My husband and I had been married for 20 years when he asked me to study out whether PM was biblical. I thought it would be easy to find the "proof" that polygyny was sinful, but I was wrong. After we both agreed that PM was acceptable to God, he told me that he felt that God wanted him to pursue it. I had a hard time with it at first, for several reasons:
1. We had a great marriage and I wasn't really interested in sharing my husband! However, the more I studied PM, the more I realized that I had no right to control my husband, and since he was to leader of our home, I needed to honor and respect his decisions for our family.
2. I was very close to my family, and they were very conservative Christians. I knew they would be very angry, disappointed and feel betrayed by our decision to believe PM was acceptable. I knew that practicing it would even be a harder battle with them. This was a very overwhelming struggle for me. I loved my family so much and we were very close, but I knew that God's Word MUST rule my life, not how my family feels about a situation.
3. I knew that the decision to practice PM would be very hard on my children. This was a killer for me. I love my kids and have devoted my life to them. Should I put them through such potential difficulty for a practice that is totally a choice? My husband (RGK on this board) felt that it was not just an option for him, he felt that this was something God specifically wanted him to do. We explained to our children what we believed, starting with the oldest (19) down to the youngest (3). At first, the three oldest accepted it, but weren't real happy about it.
4. We were pretty sure that we were going to be rejected from our church for embracing this belief. When we told our pastor what we believed, he was very gracious and agreed to look at the issue and discuss it. We spent a year and a half discussing PM with him. At the end, he chose to disagree with us and we were excommunicated from the church. This was also a very heart-wrenching experience that was very difficult for us and our children.
5. We knew that we would be ostracized from the homeschool community in our area. This also happened, and was difficult for our children. I didn't ever want anyone to look at or act like my children were pariahs. The people were very good to our children, but they felt a very strong need to distance themselves from us, and letting our children fellowship with people who refuse to fellowship with us is a recipe for splitting up a family. This eventually happened with our three older children. The pressure was too much for them, with all their cousins, grandparents, friends, etc., saying that our lifestyle was sinful. Our oldest three children chose to distance themselves from us and choose to believe that PM is sinful. We have very limited fellowship with them, and it is a very hard thing to deal with.
So, after saying all of this, do I question my choice to live this lifestyle? Sure I do. Mostly, though, I question the ways we did things and handled different situations. Perhaps if we had done things better or more carefully or in a different time frame, we would have better results. I don't know the answer to these questions, but I do know that PM is a righteous lifestyle, and practicing it for the right reasons is a righteous choice. Even after all the pain and loss, I would still do it again, because I know that, at the end of the day, I chose to do what I know was pleasing to the Lord, and that is why I am here on earth.
