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if PM became very widespread would this be a problem?

R

rob in cal

New Member
Greetings to everyone on this board. As a monogamous Christian husband, I respect and understand those of you out there who feel PM is a God inspired institution, and are lovingly practicing it. I especially support the idea when it leads to women who wouldn't otherwise ever have a chance at a happy marriage, having one, albeit in plural form. What I'm most concerned about is the theoretical possibility that if PM became very widespread that it would lead to the situation where many men could never have the chance at marriage because so many men had two or more wives. I looked around in the forums but haven't found a detailed discussion of this. If there was a massive oversupply of women this wouldn't be an issue, but generally there are about the same amount of women as men, outside of unique cases (like after a war), so I wonder about the practicality of PM as a widespread practice. Again, I support the idea when there are lots more single women than men, like in some churches, but I have doubts about it as a widespread institution.
 
There may not be a massive oversupply of single women (except in churches!) but there is a massive undersupply of men qualified to be a husband.

That's why there are so many single moms. Boys (who try to pass themselves off as men just because they have had a certain number of birthdays) impregnate them and don't want to take responsibility.

In 2008, the last year for which I could find the numbers when researching for my Doctoral Dissertation recently, there were 9.8 MILLION households headed by unwed mothers in the US. (Official US Census Bureau data.) That is 9.8 million mothers raising their children without a father in the home. That is 9.8 million too many.

The Barna Group reported that in churches, 79% of mothers between ages 18 and 22 were unwed, and a large percentage of them lived with their own unwed mother. (2007 report: http://www.barna.org/family-kids-articles/104-the-spirituality-of-moms-outpaces-that-of-dads)

If plural marriage were widespread, those jerks who sleep around, make babies, and then split, would either grow up or be alone every night, because the ladies would not feel pressure to hop in the sack with just anyone as a poor substitute for having a loving husband who is not afraid of taking responsibility and making a lifetime commitment as is required by Scripture. The ladies would have real choices, usually being able to choose between real men of God and those chronologically-gifted boys. Right now, there are almost no unmarried real men of God (except for a very few who become old enough for marriage each year) and so the ladies must choose between one of the irresponsible boys or no guy at all.
 
Intresting points, Polydoc. I like the idea of more PM actually giving other men the incentive to become better dads/husbands, because it would be harder to find available women, because women would have more options if good husbands/dads were able to have multiple wives. Put in market terms, extensive PM would dry up the oversupply of single moms and or single women, making them harder to find, making at least some men get their proverbial act together if they want a wife too.
 
Rob In Cal:

I've heard the issue expressed like this: Right now, it is a buyers' market for guys. There are so many unattached women, that even a fill blown schmuck can find himself SOME woman willing to settle, so long as he's plumbed right and breathing in and out fairly regularly. Look at all the guys who get drunk in Vegas and wake up married!

And all the while, the women have to compete like crazy. Hair, bodies, nails, clothes, high-heels (fer goodness sake!), um, implants and exercise classes and liposuction, just to OBtain and REtain the interest of someone plumbed as an outie!

So what would widespread PM cause to happen? Maybe turn the tables! Maybe ... men would have to get a bit of exercise ourselves, handle our finances responsibly, learn management skills instead of marrying a Mom, learn to lead, and communicate and practice firm compassion. Maybe even *gasp* LISTEN. :o

If women felt free to look around, find a guy who was doing it right, and join his family, perhaps we guys would have to raise our own standard to compete. Seems like that would be good for women AND kids.

Besides, when we're looking at churches whee there are often as many as 7:1 women:men, there's a ways to go before it becomes a problem. Guys who won't come to church NOW? They already know that's where the good women are. If they won't come now, then they're making their own decisions, aren't they?
 
capitalism in marriage :D

you guys have described it perfectly
 
Supply and demand in a plural society should not be judged by the same parameters, as a monogamous.
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For instance competition in supply is always understated as porn and perversion, which for centuries, Satan had been a broker for, is not considered. (not saying this is good, but it is a factor) Demand for porn and perversion also would change.

Righteousness of mankind must be figured in. A godly plural home must carry some weight in the evaluation.

As a plural society grows, also the demand lessens somewhat as the plural minded men have now less demand.

Also the reproductive rates of male and female births may change as plural homes may actually provide more female births. This theory is based on the fact that the sperm is actually the deciding factor in the sex of the unborn child. Female designating sperm last longer than male designating sperm. If a plural home is dividing up the sexual activity of the one husband amongst several ladies, the ovulation may occur when the husband is elsewhere for the night and only the female designating sperm are still around from the day or so before.

As someone mentioned. China would see an opportunity. (also not saying this is good). If nothing else were accomplished in a plural society other than this devaluing of female births being stopped, then it would be worth it. http://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html

Of course there are more factors. I probably left out many and even a most important one someone can think of.
 
CecilW said:
...churches where there are often as many as 7:1 women:men...
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I must be going to the wrong churches! :lol:

It appears that the Church has done a poor job of evangelizing men, since nearly all churches have more women than men.

However, there's a couple of verses that lead me to believe our Father wants it that way.

Jesus did not tell Peter to build His Church. Rather, He said,
Matthew 16:18b NKJV ...I will build My church...
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And Paul said,
1 Corinthians 3:6 NKJV I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.
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The context of this verse is about factions and infighting, but that does not change the fact that it is God Who gives the increase. It appears that the increase He gives is approximately (on average) 40% more women than men.

I think that God is perfectly capable of bringing into His Church those whom He wants to be there. Maybe, by bringing in more women than men, He is trying to tell us something?
 
PolyDoc wrote, "The context of this verse is about factions and infighting, but that does not change the fact that it is God Who gives the increase. It appears that the increase He gives is approximately (on average) 40% more women than men.
I think that God is perfectly capable of bringing into His Church those whom He wants to be there. Maybe, by bringing in more women than men, He is trying to tell us something?"
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Methinks this may not be so much God's chosen means of increase, but our feminization of christianity. Pastor Orville Butcher, a Weslyan Church pastor, told us at a seminar at the National Holiness Association in St Louis, "If you want a church of women and children, let the women lead it. If you want a church of families, you must have men in leadership". That was in 1972. I have watched and investigated in the intervening years, he was absolutely correct.
 
It would not be a problem if there was a sufficient age gap with typical marriage, and birth control was not used and fertility was not hindered, etc.

Historically before the evil plans to reduce world population through murder. Population growth rate followed an exponential curve, and approximately the same number of men and women were born

So if for instance most men got married at 30 years old and most women got married at 18 years old, then there would be more than 1 marriageable woman for every marriageable man. The ages listed are for the sake of "political correctness" and there are some other numbers available.

This would definitely not have been a problem in Yemen or in India before Westerners pushed their non-christian values on Indians

By the way this would not reduce food supply :D resulting in worldwide starvation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZVOU5bf ... ure=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXrN9HhnCcM&NR=1
 
It does seem like the issue is more about the quality factor and not the quantity factor.

Many men today are not serious about their faith or their walk with the Lord they confess. Of course that cuts both ways. Many women are not either.

But, as one wise ole professor once said, it does seem like women are often times more relational oriented and thus with Christianity being about a relationship with Christ it seems as if more of them are indeed more interested in a vibrant faith than many of the men who have the same confession.

Empirical studies seems to support this as well when one examines how many ladies seem to be serious about their faith where so many men seem to be lazy in regard to their faith, if they have faith.

Serious women of the Lord are more interested in sharing a man than having a man who confesses Christ yet really does not live a sacrificial life where their passion is for the cause of the gospel.
 
{Amazing! I typed this up in my word processor before Dr. Allen posted his response - and my research comfirms what he said!}

Pastor John Whitten said:
Methinks this may not be so much God's chosen means of increase, but our feminization of christianity. Pastor Orville Butcher, a Weslyan Church pastor, told us at a seminar at the National Holiness Association in St Louis, "If you want a church of women and children, let the women lead it. If you want a church of families, you must have men in leadership".
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Pastor Butcher is quite right. In my experience, churches that have strong God-fearing men in leadership will thrive and grow, but those where the men "wimp out," where the pastor preaches feel-good "spiritual pablum," wither and often die.

But that does not change the fact that it is God Who gives the increase. Nor does it change the fact that historically, the Gospel message has been more attractive to women than to men. Which means I disagree with Pastor Whitten's conclusion drawn from what Pastor Butcher said. God will accomplish His purpose with or without me or anybody else, and in spite of how bad we humans might mess things up. Just because Christianity has been feminized by a bunch of wimps not answering His call does not mean that God desires 50:50 balance between the sexes, but then we humans somehow managed to thwart His purpose.

Here's a few more passages that might shed some light on the discussion:

Luke 8:1-3 NKJV Now it came to pass, afterward, that He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with Him, (2) and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities--Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons, (3) and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others who provided for Him from their substance.
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Women, who were often treated worse that the family pet, were attracted to the Gospel message because Jesus valued all people, not just men. And it was the women who provided for Him, not the male disciples!

At the crucifixion:
Matthew 27:55-56 NKJV And many women who followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to Him, were there looking on from afar, (56) among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's sons
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.

Matthew 28:1 NKJV Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.
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It was the women who were at the crucifixion, not the men. (Except John.) It was the women who first went to the tomb, not the men. The men were hiding behind locked doors, paralyzed with fear.

IMHO (which may be wrong), I think that God intended for most men to have more than one wife. When the Roman Catholic Church went deep into apostasy, one of the first major changes, after banning the Bible so that the man-in-the-pew could not challenge what the "infallible" Pope said, was to change marriage doctrine from God's plan to pagan Greco-Roman tradition. (That is why I refer to marriage doctrine as is taught by most churches as "pagan Greco-Roman-Catholic tradition.") The RCC had started the long, slow slide into apostasy even before Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Empire, but that slide took a real nose-dive when the church stepped on the proverbial banana peel around 1500-1650 and celibacy of the clergy and monogamy-at-most for everyone else became official doctrine. It was around that same general time-frame that things like worshiping the saints and the veneration of Mary, none of which can be found in the Bible, were also introduced.

I also think (but this must forever remain nothing more than mere opinion since the Bible is silent on the matter) that God has "adjusted" the male:female birthrate in response to man's sin, just as He instituted laws forbidding close relatives to marry in response to DNA degeneration, which was the result of man's sin.

DiscussingTheTopic said:
It would not be a problem if there was a sufficient age gap with typical marriage, and birth control was not used and fertility was not hindered, etc.
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That is exactly what my computer model of the Israelite population at the time of the Exodus shows. (I wrote that program as part of the research for my Doctoral Dissertation.)

In a growing population, if the men are considered marriageable at an older age than are the women (my computer model assumed a factor of 2x age difference and calculated ~21 for women, ~42 for men, average life expectancy calculated to be ~71 for all who survived to adulthood), there will be far more marriageable women than men. Throw in an artificial factor, like feeding male babies to the crocodiles in the Nile (see Exodus 1:22), and the men who survived to marriageable age each had between 35 and 40 wives when they crossed the Red Sea! Only 22,273 of those families had surviving sons (see Numbers 3:43) because all sons of all other families had been fed to the crocs - about 93% of the males babies, for 82 years prior to the Exodus.

My computer model calculated that, on average, 334 babies were murdered each day for 82 years prior to the Exodus. In 1996, there were 3,700 abortions per day in America. Women who identified themselves as Evangelical Christians accounted for 18% of those, or 666 abortions per day - by God's people.

Please, Father, forgive our nation! Forgive the churches for disobeying Your word! We have sinned against You!
 
Methinks this may not be so much God's chosen means of increase, but our feminization of christianity. ...John Whitten
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PolyDoc wrote, " Which means I disagree with Pastor Whitten's conclusion drawn from what Pastor Butcher said."
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Ahhh...Please, my brother, an observation rather than conclusion. Just a possibility, not an assertion.
 
Dr. K.R. Allen said:
Serious women of the Lord are more interested in sharing a man than having a man who confesses Christ yet really does not live a sacrificial life where their passion is for the cause of the gospel.
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They obviously are not very serious are they?

I could explain something but then women would judgmentally judge me for being "judgmental."
 
Pastor John Whitten said:
Ahhh...Please, my brother, an observation rather than conclusion. Just a possibility, not an assertion.
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Point noted. :oops: Guess I don't disagree with you after all, brother!

I just love it how God takes our mistakes, our fumbling around, and even our outright disobedience, and still makes something beautiful. And I'm thrilled that He allows me to have some tiny part in His plan!
 
PolyDoc said:
In a growing population, if the men are considered marriageable at an older age than are the women (my computer model assumed a factor of 2x age difference and calculated ~21 for women, ~42 for men, average life expectancy calculated to be ~71 for all who survived to adulthood), there will be far more marriageable women than men. Throw in an artificial factor, like feeding male babies to the crocodiles in the Nile (see Exodus 1:22), and the men who survived to marriageable age each had between 35 and 40 wives when they crossed the Red Sea! Only 22,273 of those families had surviving sons (see Numbers 3:43) because all sons of all other families had been fed to the crocs - about 93% of the males babies, for 82 years prior to the Exodus.
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I highly question the computer model to determine history like that.

The difference between my estimation and the computer model is that almost always an approximately equal number of men and women are born and as long as there is not say a period of many years where no one is born, then there will be a larger number of people a younger age and older than an older age and older. For instance there should almost always be more women between 18 and 45 than men between 30 and 45 ignoring disproportionate deaths by gender, this is not specific numbers like in your model and is therefor less doubtful to me. I hope I explained that adequately.

But .... I agree that if a large enough percent of men have been thrown to the crocs, it might create a problem if men were only allowed one woman each, for any Israelite women that wanted to marry .... but they could always marry the men who were captives of war who God allowed to be slaves as opposed to the one's he required execution for .... but instead God just had the men able to marry multiple Israelite women + slave women ;)
 
DiscussingTheTopic said:
I highly question the computer model to determine history like that.
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Actually, I'm not determining history, I'm trying to understand how 22,273 families can provide 603,550 fighting men. That is 27.1 fighting men per family! Add women and children, and that would be 60 or more children born to each father. This computer program provides one possible scenario that fits the data as given in the Bible. I would be surprised if no one else could come up with something different that still fits the Biblical data.

Here are the underlying assumptions for the computer model. Some can be questioned, others are chiseled in stone, so to speak. The "chiseled in stone" assumptions are from the Bible and/or James Ussher's Annals of the World. "'Soft' assumptions" are those open to debate, even by those of us who take the Bible literally. (As I do.) "Variables" are numbers either changed in order to cause the two "hard" assumptions to result (22,273 and 603,550) or are calculated as intermediate or as the by-product of arriving at the two "hard" assumptions. Two variables (% male babies murdered and % birthrate per father/husband) were adjusted until the two population figures resulted. All other variables were either by-product calculations or intermediate calculations that were interesting. Not all such are reported in this post.

Chiseled in stone:
  • there were 22,273 families who had firstborn sons (numbers 3:43)
    there were 603,55 men age 20 and older (Numbers 1:45-46)
    the murder of the infant males started 82 years before the Exodus and continued until the plagues started [Ussher p. 30-31 par. 170]
    Jacob and 69 physical descendants (70 in all) entered Egypt 215 years before the Exodus (Genesis 46:8-27)

"Soft" assumptions:
  • marriageable age for men = 2x marriageable age for women
    infant mortality rate other than those murdered per Pharaoh's orders = 0
    male:female birthrate = 50:50
    average life expectancy for men = same as women
    women can have babies until they reach 70% of their life expectancy (71% of life expectancy = post-menopause)
    due to fear of having a son who would be murdered, the birthrate during the 82 years of murders dropped to 40% of that for the years prior to the murders

Variables:
  • murder rate for male infants: 93.21% (adjusted variable)
    overall average birthrate for the 215 years: 1 birth every 5.45 months per father/husband (= ~2.2 births/year/father) (adjusted variable)
    average life expectancy: 71 (calculated)
    Men married at age 41.37, women at age 20.69 (calculated)
    average wives per husband/father: 36.77 (calculated)
    9,848,383 male infants were murdered over the 82 year period (intermediate)
    average murders per year: 120,102 ; per day: 334 (calculated)
    total population: 10,980,171 men, women, children (calculated)

Undoubtedly, a different computer programmer would take a different approach and come up with different results - but they would still be in the same ballpark as my results unless there is some gross error in my program.

Limitations of the program include not tracking each tribe (Simeon, Levi, Judah, etc.) separately and possibly some of the "soft" assumptions are off. Maybe way off?

But this is the first attempt to do this that I am aware of. Hopefully, what I did will inspire professional mathematicians who are also literalists in Biblical exegesis to do similar work. (I dabble in math and have written computer programs most of my adult life, sometimes for pay. :ugeek: )

So, anybody reading this who really believes the Bible, if you are an expert in math, I would love to talk with you!

10 million people would have a whole bunch of livestock. Maybe Pharaoh's chariots got stuck in the manure? :o :lol: :lol: :lol:

Reference:

Ussher: Ussher, James; tr. by Larry Pierce. The Annals of the World. 1650-1654. ISBN: (pdf document, download from http://gospelpedlar.com/articles/Bible/chronology.html). {Page numbers are as supplied by the PDF reader, not the pagination of the document.}
 
PolyDoc said:
DiscussingTheTopic said:
I highly question the computer model to determine history like that.
Click to expand...

Actually, I'm not determining history, I'm trying to understand how 22,273 families can provide 603,550 fighting men. That is 27.1 fighting men per family! Add women and children, and that would be 60 or more children born to each father. This computer program provides one possible scenario that fits the data as given in the Bible. I would be surprised if no one else could come up with something different that still fits the Biblical data.
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OK, so you are providing one possible way to explain the historical data and not saying it is the way. That might be legitimate.

Sometimes these number "dillemmas" are pure and simple misunderstandings of the text and or misunderstanding of historical methods. For example, if someone measured the size of an army in text A on Thursday before the battle and someone else measured the same army on Friday after a battle in text B and people read the size of the army in two different texts, some people might say it is a contradiction, especially if Thursday and Friday were not mentioned in the texts.

Essentially if people used all the same rules they use to find number contradictions in the Bible, you would have to say Newtonian physics is full of contradictions. And you would have to say almost every scientific journal article is full of contradictions.

I often have to imply similar type of methods to deal with contradictions whenever I did homework for a specific Physics class dealing with Physics from Einstein and afterwords and also the same methods in an engineering class on probability. If I treated the textbooks the same way as people look for contradictions in the Bible I would have probably failed every physics and engineering class I ever did, thinking such a large number of things were contradictions.

In fact I doubt I could have passed high school chemistry, if I used the same methods to interpret the book that contradiction seekers use to interpret the Bible.

I am not saying your question should not be studied, just that most so called contradictions come because people want the Bible to have contradictions.

By the way are cousins part of family?

And there is nothing wrong with a man having 60 children per family if Polygyny is involved what you said could make a good point to show an example of widespread polygyny (if you understood the text correctly when you came to that conclusion) and it would make a lot of sense with so many men having been fed to crocodiles and a vast number of marriageable women from Israelites + war time bridenapping
 
Polydoc

Is there something that looks like a major contradiction in the numbers? between Genesis and Numbers or just between Numbers and Numbers? Or nowhere?

If it is Genesis did you take into account the 400 years of enslavement before leaving Egypt (See Genesis 15 and elsewhere in Genealogies in the books referring to events after Genesis)

Remember with the politically incorrect ages a lot of female generations could fit into 400 years. With polygyny and politically incorrect ages a lot of female generations could fit into a male generation, say for instance a man accumulates multiple women in a 80 year lifetime that could be only one male generation but 4 female generations if he gets a new wife every 20 years.

For example if men lived 100 years that could be 4 male generations, but if the women got married at 20, that would be 20 female generations in 400 years.

We could be talking a number to approximately the twentieth power. Now families under 5 members are considered small in Hmong Culture. It would be normal to have 6 to 8 children or more for Hmong Americans in past generations. Some Hmong woman living in America has given birth to approximately 20 children not her + other woman but just her. Now Hmong people living in Asia try to have even more children than Hmong Americans from what I understand, but they are hunted down by the government.

So .... Israelites could have easily exceeded a billion people given enough food in 400 years if politically incorrect marriage ages and polygyny was used.

Let's say for instance population was multiplied by 5 every female generation of a politically correct number like 20 years.

5^2 =25
10^1 =10
5^20 > 10^9

Remember today's world population is allegedly in billions.
 
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