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Poly Practised Elsewhere

Frank S said:
You are welcome Frederick. And thanks for the encouragement. I hope what I am doing will be used of God to spread the truth and further build the kingdom of his Son. I know the links I've been posting will sooner or later no longer be functional as websites eventually take pages down. I've wondered if it might not be useful to turn a lot of them into PDF documents to have them permanently available in a special section on this site, not just within a thread as they now are, but as a future resource for us as members and for others who may be curious about Biblical-poly. I can imagine a benefit for curious web-surfers if they could see poly is not just a thing that a few odd-ball Mormons or some backward tribes in the jungle do. I think a lot of people don't even have it on their radar at all, especially that it might be Biblical! These links I've been putting up are showing just the tip of a very big iceberg of what now is and historically has been going on out there in the wider world re poly. I would like if this could become known by more people in our part of the world. It is relatively easy to turn webpages into PDFs for permanent keeping, I just don't have time to do so at the moment. A volunteer with some time would be needed along with a place on this website to store and have the PDFs accessible for future use. ...this is just an idea I've had. Of course it would need input/facilitation from this website's administration to make such an idea happen - that is - if the idea is assessed as useful ...maybe?? ...nudge nudge;). What think ye administrators?
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Archive.is saves webpages beautifully.
Take... https://www.womensmuseumofireland.i...-multiple-marriages-in-later-medieval-ireland
and archive.is produces....
http://archive.is/16rKL
There is even a link at the top to download a zip of the page archive.
 
eye4them said:
Archive.is saves webpages beautifully.
Take... https://www.womensmuseumofireland.i...-multiple-marriages-in-later-medieval-ireland
and archive.is produces....
http://archive.is/16rKL
There is even a link at the top to download a zip of the page archive.
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That looks useful. Thanks. We just need someone with the time to make it happen.

Another program I use is Print Edit WE add-on. It works in Chrome and Firefox browsers. It turns webpages into PDFs and allows things like ads etc to be deleted before saving.
 
Frank S said:
https://directionjournal.org/36/2/towards-theology-of-marriage-and.html
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At a 1979 congregational meeting a lawyer, Mr. Isaac Quaye, asked the elders to reconsider, in the light of the weak finances of the church, the regulations limiting admission to the Lord’s Supper and water baptism. He said young men today were questioning whether monogamy should be the criterion in each case. A committee was appointed to study the issue of polygamy and the sacraments. They presented a report with the following submission: “It is the opinion of this committee that polygamists be not admitted to baptism and holy communion until such a time as they shall be in the position to divorce all but the first wife. The wives of polygamists may be admitted to the sacraments” (Larbi, 100).
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You know, I tend to think the church holds to monogamy out of assent to the world's ideas or to not offend those who fill the offering plates. But here we have a church that is going against the culture and money. It would seem they just worship women. If a second wife can be baptized without getting a divorce, why not the husband? It is clear who they are trying to bring to heal here.

The whole you must divorce all but the first wife before we'll baptise you really burns me. There is no scriptural justification for that but rather contradicts Paul's, 'each should remain in the condition in which he was called'.

The church’s policy, in effect, made polygamy the unforgivable sin.
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Which is a good observation, for the church is happy to overlook those who divorce and remarry, or who marry the wife of another and then try to join the church.

What have we done to the Africans in the name of Christianity? Polygamy which Christ does not forbid, we have fought against as the greatest of all evils, but divorce and remarriage which he does forbid, we have introduced.
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rockfox said:
You know, I tend to think the church holds to monogamy out of assent to the world's ideas or to not offend those who fill the offering plates. But here we have a church that is going against the culture and money. It would seem they just worship women. If a second wife can be baptized without getting a divorce, why not the husband? It is clear who they are trying to bring to heal here.

The whole you must divorce all but the first wife before we'll baptise you really burns me. There is no scriptural justification for that but rather contradicts Paul's, 'each should remain in the condition in which he was called'.
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Now there you go @rockfox - thinking logical and consistent! If your going to keep that up you won't very well be fitting into monogamy-only churches anywhere! That does however increase the chances of you and I along with a few others bumping into one another somewhere out here as voices in a wilderness. ;) Yay!!
 
HisSilver said:
This one's NOT good, and certainly not a biblical example of marriage. Makes me sad.
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I very much agree - it is not a biblical example of marriage. There are many examples in the links I put out where things are done not according to the Bible. I do advocate readers to read judiciously and assess the content at these links to find any take-a-ways they can that are useful. In addition, I believe it is useful for us all to be aware of what is happening out there in the wider world and thus be knowledgeable about where we need to draw lines. Among the articles I put out are mentions of most major world religions within which poly is practiced. That certainly does not mean I endorse any of such religion's tenets. This website, Biblical Families, has often had forum discussions within which were references to fundamentalist Mormons practicing poly. Despite quite a few such mentions, I think we all here would view their basis for why they do poly-marriage as being flawed. I think sometimes it is useful examining what to avoid and not do - thus this link I posted. I take this as an opportunity to say, please let all readers of these links be judicious - @HisSilver - I think you were doing exactly that. I encourage all to do likewise.
 
Frank S said:
https://timothyschwartzhaiti.com/polygyny-in-haiti/
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There can be no doubt that polygyny in rural Haiti is related to male wealth status. In my own studies I found that that at any given moment in time 11% of adult males living in rural areas are polygynyous. And when I looked specifically at men in high income groups, the incidence of polygyny dramatically increased: 33% of skilled workers were polygynous, as were 44% of spiritual healers, 27% of male school teachers, and 62% of fishermen. Farmers with relatively large landholdings also displayed a tendency to have multiple wives (20%). If these groups are eliminated from the sample, rates of polgyny among the general population fall close to zero. Moreover, polygyny increases with age (also an indicator or increasing wealth): 45% to 50% of the rural men studied who were over the age of fifty had been polygynous at least once in their lives (Schwartz 2009: 184; see also Murray 1977: 263).

As will be seen shortly, the relationship between incidence of polygyny and male wealth goes beyond certain men being able to afford multiple wives. It will be seen that the keys to understanding polygny in rural Haiti are, 1) the nature of particular sources of wealth, meaning whether or not men have a source of wealth beyond the control of their first wife, 2) the absolute poverty of most other men, particularly young men, and 3) the advantages that accrue to second or later wives and their families when they can access the wealth of those men who already have a wife but who go on to become polygynous. I will return to these issues shortly. For now, however, I want to finish examining wealth from the perspective of men for this relationship between male wealth and polygyny does not mean that men are in favor of the institution; on the contrary
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11%. So much for the idea that polygyny means a few men will take all the women.

Its socially acceptable there. Yet the opinion of men on the matter sounds awfully familiar....

Contrary to what might be the andocentric assumption, rural Haitian men often say that having more than one wife is immoral and wrong, that polygyny is cruel to the first wife, it causes her to starve herself (bouch li p’ap gou), to become emaciated (l’ap chèch), and sad (l’ap kalkile). When asked what a woman should do in the case her husband takes another wife, 71 percent of men in a random sample of 68 rural male farmers said the woman should leave him.
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A lot more gems in there. Marriage is painted as a matriarchal institution in Haiti.
 
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