(April 2, 2018 at 11:35 am)MysticKnight Wrote: Polygamy has to be for dire situations like taking care orphans and widows during a time when many men in society have been killed.
Otherwise monogamy has to be the norm, or you get guys like me left out with no women to find
Actually, that is one of the major problems with polygamy. While it may be a cliche, women are a civilizing influence on men. It is not healthy for a society to have significant numbers of single young men with few prospects of marriage or avoiding it altogether.
But the question of whether or not it is natural is itself problematic for me. Living in a fallen creation and the corruption of the flesh by sin have altered our relationships to each other and to Nature. So while some desires are common in Nature, making it in one sense "natural", that doesn't equate to nature (including human nature) as God intended it to be. I don't believe God intended for people to be alone, yet many are. I do not believe God intended for people to divorce. I do not believe God intended for people to have sexual relationships outside the sacrament of marriage. I do not believe God intended for people to have homosexual desires. And yet that is the condition in which we find ourselves. These things happen so Christian must have compassion for these inclinations to sin. At the same time, we cannot abandon the teachings of our faith by affirming such desires as wholesome and accept our culture embracing them.
Without the restraints of civil law, religious conviction, and a chaste culture, the trend has been to delay marriage (in favor of more sexual partners during the most fertile years) or serial monogamy (trading the old for new after the glow of romance has faded). As a species we seem to be somewhat polygomous but that doesn't mean that is how it should be.
