I just don’t see how polygamy makes sense to anyone. Woman or man.
Okay, so I’m going at this from the “I’m the jealous type and I don’t share my man” point of view, but let’s look at it in a wholistic sense.
There are lots of polygamous animals out there: herds of elephants and things with one male and a hierarchy of females who all seem to get on perfectly well.
Now, I don’t know what the birth statistics of elephants are, but in humans, it’s roughly 50:50. In fact, my understanding is that slightly more males than females are born. Maybe I’m simple, I don’t know, but to me that sort of looks like we should be pairing off at a ratio of roughly 1:1. If we don’t, well then what? You’ve got some bloke (call him Mr Lucky if you really must) who has 11 wives, and 10 other heterosexual males who have to find something else to do with their lives.
Why on earth would they stand for that? Rams bash their heads together to see who gets all the wives. Seals have battles in which blood and blubber fly. Lions roar a lot and then try to kill each other. It’s a serious business.
So what are the other 10 men going to do? Well, they could start by marrying 9 year old girls. That’s always a fabulous idea. Yeah, suck up to the guy with all the wives and then marry one of his daughters as soon as she can comb her own hair.
I can’t begin to express how disgusting I find the prospect of polygamy from the female point of view. Societally we just aren’t set up for it in the west, either. How would these harems work? It’s got to be the richest man will be the one with the most wives. He can rule over than and have lots of children. He can trade some of his wives for the wives of other similarly endowed males. Maybe he wants a whole blonde set. Maybe he just wants ones with really large breasts. Maybe he won’t have anything over the age of 35, and oh, by the way, doesn’t that sound a little bit like slavery to you? Doesn’t that sound a whole lot like treating human beings as if they’re possessions?
We are not cattle or lions or elephants. Marriage is not all about sharing your bed with as many other people as possible. Marriage has spiritual and emotional aspects. Marriage is the selection of life partnership, a union of equals.
And for any guy out there who really does want a whole bunch of wives I hope all your mothers in law gang up on you and GET you.