Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Polygamy? It's positively biblical
The Philadelphia Inquirer ^ | 5/18/08 | Martha Nussbaum

Posted on 05/18/2008 12:35:02 AM PDT by ansel12

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 121-140141-160161-180181-193 next last
To: TheDon; Ruy Dias de Bivar
In spite of Luther's feelings, modern society has accepted that bigamy is worse than divorce. Of course, divorce is not that great either! No doubt there's a lot of adultery going on in modern society with our high divorce rate!

OK. Again not quite comparable (modern-day adultery to the situation Luther referenced in his day).

With both modern-day bigamy and adultery, the overwhelming reality of BOTH is that deception is a part of it. With bigamy, somebody has continued to marry others without telling the original partner or add-on partners. Deception, lying is usually part & parcel of adultery as well (not always, but probably 97% of the time to guestimate).

With the situation in Luther's day, the royal wife "consented" to the arrangement. There was no deception. There was no putting away the wife.

What I find interesting is I can probably find a few FReeper LDS posts which emphasize that LDS polygamous wives "consented" to the add-on wives.

So this goes past to my post #117:

If you want me to, I can point to very specific Mormon leaders, who, in the early 20th century, wanted to "quarantine" polygamy in the Mormon community. Reed Smoot and his secretary, Karl Badger (even though Badger was himself the product of a polygamous union), for example (circa 1904-1906). By about that time, and a few years after, half of the Mormon general authorities were monogamous...and many of them wished it would be so quarantined. The LDS prophet Grant in the 1930s likewise went on an anti-polygamy reform even though he himself had had three wives. He, too, wished to "quarantine" it. I guess I'm just not understanding how it is that Luther gets finger-pointing from Mormons for wanting to quarantine polygamy, but LDS reformers early in the 20th century receive commendation for the same thing? (Anybody want to explain that little inconsistency?)

Here, Luther was like early 20th century LDS leaders who wanted to "quarantine" polygamy--but who gets the finger-pointing from modern Mormons, Luther or those early 20th century leaders?
And this latest example, here Luther commented on a situation whereby a wife "consented" to the arrangement-- a common Mormon practice 100-150 years ago--and who gets the finger-pointing for doing from modern Mormons? The Mormons of yester-year for doing this thousands of times? (Nope- Luther for doing it once)

Hypocrites! Be consistent, then! I'll show my consistency: As Ruy Dias de Bivar said in #124, Luther was wrong. (At least we understand why he said what he said) As for 19th & 20th century Mormons, anybody who believes the visions & story-telling of a 14 yo kid are gullible & gullibility is no excuse for their believing that godhood rested upon how many wives a man had.

141 posted on 05/18/2008 9:54:27 AM PDT by Colofornian
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 133 | View Replies]

To: Bushwacker777; ansel12
If it’s okay for Heather to have two mommies it’s at least Biblical and non-sinful for Heather to have two mommies and a daddy!

Well, it's good to know you've finally realized what consistent premise that homosexuality and polygamy have as alternative family arrangements. (The two deserve each other)

142 posted on 05/18/2008 9:59:21 AM PDT by Colofornian
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 140 | View Replies]

To: bvw

You don’t know that. Her husband loved her.

There’s nothing wrong with “spinsterhood”. I suppose you think that a woman can’t function without a husband.

I would rather have NO children than to be a plural “wife”.

That’s foul. The men get everything the women get nothing.


143 posted on 05/18/2008 10:00:47 AM PDT by Politicalmom (Real Republicans do not have a barbed wire rash from sitting on the fence./GOP '08,- NO Soup for YOU)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 138 | View Replies]

To: Politicalmom

“I would rather have NO children than to be a plural “wife”.”

That’s your choice whether there is polygamy or not. Sad though, in Darwinian terms those without offspring are, well...you know.


144 posted on 05/18/2008 10:17:33 AM PDT by Bushwacker777
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 143 | View Replies]

To: Bushwacker777

Marriage is supposed to be a picture of Christ and the Church.
ONE husband, ONE wife. Total devotion one to the other.

God’s desire is NOT polygamy.


145 posted on 05/18/2008 10:21:42 AM PDT by Politicalmom (Real Republicans do not have a barbed wire rash from sitting on the fence./GOP '08,- NO Soup for YOU)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 144 | View Replies]

To: ansel12

Powerful men trading wives and daughters, real women’s liberation!


146 posted on 05/18/2008 10:23:25 AM PDT by ricks_place
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ansel12
Americans hastened to vilify Mormon society, publishing semi-pornographic novels that depicted polygamy as a hotbed of incest and child abuse.

Silly Sally, you ignorant ho, the Americans in the 1800's were right!

From Ann Young, 19th wife of Brigham Young:

-— The marriage of mother and daughter to one man was of so common an occurrence that it ceased to be regarded as anything out of the ordinary course of events. I had some schoolmates, two sisters, whose mother was married to a Mr. McDonald and when she gave herself to him, it was with the express understanding that the daughters should be sealed to him as soon as they were of a proper age. The little girls knew of the arrangement, and used to talk very openly of “marrying Pa,” and in very much the same way they would speak of their intention to take tea to a friend.

147 posted on 05/18/2008 10:42:11 AM PDT by JRochelle (Keep sweet means shut up and take it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Politicalmom

“Marriage is supposed to be a picture of Christ and the Church.
ONE husband, ONE wife. Total devotion one to the other.

God’s desire is NOT polygamy.”

Parable of the Ten Virgins — the bride winds up with 5 that are wise. Makes you think, doesn’t it? I mean, here Jesus uses a polygamist metaphore to make a point in a society in which polygamy was common among the more conservative elements of Judaism. Come on...you can’t dismiss this.


148 posted on 05/18/2008 10:46:23 AM PDT by Bushwacker777
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 145 | View Replies]

To: Bushwacker777

Opps, that was meant to say “bridegroom” winds up with five virgins — not bride. I mean it’s not modern day San Francisco or Eugene, Oregon.


149 posted on 05/18/2008 10:47:48 AM PDT by Bushwacker777
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 148 | View Replies]

To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

I am so sick and tired of so-called Christians who hold up people in the OT as somehow sinless.

As if.

For example one name they throw in is Jacob. Now who was his son? Joseph. His favorite son. So now it must be ok to have favorite children since it is “Biblical.”


150 posted on 05/18/2008 10:49:15 AM PDT by JRochelle (Keep sweet means shut up and take it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 122 | View Replies]

To: Bushwacker777

Look, you believe what you want.

God’s plan is for a husband and wife to be one.

A man can’t be one with more than a single woman. He would always hold back part of himself. God gave Adam a wife, not a harem.

Humans have repeatedly destroyed God’s plan. He didn’t want Israel to have a king, but they insisted. He wanted to take them directly to the Promised Land, but their lack of belief caused them to wander in the desert for 40 years. He hates divorce, but Moses allowed it “because of the hardness of your hearts”.


151 posted on 05/18/2008 10:53:02 AM PDT by Politicalmom (Real Republicans do not have a barbed wire rash from sitting on the fence./GOP '08,- NO Soup for YOU)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 148 | View Replies]

To: bvw
Such a intellectual argument!

/ not

Why bvw does this mean we're not friends anymore?

You know bvw, if I thought you weren't my friend... I just don't think I could bear it.

152 posted on 05/18/2008 10:59:12 AM PDT by TheWasteLand
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 69 | View Replies]

To: dmw
Utah would most likely be the most populous state in the nation.

Wrong. Brigham Young had 50+ wives and some 68 kids.

Now those women could have had those kids and possibly more if they each had a husband. That whole theory of replenishing the earth is a bunch of BS.

153 posted on 05/18/2008 11:10:51 AM PDT by JRochelle (Keep sweet means shut up and take it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop
It has biblical sanction

Thats a bunch of bull. It happened in the Bible yes, but show me where God sanctioned it.

I can show you where Jesus taught against it.

Or do you prefer to ignore those?

154 posted on 05/18/2008 11:17:33 AM PDT by JRochelle (Keep sweet means shut up and take it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 70 | View Replies]

To: Bushwacker777
Parable of the Ten Virgins — the bride winds up with 5 that are wise. Makes you think, doesn’t it? I mean, here Jesus uses a polygamist metaphore to make a point in a society in which polygamy was common among the more conservative elements of Judaism. Come on...you can’t dismiss this.

No, it doesn't. Read the fine print:

the wedding banquet (Matt. 25:10)

"the"= definite article, as in "the Only." "banquet"= singular as in One.

The Groom isn't going to have wedding after wedding after wedding.

To hear you tell it, then, all the 19th century LDS weddings should have been group marriage affairs--one wedding per groom.

155 posted on 05/18/2008 11:17:33 AM PDT by Colofornian
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 148 | View Replies]

To: normy
I don't think the government should give tax breaks for these extra wives and would have to cap the child deduction at a certain number but other than that what is the problem?

Serial polygamy, legalized by current divorce laws, has wrought enormous destruction upon our culture. Legalizing polygamy itself would only compound that.

In my opinion legalized polygamy is another step on the slippery slope into moral nihilism, something the left is feverishly working towards - a point I was trying to make in the post you replied to.

156 posted on 05/18/2008 11:27:46 AM PDT by TheWasteLand
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 66 | View Replies]

To: Politicalmom
You don’t know that. Her husband loved her.

How do I know anything? I read the same story, the same report -- report may be a better term than story -- as you. My reading, obviously is at variance with yours. But I'm am fitting the same literary pieces together differently. I have learned from other teachers.

There’s nothing wrong with “spinsterhood”. I suppose you think that a woman can’t function without a husband.

Your protest belies the reality. We all try to live the best we can, and the option of marriage is not afforded to all, yet we recognize that some states of being are more admirable of themselves, even if they may to us be closed. And why close doors that do not have to be closed? Why require that every marriage be the ideal? We should not lay blocks in front of the hobbled, may the way open to them too.

Here we are talking about what a person has control over being. Marriage being for both man and woman the chance to avoid real loneliness, to achieve a wholeness achieved only via "motivated cooperation" with a member of the opposite sex. But also for a man the duty to propagate! The man has a duty to marry and have children -- for the woman it is an option.

But is a valued option -- again, it is the way to cure that intrinsic loneliness, and without a marriage, a joining, a cleaving, to a member of the opposite sex, a person can not shake.

There are other reasons as well -- the man has a duty to protect the woman (women) to whom he has contracted.

I would rather have NO children than to be a plural “wife”.

That's imaginary. We have few examples of non perverted polygamy in our time and culture so your imagination is perfectly understandable. These recent notorious examples would scare anyone!

But they are only examples, not the norm. And do not miss the deplorable condition --- poverty, destitution, lack of hope -- that many single mothers have to operate with -- such conditions accrue when there is not recourse for them.

The responsible men are already bonded to another! In a real way, today, the law forbids a single mom from joining to responsible men!

That’s foul. The men get everything the women get nothing.

That's not true. What do you mean by everything? Men and women are different, but each sex has a role that cannot be filled by the other.

157 posted on 05/18/2008 12:07:20 PM PDT by bvw
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 143 | View Replies]

To: TheWasteLand

True friendship is nay built on appeasement!


158 posted on 05/18/2008 12:10:13 PM PDT by bvw
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 152 | View Replies]

To: bvw

You seem to think women are inferior and don’t deserve the same love and attention from a spouse as a man does. Why should the man have women fighting over him and catering to his every whim, while the women have to wait “their turn”.

Polygamy brings out the worst aspects of human nature, including jealousy and favoritism.

There is not a single happy polygamist situation described in the entire Bible. The Bible does NOT promote polygamy.

Marriage is supposed to be a picture of the marriage of God and the Church. There is only ONE true Church, made up of all true Christians.


159 posted on 05/18/2008 12:17:43 PM PDT by Politicalmom (Real Republicans do not have a barbed wire rash from sitting on the fence./GOP '08,- NO Soup for YOU)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 157 | View Replies]

To: ansel12

A women is inherently UNEQUAL in a relationship like the one those women had. If you are raised in a culture of arranged marriage, how much choice can you really have? See my thoughts on my blog:

http://heatherleila3.blogspot.com/2008/05/misogynist-extremists.html


160 posted on 05/18/2008 12:25:14 PM PDT by Heather Leila (misogyny, polygamy)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 121-140141-160161-180181-193 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson