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you want to talk culture, Abraham needed an heir, children of Concubines could not inherit, bastards could not inherit, it had to be the son born by a wife in order for the male child to be eligible to inherit. Not marrying Hagar would mean there was no point to fathering a child by her. It really sucks when reality won't bend for you doesn't it.[DU]

Eerdman's Dictionary: "Sons of Concubines inherited paternal land at the father's discretion (Compare Gen. 25:6, where the sons of Abraham's concubines are given gifts but no property, with the tradition that the four sons of Bilhah and Zilpah--Dan, Naphtali, Gad and Asher -- were allotted land by their father Jacob/Israel)." http://books.google.com/books?id=P9sYIRXZZ2MC&pg=PA273&lpg=PA273&dq=eerdmans+dictionary+concubines+isaiah&source=web&ots=sAb3FKiKxv&sig=tks-pcDVt6ZyrGUX7PwvApPO59g&hl=en

DU, to use your word, who is "sucking" now?

And speaking of inheritance, what was much, much worse than being a concubine's heir? (Why the answer to that would be, "An LDS plural wife!")

C. Carmon Hardy, in Solemn Covenant, outlines the outlandish case of Margaret Geddes. A Scottish immigrant, she became a plural LDS wife at age 19 in Oregon. Her husband died, and 7 years later she became yet another man's plural wife in 1898--when adding plural wives was supposedly already done away with by the lying, conniving Mormons who had at least 262 known plural-wife additions between 1890 and 1910 [see A Solemn Covenant, p. 183]. [These plural marriages were approved one by one, and ceremonies were done by LDS officials--sometimes LDS apostles, sometimes those who were to become an apostle].

Well, by then she had moved to Plain City, Utah, where it wasn't suppose to be in "plain" view for a supposedly "single" woman to be pregnant (the following year). And why was she deemed "single" by the locals? Because her marriage was kept secret. So she was charged with adultery: During the hearing before the bishopric, Margaret steadfastly refused to give the name of the child's father, despite threats of excommunication. (B. Carmon Hardy, A Solemn Covenant, p. 184)

Well, the feds found out about her, and since the Reed Smoot federal investigation was going on, they summoned her as a witness: Her husband and others asked her to sully her own reputation, to do everything possible to conceal the real fathers' name. After tearful pleas that she not be made 'a bad woman' in the eyes of her children, she was finally brought to agree she would do what we could. (A Solemn Covenant, pp. 184-185)

When her husband was also called to testify, ...he flatly denied he had married her, or anyone else, since the Manifesto. Margaret's humilitations were not yet at an end...[her husband] died. When his estate was to be settled, no provision was found for either Margaret or her son. Margaret was aware that, as a plural wife, she had no legal claim on Eccles's considerable fortune. She did, however, expect something for [her son] Albert. After years of silence, Margaret Geddes decided to bring suit for a just distributioin of the estate. In the course of the trial, she spared no one. She told how most of her adult life had been spent as a polygamous wife, shifting from place to place under assumed names to protect her husbands...She revealed that it was Apostle Marriner W. Merrill who married her to Eccles in August of 1898. She described the ceremony as brief and one in which the word union instead of marriage was employed so that, if later questioned, all could deny that a 'marriage' had been performed...Albert was declared a legal heir to the estate. (A Solemn Covenant, p. 185)

[Oh, and since Geddes didn't "spare anyone," for another tidbit on the LDS apostle (Marriner Merrill), who conducted the 1898 marriage between Geddes and Eccles, according to Hardy's book (Appendix), Merrill had 8 wives--the last being 1901 when he was age 69 and his 8th wife was 32--and she delivered a child a year later. Apparently, all 8 wives were present at his funeral...His first wife had children over a 21-year span; his second wife over a 19-year span; his third wife over a 20-year span; his fourth wife over a 24-year span...and there's no info on wife #5, #6, and #7 other than names and marriage dates. When they got married, his first wife was 19; his second and third "brides" were age 15 or 16 (probably 15); his fourth wife was also 15...]

In a post to somebody else, you wrote: As for the singular thing, how many polygamous marriages happened en mass? I venture to say the number would be vanishing small.

The fact that it was happening at all, Moonie-like with Sun Yung Moon's mass weddings, is sickening from the angle of the bride. Thomas Chamberlain II married the first 2 of 6 wives--both 17 year olds--on the same day, Nov. 3, 1873 (A SolemnCovenant, appendix). And then 6 years later, there was the infamous case of John Miles marrying THREE women on the same day: Subsequently, due to confusion as to which of the wives had greatest seniority, Caroline became disaffected and took steps to have her husband arrested. Miles eventually won in court on grounds that, without independent proof of his marriage to the other women, Caroline must be presumed to be his only wife. (A Solemn Covenant, p. 45)

Miles couldn't even be "man enough" or honest enough to stand up in court and say, "Yes, she's my wife...and so is she...and so is she."

And that's so galling even about the LDS FAIR Web site with one of their apologetics that tries to pretend that polygamy was a legitimate biblical "civil disobedience" issue...yet even the FAIR folks acknowledge in one of their apologetic pieces that part of "civil disobedience," is that you are willing to accept the human penalty that comes with disobeying. So by ignoring cases like the Miles, FAIR winds up speaking out of both sides of its mouth...more dissembling to protect the original dissembling, lying for the Lord, prevications, parsing of words, speaking in codes, hiding, practicing open and indirect deceit, disengenous behavior, dishonorable employment of cover ups, circumspection by people like Lorenzo Snow (A Solemn Covenant, p. 187), compartmentalizing for the Lord (A Solemn Covenant, p. 188)...Hardy's book has a whole chapter on "Lying for the Lord..." the problem is that the LDS lied so much in the 19th century & early 20th century, he couldn't even begin to contain the lies to that chapter!

(Hardy even tells how when one polygamist was applying for a marriage license, the official asked him if he was married. His wife replied, "She's in the cemetary," implying she was dead. As it turned out, his existing wife at that very moment was indeed standing in the cemetary...But that's what "lying for the Lord" does!)

So to wrap up the wonderful plural wife inheritance system, in the Geddes case at least, so much for the financial "aftercare" of LDS plural-wife widows!!!! Why, Margaret Geddes and her child was treated worse or as bad as any Biblical concubine and her child. (And you have the utter gall to reference it as something "sacred!") You call her account a "sacred" series of events, where even "marriage" couldn't be said at her marriage so as to possibly apply plausible deniability?