[Fai Mao]

You can make a better case for polygamy in the Bible than you can divorce.

And yes there is one specific situation in the OT where polygamy IS condoned. When a man dies, his brother had the duty to take his brother’s wife into his household and if the brother was childless, raise up children for the brother.

You can look it up.

All that said. The guy in the article is essentially right

[GingisK]

Anyone who thinks he wants more than one wife probably hasn’t been with just one for very long.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Good God! What sane man would have more than one wife??!! Oh the humanity! Oh the horror!

[the_daug]

Isaiah 4:1

[Buckeye McFrog]

Old Testament shows it only creates turmoil

I once worked with a Pakistani Muslim fellow. He told us that yes, under his religion he is allowed to have up to four wives.

“But..” he said, rolling his eyes, “a fellow would have to be pretty much insane to actually try it!”

[Truthoverpower]

Any of us men that have a really good wife would laugh heartily at the concept of ever having some other woman around - never mind two or three other ones !!!!

I can’t even imagine the conflict, jealousy envy and other nonsense that would be around that kind a house!

[fproy2222]

Genesis 2:
24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

Adam, the first man in the flesh, left his father and mother in heaven to cleave to his wife.

[chajin]

"One wife? One God, that I can understand - but one wife! That is not civilized. It is not--generous." - Sheik Ilderim, Ben Hur

[sphinx]

The Old Testament simply accepts polygamy as a characteristic form of marriage in the societies of its time. In tribal societies with constant feuding, endemic banditry, nonstop raiding and frequent warfare between the clan in valley A against the clan in valley B, and between all the valley clans and the highland clans … well, the mortality of young males is extremely high. Absent polygamy, there would be large numbers of young women with no prospect of a decent place in society and an honorable sex life. In addition -- moral and psychological issues aside -- such societies needed those young women to bear sons to feed the unending rounds of tribal warfare.

It's the same reason the Spartans, for example, tolerated and implicitly encouraged infidelity on the part of their women. Anything to make more warriors.

Arranged marriages would have mitigated many of the potential negative effects. The fathers' goal would be to get their daughters married off to suitable partners. I'm willing to guess that if the male-female ratio was reasonably balanced, fathers would angle for an unmarried man or a widower, to whom his daughter could be the first, the primary and perhaps the only wife. But if the last couple of wars had gone badly and three quarters of the tribe's or village's young men had been killed, a polygamous marriage might be the best honorable solution, the alternatives being concubinage, prostitution or beggary.

[TheNext]

Polygamy creates a male absent, weak household.

Sons are soon banished seeking women outside in greater society.
Uncles are banished because few women exist.

Otherwise the sons & uncles must turn homosexual.
The multiple brides also turn homosexual.

What good are sons who are turned gay? They are value less.

It only succeeded in old Mormon country where a single male controlled a lot of land.

Polygamy is family abuse of its weak, brain washed members.