Neither woman would be your "wife." You deny the whole concept and reject the whole institution.
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Legal name change for second wife in Texas
- Thread starter Elijahsfire
- Start date
I think you guys are onto something powerful here. 'Wife' doesn't just have legal ramifications, but moral and relational ones as well. Both the church and the world have made a mess of marriage and we carry a lot of unbiblical baggage into marriage. New language, which in reality is the original more meaningful language, helps set you apart and set the stage for the proper thinking about your relationship.
This is also a place where 'partner' fails. It is good in that it has become an ambiguous term for non-marital relationship (used by gays, lesbians, and non-papered heterosexual marriages). However it also has potentially adverse business connotations, does not carry the same scriptural import, and carries the implication of equality (good or bad).
This is also a place where 'partner' fails. It is good in that it has become an ambiguous term for non-marital relationship (used by gays, lesbians, and non-papered heterosexual marriages). However it also has potentially adverse business connotations, does not carry the same scriptural import, and carries the implication of equality (good or bad).
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It depends on the jurisdiction but in some, common law marriages are held valid if you 'hold your self out' as husband and wife. So her even just using your last name, without legal change, but with your approval, would be taken as proof of that.
So ya, you really do have to deny you are married. But it is important to be honest as a Christian. So this really begets the need for this idea of a new kind of relationship that isn't 'marriage' but which nevertheless follows the teachings of scripture on male-female relations.
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Defining terms correctly has an impact on the understanding people get and I totally agree that terms like "marriage" and "wife" carry too much baggage. But it's not only here that we found it necessary to define our terms. For example, we avoided the term "Home-schooling" with our children because we didn't want people thinking we just brought the government's ungodly schooling system into our home. We never "went" to church; we would meet with the church.
What we say communicates ideas so those ideas should be biblically sound or we're no more truthful than anyone else.
Amen!
So we need to completely deconstruct the language surrounding "marriage" and possibly even openly claim to reject it?
I wonder how the system would respond if, instead, you claimed she was your concubine?
Your other rib?
Your weaker vessel?
*ducks and runs*
Your other rib?
Your weaker vessel?
*ducks and runs*
One person might think of a thing as "semantics" or "mincing words", but the other might think of it as being precise.
This actually seems very practical, as well as being scriptural.
Of course, it's a bit of a handicap that we don't fully understand what concubine means... but then again, neither does anybody else. So if we can talk about gravity, I don't see why we can't talk about concubines.
On a serious note, regarding lying, didn't Dr. Luck have a lecture on "lying vs. not telling the truth" at a BF retreat?
I saw the video link on the old website. I will try to find it.
Essentially, learning how to deflect without acknowledging things can be an art form. I remember him using a story about people who hid Jews during the Holocaust. When questioned about it, one couple remarked, "what do you think, we can hide them under this table?" (They literally were under the table; under the floor).
I will look for the link if anyone wants.
I saw the video link on the old website. I will try to find it.
Essentially, learning how to deflect without acknowledging things can be an art form. I remember him using a story about people who hid Jews during the Holocaust. When questioned about it, one couple remarked, "what do you think, we can hide them under this table?" (They literally were under the table; under the floor).
I will look for the link if anyone wants.
Of course, there's always Swamp Witch. Zec's pop promised to not litigate if you use his legal term.
Hate to break it to Zec, but one of the very ancient original meanings of concubine was 'witch'. Methinks wives had some influence on that naming.
Well it certainly is a possible route. Although language deconstruction is a tool of a part of the political spectrum I haven't much agreement with. But it is a tactic that has worked for them.
Rather than deconstruction you could view it as reconstruction. The Hebrew words for husband, wife, marry and marriage were master/lord, woman, [various] and [did not exist].
However this is all on the theory that distancing from marriage is tactically useful. For winning Christians to the idea that polygamy is Biblical, that could be counter productive. For getting cover from authorities/the world, adopting language from polymory may be just as useful (whatever they happen to use, idk).
But I'm spit-balling here, not really sure which way is wise to go.
In the historical, language, and Biblical sense, concubine would be accurate. However I'd bet it'll cause more second guessing than something more common like partner or woman.
Using the language of polyamory had been discussed before and I'm not opposed to it but others have expressed vociferous opposition.
Bingo. There are different ways to approach this question (and of course our little band of merry men is exploring all of them), but to me this is essentially a political question (in the technical sense, not in the modern sense).
The word that originally made the most sense to me in my head was fiancée, in the sense that we have an agreement to become legally married when that becomes an option, and in the meantime our culture doesn't really recognize additional women as 'wives' anyway, I saw Tom Green go to prison back in '01 for talking about his 'spiritual wives' on TV (or as the Utah prosecutor said, "I saw him confessing to a felony on national TV"), but we still have that fundamental understanding and agreement ('contract', if you will).
Doesn't matter what makes sense to me, though, or what I think is technically correct, at least not if the goal is communication. If I want people to understand me, I have to 'speak their language'. So becoming fluent in the language of our culture is not a lie, or deception, or trickery of any kind. It's a matter of cultural awareness and being a good tourist.
The real issue here is how to avoid legal problems while signaling that our women are claimed, treasured and protected and most importantly, unavailable. Anything that accomplished that should be fine. I actually kind of like that fiancee idea. Would it cause a status difference to exist between the legal "wife" and the fiancee though?
I've used it, but again, it sometimes misfires if the person you're talking with takes it the wrong way.
Like a lot of things, I don't think there's One Right Way here. I think the best idea is to have a working vocabulary that includes a lot of tools in the toolkit, so you can pick the right tool for the job, or the right word for the person you're talking with. The question is how to achieve communication and understanding in the most efficient manner, and the answer will vary with the audience.
Zec wins! We can close this thread now.
Reminding ourselves (or discovering anew) what the problem is we're trying to solve provides the necessary guidance.The status difference exists in our broader culture regardless of how we feel about that. So the question becomes: How to communicate within our subculture that our women are similarly situated, while communicating to others the key substantive points (claimed, treasured, protected, and unavailable) without saying anything that is going to be misunderstood, let alone send us to jail.
Is part of the problem that we (aided and abetted by our legal systems) make the legal distinction ourselves?
If we marry one wife, we could run into problems with additional "fiancees".
But if they are ALL fiancees, and it's taking a while to make a decision...
Need to find that Martin Madan quote about a priest pontificating at a marriage can't make anyone more married than a priest pontificating at a funeral can make a corpse any more dead.
The problem we can run into today seems to be one of inequality rather one of than indecision.
If we marry one wife, we could run into problems with additional "fiancees".
But if they are ALL fiancees, and it's taking a while to make a decision...
Need to find that Martin Madan quote about a priest pontificating at a marriage can't make anyone more married than a priest pontificating at a funeral can make a corpse any more dead.
The problem we can run into today seems to be one of inequality rather one of than indecision.
I think is all come down to decriminalization. Not recognition or endorsemnt.
Probably no perfect answer. But in the case of the woman taken in adultery, she was probably guilty as charged under the law. What Jesus did was to persuade her accusers to leave her alone.
So chances are, that accusers of those who had more than one "legal" wife in theory, would in actual fact have ONE MORE legal wives than the accused in practice.
Failing that, a possible retort could be, well if that's what you are going to call a wife, how many "wives" have you had? That in itself might be enough to keep a lot of people quiet.
Just thinking out loud if most of America would need locking up, whether it might start to shift the difficulty.
I'm not in America, I'll let others carry on. But it seemeth to me it would just be easier to persuade people to drop their stones instead of making it illegal to throw them.
So chances are, that accusers of those who had more than one "legal" wife in theory, would in actual fact have ONE MORE legal wives than the accused in practice.
Failing that, a possible retort could be, well if that's what you are going to call a wife, how many "wives" have you had? That in itself might be enough to keep a lot of people quiet.
Just thinking out loud if most of America would need locking up, whether it might start to shift the difficulty.
I'm not in America, I'll let others carry on. But it seemeth to me it would just be easier to persuade people to drop their stones instead of making it illegal to throw them.
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