I wonder if that's in the Texas air, Andrew -- because I've been having that kind of day: involuntary overlapping distractions!
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Biblical Families is not a dating website. It is a forum to discuss issues relating to marriage and the Bible, and to offer guidance and support, not to find a wife. Click here for more information.
How many wives do you have?
- Thread starter bfoster
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The poll only includes 24 people. That's probably not enough of a sample to be representative of either biblicalfamilies.org or Biblical Families writ large.
No, the poll asked if you're in a plural marriage. One man with 3 wives = four votes, one man with one wife = 2 votes (if everyone voted). The poll indicates that almost 50% of the people here are in a plural marriage. That does not at all mean that half the men have more than one wife.
There are also other things that could skew the statistic. Some people who have 0 or 1 wife are embarrassed and feel out of place so don't click the box because they feel it's nothing to do with them. Secondly, some people who click 2 or more may only have one wife actually in the house, they may count women who are technically their wife but have done a runner. Both of those would skew the poll towards polygamy and away from monogamy.
What it does show is that there are a lot of people here with real experience of polygamy. Don't read too much into the precise numbers.
It would be more accurate if only men could vote, but that would exclude women who are members but their husbands are not. This poll will show a general idea, but the results may be inflated for all options above 0 wives.
The only chance for inflating the statiscits would be families where all wives have accounts and participate. I'm really the only one in my family that gets on the forum.
You're right, but we still need to consider this possibility when interpreting the results, apart from other possibilities of distortion that FollowingHim mentioned above.
I'm going to suggest that, in regard to effective efficacy, the reasonable path is to always run in the opposite direction of inflating results. Interpretation of low-sample data is always a dicey affair.
What we can certainly assert from years of paying attention both here online and more especially at the in-person gatherings is that a very comfortable majority of men in the Biblical Families organization do not and never have had multiple simultaneous wives -- the easy majority of those men will likely never have plural families.
For many reasons.
And most attempts to massage the data will only reflect a combination of lack of objectivity and wishful thinking.
