wish to opt in to an anachronistic institution that fails around half the time among straight participants.

When I was a fieldworking anthropologist I worked in a tribal society where polygyny is still common and legal. In that society, the practice made economic and political sense (for men anyway) since the major function of women was to produce children, sweet potatoes and pigs.

In such a situation, marriage still serves its original function as the legitimate method of exchanging women between corporate groups of men, but that's hardly the case in a more complex, advanced and liberal society like we have in Oz, is it?

Banjo

You don't need polygyny to cause gender imbalances.

In China and, increasingly, in India, we find a surplus of males because of the habit of aborting female foetuses. It's called "sex selective abortion."

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-selective_abortion_and_infanticide

Pelican,

Polygyny is not likely seriously to limit human biodiversity.

A far more serious problem is cousin marriage. Geneticists usually understate the dangers of first cousin marriage. In Western societies where first cousin marriage is rare, there is little danger in marrying your first cousin. The geneticists are correct.

But in some Muslim cultures families have been marrying nothing but first cousins for generations with obvious and wholly bad repercussions.

See:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/1578374/Pakistanis-%27ignore-dangers-of-cousins-marrying%27.html

"Mrs Cryer raised the issue two years ago after research showed that British Pakistanis were 13 times more likely to have children with disorders than the general population."

There is some slight evidence to suggest that, after a while, this degree of inbreeding results in lower average intelligence. In other words, the overt genetic disorders may only be the tip of the iceberg.

I have still seen no RATIONAL reason to prohibit polygyny.

To repeat what I wrote previously, the following are NOT rational reasons:

--My holy book says you can't do it.

--My sect says you can't do it.

--My wife would kick me in the balls if I suggested it.

--My husband would not like it.

--My "significant other" would not like it

--I would not like it.