Tried to find a thread I could add to. Don't like to think I'm starting topics all the time.
Had a disturbing chat with a friend yesterday.
Single mother, struggling with finances, family, accommodation, difficult upbringing and history.
Basically making a brave and faithful go of it. She just SURVIVES and has done for years. Things don't get better, but they don't get worse. Says life is her "valley of tears". What she'd be raelly good at is taking in other families' problem teenagers and loving them. Instead she has to do badly-paid outside-her-strengths part-time jobs.
Has accepted that she's unlikely to find a husband for a 'biblically-normal' marriage. The last possibility just baulked at the idea of taking on such responsibilities, which were not of his making. I don't blame him for pulling out when the friendship was moved towards long-term relationship. All the other single men she knows seem typically immature, married, bachelor or feckless.
Anyway, talking around different marriage-types in the world, she surprised me when I posited just in jest, that a good solution would be for her to enter a polygamous marriage with a GOOD MAN. He would care for her and visit her regularly for the obvious and make sure she was OK. He would be her covering, as he would for his other wife/wives. He wouldn't live with her (too set in her ways), but make sure she was comfortable and not financially struggling in her own home. Basically she would continue the lifestyle she loves and which benefits others, without having to take rotten work.
Without being disgusted or even pondering it, she said that she would 'leap at it'. (part of the problem of course is that usually churches don't support families like this)
I wonder how many other struggling disfunctional little families or individuals would consider this as attractive.
Not to be blunt or crude, but basically she wants a sugar daddy. She wants someone who will take care of her financially, but won't interfere with her living her life. I don't know how many women would find this appealing (I certainly wouldn't), but I can almost understand why she would be up for this arrangement. She wants companionship, but still wants her independence. She wants money without having to be stuck taking another bad job.
On the other hand, polygamy isn't at all acceptable in the Christian faith, so if she's a Christian, I'm not sure how essentially being a mistress would be the best choice for her.
__________________ I have found my calling. My call is love. . .In the heartof the Church, my mother, I will be love, and thus I will be all things. -St. Therese of Liseiux
Some people say life is the thing, but I prefer reading. -Logan Pearsall Smith
Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow truths that will endure when mere facts are ashes and dust and forgotten. -Neil Gaiman
Maybe... But she's taken stock of her situation, her strengths, her needs, the immovable obstacles, and it makes sense. She doesn't say that it's moral.
But she's done what everyone does surely when they contemplate marriage. You consider how it's going to advance your life aspirations. (children , career, sex, opportunity, wealth). You don't get married to stay as you are or to take on burden. (well, most don't - and I include Christians. The functional don't marry the disfunctional)
My understanding of the poly relationships in the US aren't set up so that the man finacially supports the women. As with most families, were both the man and woman are helping to meet the finacial needs of the family, poly relationship has each person helping meet the financial needs. This can make it easier as often the bigger the group the easier it is to meet needs the group has.
The other side of poly relationships is the need for more communication and coordination of activities to function smoothly and limit conflict.
Darwin Fish (honestly - that's his name!) has written a biblical justification for polygamy. You can probably find it on the web. ("atruechurch" )
Now, ideally, monogamy is the only ideal arrangement.
But if you want a prophecy from me then we will have polygamy in the UK within 20 years and recognised by the state as gay arrangements are (that is, full-blown).
Muslims in the UK are using common-law marrigaes as a lever/argument to get subsequent wives accepted.
Add to this the terrible cost to society of single motherhood where a decent male role-model is absent and you can see the logic.
The muslim scholars will be pressing for extended marriages on the basis that it is good for children, both theirs and for those indigenous kids festering on sink estates.
And no, my friend doesn't want a sugar-daddy. But she often asks God why she's in a position of continual unmitigated suffering, through no present fault of her own. I can't blame her for the large number of either feckless or absent single guys in churches.
Another interesting aside. Many Christian guys I know have married or would want to marry a woman from central Asia or the far East (christian, of course).
There are a number of Christian polygynists in the united States. The numbers are not definitely known because of the risk of legal persecution. Let's just say there are thousands. Most are quiet and are content to remain unnoticed. Most would be satisfied with decriminalization of polygyny even if legalization was not passed.
It's sad that our society accepts married men with mistresses yet prosecutes men that take responsibility and actually marries another woman.
I spent two years in Africa after college, and in the area I lived in polygamy was the norm. As Dayhiker mentioned above, the husband in these cases has primary financial responsibility for his wives, but the wives are expected to provide a significant portion of their daily needs and their childrens needs themselves.
The vast majority of the wives I spoke to were content with these arrangements. Co-wives were often seen as sisters, and would help each other with their chores and duties. As in all families, sometimes there were destructive rivalries as well. In cases of dispute, the husband, a local respected woman, or in the last appeal, the local governmental leader or village chief would work to resolve the conflict.
One interesting, yet sad fact I learned while there was that if a polygamous man became a Christian (at least under the Protestant mission) there was a requirement that he divorce all but his first wife. There was a desire by the Mission to not be seen as accepting of polygamy. This seemed blatantly unscriptural to me, as nowhere in the bible are polygamous marriages forbidden (even if not ideal), yet we have Christ's own words explaining how much God hates divorce.
Adultery was pretty commonplace there, even among Christians, mostly due to strong cultural taboos against having intercourse with one's wife after the birth of a child and while she was nursing - up to three years. In these instances, adultery was seen (at least unofficially in the Church) as a regrettable yet understandable way to cope with the lack of a sexual outlet (pre-marital chastity is pretty much culturally unknown there too, especially for men). In such cases, perhaps polygamy is not so bad of an alternative.
As for arranged marriages, I was single until the age of 32 and often found myself thinking wistfully that it sure would be great if someone who loved me and was looking out for my best interest would take the initiative to arrange a marriage for me with a compatible woman whom I would have no chance of meeting socially.
A college buddy of mine from India was honestly thrilled that his parents had arranged a marriage for him with a girl he had known as a child, but whom he hadn't seen in many years. She accompanied them to the US when they came for his graduation, and they were married within a few days. They are still very happily married with three beautiful daughters.
For many, many years in the past, a "Christian marriage" usually referred to an arranged marriage. If you stop and think about it, young people with their heads in the clouds and their bodies full of hormones are probably pretty unreliable when it comes to choosing a lifetime mate. I mean, why would anyone marry someone based on silly and transient things like feelings? Maybe it would be better to have wise, loving parents do such important choosing for you and then learn to appreciate what you've been given.
Fact: Countries where arranged marriages are common have vastly lower rates of divorce.
Well you also must consider that countries where arranged marriages are common are also extremely unaccepting of divorce. A divorced woman would be a social outcast, shunned even by her family. Thats not a good way to measure the success of a marriage.
__________________
"At least one-third of the Bible is poetry ... For example, the creation acounts of Genesis are liturgical poetry, not history or science. What is literal about poetry is that God did it, and because God created, the creation has meaning. When we insist, as some do, that the creation account be turned into a science of the origins of the world, we lose the heart and soul of the poetic message and turn a liberating imaginative poem into a dry intellectual fact that must be affirmed scientifically. This deadens truth."
~Robert Webber in "Ancient Future Worship"
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Linear Mode
