I spent last year trying to live according to the rules and customs of the Bible. And a few months in, I decided that if I was really going to commit, maybe I should take a shot at polygamy.
It's a huge theme in the Old Testament. Polygamy was, if not the norm, completely accepted in early biblical times. Jacob had two wives (and two concubines). King David had eight. Solomon holds the record with an impressive seven hundred spouses.
Things, of course, have gone sour for polygamy since then. This morning, I was reading about a particularly dark side of polygamy -- namely the (alleged) sleazeball and (accused) megalomaniac Warren Jeffs, the head of a breakaway Mormon sect who is said to have seventy wives. He's going on trial this week for, as the Times puts it, being "an accomplice to rape in arranging polygamous marriages between under-age girls and older men."
I never spoke to Mr. Jeffs during my year, but I did do some research on modern-day polygamists to see how it works.
I was surprised to find out there is a small but passionate Jewish pro-polygamy movement. Ashkenazi Judaism officially banned multiple wives in the eleventh century, when the great European rabbi Gershom ben Judah laid down the one-spouse-only law. But you can still find a sprinkling of ultra-orthodox Jews who want to return to the old days. They argue the rabbinical ban was instituted not for moral reasons, but for practical reasons -- the Jews didn't want Christians to be jealous of their cushy domestic setup. Here's the website where you can order a booklet about it for just $15.
I also spoke to a prominent Christian polygamist. I said multiple spouses is an interesting concept, but how could I convince my current wife, Julie, that she should let me take on a second wife? His suggestion: The preemptive strike. He told me to find a second wife, perform the ceremony, consummate the marriage -- THEN tell my first wife. That way it's a fait accompli. And my first marriage has a better chance of surviving than if I go all wimpy and ask for permission. Hmmm. Sounds about as wise as the time my dad gave my mom a smoke detector as an anniversary gift.
I asked him if the strategy wasn't a bit sneaky and un-Biblical. His reply "It can end up being more cruel to put a wife through a year, five years, 10 years of worrying that you're going to take a second wife."
He then asked if I had a prospective second wife. I told him that our nanny is cute. (My wife agrees. And she's given me permission to have an affair with her, a la Curb Your Enthusiasm. Of course, Julie gave me the offer only because she knew there was no chance the nanny would ever be interested. It's like giving me permission to become a linebacker with the Dolphins).
The polygamist thought this was a good idea. It would give me a nice, practical line of reasoning with my first wife -- we wouldn't have to pay the nanny bills anymore.
In the end, I ignored his advice and I did ask my wife for the green light. And in the end, as I suspected, she put the kibosh on it. I was forced to stick with the conventional single spouse.
The weird thing is, in the past few months, Julie has become quite tolerant of polygamy. Just not in my case. She's addicted to HBO's Big Love, and says it's made her see how the arrangement could work for some people. More emotional support. Readily available backup babysitters. And, as Julie just put it to me: "Chloe's character is good at fixing things so if you marry someone incompetent (no naming names), one of your sister-wives can help you out."
At the end of my conversation with the polygamist, he became quite agitated. He was talking about persecution of fellow polygamists, and how they are put in jail next to criminals and homosexuals. He pronounced the word 'homosexual' with the venom most people reserve for war criminals or Dick Cheney or Crocs.
Apparently, polygamists aren't so tolerant of other types of sexual behavior.
Perhaps he should take a lesson from my wife, who thinks polygamy should be legalized, as long as all the parties are consenting adults -- and who is also completely open-minded about gay sex. Though as with polygamy, probably not within her own marriage.
AJ Jacobs' book, The Year of Living Biblically, will be released in October. Click here to see it on Amazon. For more, visit www.ajjacobs.com.
Second wives, third wives, starter wives makes me sick.
What if you haven't been married once yet?
Looks like all the girls are taken:(
His original intention was for men to take the wives of those who had fallen in battle, and not four younger ones.
At any rate, if the basic thing, pounded upon by the religious, who claim that marriage is between one man and one woman, is expanded to multiple wives, then gay marriage should be considered to be okay, as well, as the borders of marital sanctity would have been shredded.
Keep us updated if you find a way to make this work.
The social problem is caused by the wifeless men who constantly plot to bring down the alpha male for a chance at impregnating his females.
But since mankind has invented money, police, courts and armies us alpha males can handle it.
My theory is that polyandry (one wife, multiple husbands) would benefit society much more. Doesn't interest me personally but, seriously, statistics show that married men are healthier, live longer, and are less likely to commit crimes. Why limit those benefits to just one man per marriage? The world doesn't need the population increase that multiple wives have the potential for (which it did need in Biblical times), and any children of a polyandrous wife would be well cared for and well supported. With multiple providers, household help could be easily afforded, and of course the wife would have time to work, too.
Polygamy was started so elderly men could have sex with 15-year old girls. In the 1800's, most of the "extra" wives were very young teenage girls. And the "husbands" were disgusting old geezers. It was a way to justify peodophilia.
But I'll take a second or third husband....even though I'm separated from my current one! An oversexed hunk with hair on his chest sounds perfect!
The Mormon church was started by Joseph Smith....a 15-year old con man.
"I was forced to stick with the conventional single spouse."
That's all it is. Convention.
Well, duh. The younger women. And then the even younger women. Hence, Warren Jeffs being arrested and prosecuted for forcing a 14 year-old into a marriage she didn't want and sanctioning the resulting rapes of the girl by her much older "husband".
Then of course, there is also the problem of all those leftover boys once the marriageable women and the 13-17 year-old girls are taken by all the old men. Too many males. So, the boys are exiled out of the sect. Or, as in other polygamous countries, sent to war or to suicide bombings. Anything to get rid of the extra useless branches on the family tree.
Polygamy, taken in terms of a few adults doing their adult thing, seems fine. Viewed in the perspective of a polygamous society however, and those polygamists would probably be more comfortable hanging out and living around other polygamists, it becomes a dangerous concept, considering that most male/female birthrates in most countries that don't practice infanticide on females is about 50/50.
Someone's going to lose. In this case, the young girls and the leftover males.