CJ

“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!”

It’s good to see you back, CJ, so good in fact that I think I can dismiss the above statement as tongue-in-cheek provocation and let it pass!

Stevenlmeyer

“I have still seen no RATIONAL reason to prohibit polygyny.”

If gender inequality is not a rational enough reason for you, Steven, then I can only assume you are so blinded by male chauvinism that you either don’t recognize feminist logic when you see it, or you do but refuse to acknowledge its worth.

By the way, Steven, who appointed you as arbiter of this debate?

Banjo

“The only one that comes close to rational is the last one about gender imbalance if we all partook in polygamy.”

I know we’re mere females, Banjo, but we do have names!

“Like you I would like someone to post rational reasons for prohibiting polygamy. I outlined some practical reasons why I would not consider it and I said that I think that wife 1 would be a big loser. But neither are reasons not to allow polygamy between willing participants.”

Aren’t they? The second one, in my book, is a very valid and rational reason for not allowing polygamy.

I don't know so much about equal power in relationships. By what
I've seen, females, in their younger years anyhow, hold the
upper hand. When she says "no", he of course has to accept.

Some women do misuse this power, to their advantage.

A second wife might mean that whilst one says "no", the
other might say "yes", so women would lose so called
"pussy power" which they have now, in relationships.

Sorry, but that is calling a spade a spade.

Keyser, you’ve cracked open the can and I thank you for being so quick to jump on the gay bandwagon with your demand for polygamy to be legitimized.

Spotting the cracks in our social systems, with marriage now wide open for interpretation, should be our new national pastime. Cheers!

I will pull you up on a few little matters, though.

For starters: the acceptance of polygamy in the Muslim countries.

(1) Most Muslim countries do not support polygamy.
(2) Where it is already not banned outright debate rages over it’s right to exist. There is widespread recognition that it is a failed model of social justice, exposing women to exactly the kind of abuses that was designed to prevent.

In Indonesia (already limited by law in practice):

http://islaminmodernity.blogspot.com/2006/12/indonesia-wants-to-ban-polygamy.html

Iraq: http://www.iwpr.net/?p=icr&s=f&o=336517&apc_state=henpicr

While you are being honest, come clean about what the Qu’ran demands of you as the male head of up to four households. The Australian government might eventually succumb to supporting multiple unions and the offspring that result (taking care of your financial and legal obligations), however, it will still be up to the husband to be unscrupulously fair to the wives and show impartiality to all. Admitting the sheer impossibility of this superhuman task, the Muslim must remain monogamous.

Some navel gazing might be in order Keyser, what with all your media commitments, and fulfilling your marital duties with Wife No. 1 ...

(....cont)

(cont.)

On the biblical requirement of monogamy, then I think you could argue that God is nothing but pragmatic and extremely forgiving.

There is the small matter of re-labelling to begin with:

Polygamy = adultery.

I agree that many marriages are struggling under the strain of this particular burden. However the solution to adultery is not to legalise adultery as polygamy.

Do not look past Jesus’ words on this topic (Matthew 19):

8 Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.

9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."

Monogamy is upheld as God's design, His will, and His expectation for His people.

But this is a teaching for Christians (the Australian Government permitting men with multiple wives to enter this country without dissolving those relationships and insisting on one wife, as disagreeable as that concept may be to some, could also be argued to be sound practice biblically).

And, yes, the OT ‘authorized’ polygamy (the Mosaic Law specifically refers to it) and even 'demanded' the practice (especially in the case of levirite marriage), but this is not something God wants us to do, except in extreme situations

Chechnya poses one of those extreme situations. Granted, the call to legitimize polygamy comes from the fundamentalist Wahabist sect, surely it would be heartless to ignore the plight of “10 million lonely women”, and pre-supposing that our modern methods (Russian dating websites) can’t find earnest international husbands for them in the meantime, who can blame the Russians for jumping all over the idea of polygamy as the answer:

“We must welcome (this idea) and spread (polygamy) for the whole Russia because we have 10 million lonely women.”

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jan/06011308.html

Just remember, that God does not encourage the practice, and in fact abhors it. Never forget the principle in the face of our own moral weaknesses.

Mr Trad go back to Lebanon.

Bronwyn: << ...I think I can dismiss the above statement as tongue-in-cheek provocation and let it pass! >>

Thanks Bronwyn - and well-spotted :) Of course, if I'd wanted to be really provocative I'd have mentioned the issue of the proliferation of mothers-in-law for any man silly enough to want more than one wife!

Seriously, I think that much of the kerfuffle that goes on about marriage could be dispensed with if we recognise that it has become a largely symbolic religious ritual in our society. If "marriage" was recognised as that, rather than as a binding partnership contract between a man and woman, then the various religious institutions that have so much to say about it could do what they like.

The legal rights of participants in such arrangements should be separated from the religious aspects, via the expansion and implementation of civil union regulations in order to accommodate, for example, co-wives and gay partnerships. Such regulation could quite easily deal with issues like property rights and child support.

Given the increasing diversity of our culture and the concomitant diversification of partnership arrangements between consenting adults, surely such changes to marriage regulation are both inevitable and desirable?