44 replies to this topic

[Natureboy]

Well to be honest Christianity shouldn't be viewed on our cultural norms.  It doesn't explicitly say no to polygamy other than some advice from Paul saying you *SHOULD* have only one wife if you're looking to be in places of leadership within the church.  The thought process is that you will be too busy managing your own life that you won't be effective in your church role.  Well you shouldn't practice polygamy in many places of the USA because it's prohibited afaik.  I honestly haven't looked at the laws concerning it very hard.

Historically polygamy is illegal in the USA across the board—even in Utah. Conflicts over polygamy was a basis for persecution of Mormons and the LDS church.

 

As for recent changes in US law, about being able to marry who you love, we're not there yet and may never legalize forms of polyamory. Civil marriage is still viewed as a contract between two consenting adults (with family involvement in cases where a partner is legally underage). Church marriages remain governed by religious doctrine, procedures and custom. Although I presided at weddings/hand-fastings for several couples, only once did I sign the marriage certificate. All the other times the couples either had another ceremony that was binding under civil law, or not because that wasn't available for same-sex couples at the time.

[Faederwulf]

Polygamy - in a traditional society, allows the best men to have the most children, and the worst to have none - this ensures genetic improvement. That said, don't bite off more than you can chew.

[Natureboy]

Polygamy - in a traditional society, allows the best men to have the most children, and the worst to have none - this ensures genetic improvement. That said, don't bite off more than you can chew.

Actually it facilitates runaway sexual selection, specifically co-evolution of female choice and extreme male morphology.  It's good for making larger horns or brighter plumage, but otherwise often acts orthogonal to selection for vigor, survival or quality offspring.

Edited by Natureboy, 18 November 2017 - 01:05 AM.

[Faederwulf]

Actually it facilitates runaway sexual selection, specifically co-evolution of female choice and extreme male morphology.  It's good for making larger horns or brighter plumage, but otherwise often acts orthogonal to selection for vigor, survival or quality offspring.

 

In humans, selection is (outside of the modern cultural system and other corrupted cultural systems) done by females, and only the best men get to have children. Ordinarily, the strongest and/or most fit to hold a high position in the hierarchy will have the most wives and most children. Of course, in today's world those with a bark louder than their bite succeed at getting women, as do those with a lot of money.

 

Of course, the polygamous system has the weakness of female hypergamy. The only way this can be avoided in a polygamous system is to teach men to value quality over quantity (not an easy task, libido is difficult to control).

[Final_Boss]

Even if Christianity was the only religion pro Monogamy, it doesn't make the practice out of the norm of human behavior.  The very fact that cheating is a word associated with the way humans feel about relationship loyalty shows that Monogamy is just as natural if not more so than Polygamy.  Monogamy may not have been a big deal in the past, and cheating couples reveal how old human nature wins out against certain types of thinking.  The alpha male might have attracted the most females in a harem back in the day, and that still runs true today for the most part.  People just have different names for the alpha male now (Player, Pimp, Womanizer, Lady killer, Gigolo, Man whore to a lesser extent).  On the female side, they are more likely to be ostracized negatively for having multiple partners.  I'm honestly not sure if this has ever been different in the past.