Is it "fair" for a husband to agree to a monogamous relationship with his first wife, only to change his mind later and add other wives?

[LDremoved]

I often read about the struggles that first wives endure when they first find out that their husband's desire to add additional wives.

Women are often warned/advised many times before marriage to "choose your leader wisely then submit." But, what if your leader/husband agreed to monogamy at the beginning then changed his mind later on in the marriage?

I can imagine that would feel like an absolute betrayal to a woman who thought she was choosing something else. Polygamy seems like a less bitter pill to swallow if it was agreed upon before marriage.

I'm not judging anyone. I understand how our paths can change the closer we get to God and the more we let him lead. I'm also perfectly aware that many people married young, that we all change as we mature and that marriage isn't about being "fair."

I'd also like to add that I admire women who are able to get to the root of their feelings about polygamy and remain in their marriage no matter what. However I would be lying if I said I thought it was technically "fair" to them.

Just wanted to start a discussion, curious what everyone else opinions and experiences are?

 

[steve]

We had done the standard “forsaking all others” vow out of ignorance to the truth.
When we realized that it wasn’t an unselfish vow before Yah, we made new vows and exchanged them on a stormy beach at sunrise in Hawaii. It somehow seemed appropriate.
The transition in mindset took about 3 years for her, and around 3 minutes for me.

 

[LDremoved]

We had done the standard “forsaking all others” vow out of ignorance to the truth.
When we realized that it wasn’t an unselfish vow before Yah, we made new vows and exchanged them on a stormy beach at sunrise in Hawaii. It somehow seemed appropriate.
The transition in mindset took about 3 years for her, and around 3 minutes for me.

That's sweet

 

[Joleneakamama]

We had done the standard “forsaking all others” vow out of ignorance to the truth.

Ditto. We never worried about new vows as YHWH knows hearts and knows our hearts changed willingly some 20 years ago.

We agreed back when we disagreed on particular denominations that there is one God and if we both wanted the truth above all else that we would arrive at the same place eventually. It took a good five years on the denomination....and polygyny came up about then and we went down that rabbit hole together too.

It isn't fair to change up what is expected. My hubby used to get cranky if I changed what I was fixing for dinner after he had his taste buds set for the original plan. But then life isn't fair.
In the case of marriage between believers, it is suposed to be less about our own ideas of life and more about trusting YHWH's plan and purpose.

One lesson I learned is you can not ask for YHWH's will in your life......and still expect to get your own. This should be obvious but many seem hostile and shocked at having to adapt to what He is doing in their lives.

What the morality of polygyny does is often, as @juliPoints out, exposes idols of a sort in our own hearts. The people that hurt the least in the transition to poly thinking are perhaps those who had less of the selfish ideas growing close to their hearts.....or maybe those that had deeper roots in the kind of faith that let them see a different kind of good in family life?

One of the questions I ask myself when weighing questions or possibilities in theology is which one best magnifies our creator?
I'm more inclined to believe in whatever makes Him look the best, the most loving, the most powerful....(keeping in mind death is of no consequence to Him).

Getting caught up in our own feelings can cause us to lose perspective and miss the beauty of the bigger picture.
Thinking about others on the other hand gets us out of our own little world.
Thinking about the greatness of God....that gets us into his world.
Once we are there other people matter.....and selfishness disappears into worship, joy and love for others.

So I kinda try and shift my thoughts when I catch myself getting upset about anything....and move 'em in the right direction. Just a few little steps at a time.

This sums it up.

 

[steve]

One lesson I learned is you can not ask for YHWH's will in your life......and still expect to get your own.

Solid gold, right there.

 

[LDremoved]

One lesson I learned is you can not ask for YHWH's will in your life......and still expect to get your own. This should be obvious but many seem hostile and shocked at having to adapt to what He is doing in their lives.

What the morality of polygyny does is often, as @juliPoints out, exposes idols of a sort in our own hearts. The people that hurt the least in the transition to poly thinking are perhaps those who had less of the selfish ideas growing close to their hearts.....or maybe those that had deeper roots in the kind of faith that let them see a different kind of good in family life?

Love this

 

[JimC]

We too were first married with the standard forsaking all others clause and remarried here at the ranch in front of witnesses and a new ketuba (marriage contract) without the clause to insure we were in agreement and not breaking a promise.

 

[LDremoved]

We too were first married with the standard forsaking all others clause and remarried here at the ranch in front of witnesses and a new ketuba (marriage contract) without the clause to insure we were in agreement and not breaking a promise.

I love that so many have done this. Seems really special.

 

[frederick]

One lesson I learned is you can not ask for YHWH's will in your life......and still expect to get your own. This should be obvious but many seem hostile and shocked at having to adapt to what He is doing in their lives.

Amen. People seem to have no trouble praying; Your kingdom come, your will be done, but then get all bitter and twisted when it's not their kingdom and will that's accomplished. His will is to be our objective - even when it's difficult and requires change in us.

 

[Mark C]

My first wife and I wrote our own vows; that monogamy-worship wasn't in there, but we take no credit for it in our ignorance back then: I think He was protecting us from it.

 

[Keith Martin]

Ditto. We never worried about new vows as YHWH knows hearts and knows our hearts changed willingly some 20 years ago.

We agreed back when we disagreed on particular denominations that there is one God and if we both wanted the truth above all else that we would arrive at the same place eventually. It took a good five years on the denomination....and polygyny came up about then and we went down that rabbit hole together too.

It isn't fair to change up what is expected. My hubby used to get cranky if I changed what I was fixing for dinner after he had his taste buds set for the original plan. But then life isn't fair.
In the case of marriage between believers, it is suposed to be less about our own ideas of life and more about trusting YHWH's plan and purpose.

One lesson I learned is you can not ask for YHWH's will in your life......and still expect to get your own. This should be obvious but many seem hostile and shocked at having to adapt to what He is doing in their lives.

What the morality of polygyny does is often, as @juliPoints out, exposes idols of a sort in our own hearts. The people that hurt the least in the transition to poly thinking are perhaps those who had less of the selfish ideas growing close to their hearts.....or maybe those that had deeper roots in the kind of faith that let them see a different kind of good in family life?

One of the questions I ask myself when weighing questions or possibilities in theology is which one best magnifies our creator?
I'm more inclined to believe in whatever makes Him look the best, the most loving, the most powerful....(keeping in mind death is of no consequence to Him).

Getting caught up in our own feelings can cause us to lose perspective and miss the beauty of the bigger picture.
Thinking about others on the other hand gets us out of our own little world.
Thinking about the greatness of God....that gets us into his world.
Once we are there other people matter.....and selfishness disappears into worship, joy and love for others.

So I kinda try and shift my thoughts when I catch myself getting upset about anything....and move 'em in the right direction. Just a few little steps at a time.

This sums it up.

View attachment 3471

Welcome back, Jolene!

 

[MemeFan]

Conditions change. So far, all replies seems to me as variation of God has lead to truth.

Think. There is always some change around us. This means that "terms of relationship" change.

If man gets disabled does that mean marriage is over? If man gets richer can be have more wives?

Or something easier. Man find new work which means he will less home. Less time together is also changing terms of relationship.

 

[Keith Martin]

I love that so many have done this. Seems really special.

Reading about the renewal of vows almost makes me wonder if doing that at a Biblical Families retreat, in order to have appropriate witnesses, would be a good idea, but at the same time it starts seeming like a Billy Graham altar call . . .

I never made such a vow with any of my four serial-monogamy wives, although after the fact my 2nd wife swore she heard me say I would forsake all others. Wasn't going to happen that I would make that promise, and that was true for me even in the desert of my quarter century of turning my back on Yah. Kristin and I eloped at a downtown-Pittsburgh Justice of the Peace, and he gave us a book from which we had our choice of about 40 wedding vows. I skimmed them, and the first one without required monogamy promises was good, so that was what I chose. (By the way, in my case, I could counter with the just-as-emotionally-laden question, "Is it 'fair' for a woman to agree to her man refraining from making a monogamy pledge, only to change her mind later and demand that he never add other wives?)

Now to the serious response to your question, @LovesDogs: the concept of fairness is almost always a red herring. Life just isn't fair, and attempts to make it be so are generally foolhardy, not to mention having the tendency to inspire the type of boredom communism brings to human relationships. A better question is, does what your suggesting lack integrity? That focuses the mind on the ethics of the situation. When the question you're posing is asked -- and it has been posed in most all of our lives if we desire plural marriage -- it is almost always posed from a point of view that puts on horse blinders in order to only take into account one very specific and emotionally-fraught dynamic. Two major things that tend to get ignored but that are in fact inseparable are:

1. Sometimes people actually grow in their faith, their knowledge of Scripture and their willingness to implement what they learn in a way that couldn't have been predicted -- especially when we consider such vows being made by young-and-dumbsters. Should one be shackled by a previous state of ignorance once one becomes enlightened?
2. I would contend that, over the course of the vast majority of modern marriages, women break more of the vows than do men. Here's something very close to what Kristin and I vowed on May 7, 1987 (it included an optional 'forsaking all others' phrase that I just didn't say -- but Kristin did, even though, at that time I had thought I shouldn't require her to do so): "I take you to be my (wife/husband), to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, and I promise to love and cherish you until death do us part."

In our modern times, 2/3 of divorces are filed by women, and their number one reason for doing so is belief that they can do better: better man making better money. That right there indicates that women are typically violating the vows about for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, and promising to love and cherish until death, but I contend that the abdication of vows on their part starts way before the divorce.

The other manner in which women very often violate their vows isn't always clearly stated in the vows but falls under the "have and to hold from this day forward" clause: one of my friends here repeated the old but true saw about how the best way to decrease a woman's libido is to marry her. It's the stuff of movies, legends and a great deal of fodder for comics: much more often than men attempt to create plural families, women decrease the due benevolence they either stated, implied or led their future husbands to believe they could count on after the rings were exchanged. Gee, do we think that in some cases doing so might even lead to men being inspired to want to avail themselves of the biblically-legitimate option of having multiple wives?

Even if a man made a forsaking-all-others vow at the beginning of the marriage, if he did so in scriptural ignorance and is then enlightened about biblical truth in the matter, why is he so adamantly required by our feminized culture to permanently respect his original intention when very few people contend that women are permanently required to adhere to the rest of the vows?

 

[Hisdaughter]

We too were first married with the standard forsaking all others clause and remarried here at the ranch in front of witnesses and a new ketuba (marriage contract) without the clause to insure we were in agreement and not breaking a promise.

That is a really good idea. I remember y'all renewing but didn't realize this was why! You both rock.

 

[NickF]

Life isn’t fair. Truth doesn’t care about fair.

Are you truly concerned about fairness or are you asking something else? Cause fair ain’t reality.

Is it fair for a man to marry a woman and later find out she’s barren when he’s always wanted children? Is it fair for a woman to marry a man expecting him to provide for her only to find he develops a debilitating disease? Of course life isn't fair, it throws curveballs at ya and you roll with the punches.

This selfishness of fairness is honestly disgusting to me. It’s very typical of narcissistic modern western culture and not representative of the real world. It’s childishness on the order of a 2 year old.

I can totally understand the sentiment. But we are talking about the way the creator of the universe designed things to be. He made men to largely be desirous of having multiple women. It’s an atypical man who desires monogamy for the sake of monogamy. It’s a weak or lazy man who desires monogamy simply because it’s more work or creates conflict. So it’s foolishness and a rejection of what everyone knows to be true. Men aren’t monogamous by nature.

Sure, changing the rules in the middle of the game isn’t fair or nice. And if the man has made vows to be monogamous, I 100% insist that he be faithful to fulfill those vows or obtain willing revocation of the vow from his wife.

But the reality is an 18 year old boy/man isn’t going to know everything in scripture. What if he gets married as a worldly unbeliever and later becomes a believer and stops doing the worldly things his wife expected for the rest of their marriage? Does she have a right to be offended at life changing from her selfish will? I say she needs to put her big girl panties on and grow up. This isn’t a romance novel where they live happily ever after. Real life changes the rules in the middle or the game allllll the time.

Our obedience to God trumps someone else’s expectations and selfish desires every time.

Woman was made to be a helper to a man. That is the natural expression and purpose that God has set forth. A helper is not a co-equal partner. The helper helps, not leads.

In any of the trades, there are master (insert trade) and those men have helpers. The helper doesn't have the right to get upset if the master tradesman changes the project and pulls up and goes to work on a different job. The helper just goes and helps.

It all comes down to this simple question. "Are you obedient to God?"
If you say no, then wallow in negativity. If you say you're going to obey God, then be about your business and obey. Philippians 4:8

 

[The Revolting Man]

This is a legitimate question. The practical solution is very easy but that’s not the issue here. A woman was promised something, sexual and emotional exclusivity, that she had been raised to believe was a bed rock right that her entire world rested on. A simple, “So sorry Charlie,” seems like an insufficient response.

 

[LDremoved]

This is a legitimate question. The practical solution is very easy but that’s not the issue here. A woman was promised something, sexual and emotional exclusivity, that she had been raised to believe was a bed rock right that her entire world rested on. A simple, “So sorry Charlie,” seems like an insufficient response.

You said it better than I did, thank you. To a woman it feels like betrayal, even if the original agreement was made under ignorance.

I'm honestly amazed at how many couples seem to work through it.

 

[LDremoved]

Conditions change. So far, all replies seems to me as variation of God has lead to truth.

Think. There is always some change around us. This means that "terms of relationship" change.

If man gets disabled does that mean marriage is over? If man gets richer can be have more wives?

Or something easier. Man find new work which means he will less home. Less time together is also changing terms of relationship.

Those are things that are covered in the initial marriage vows though. Through sickness, for richer or poorer etc.

Never does it say- if your husband later decides to marry other women.

 

[MemeFan]

Those are things that are covered in the initial marriage vows though. Through sickness, for richer or poorer etc.

Never does it say- if your husband later decides to marry other women.

People can always change terms. It is done regulary in everyday life.

What does exactly through sickness means? Don't break marriage because of sickness? What about caring for sick? And how much caring is acceptable?

Level of caring is under negotiation.

 

[Joleneakamama]

If man gets disabled does that mean marriage is over?

Sadly when my brother in law fell and broke his back it was the beginning of the end for his marriage. His wife didn't immediately want a divorce, but 8 years later filed. He said she treated him different after the accident. Wouldn't let him touch her. Wouldn't let him sleep in their bed. He has had a rough road and only now 18 months after she filed has he been able to see his children again.

That right there indicates that women are typically violating the vows about for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, and promising to love and cherish until death, but I contend that the abdication of vows on their part starts way before the divorce.

Only a woman who fears YHWH will stick with her vows when her feelings lead her a different way.

The other manner in which women very often violate their vows isn't always clearly stated in the vows but falls under the "have and to hold from this day forward" clause:

And you are very right that keeping themselves from their husbands is the usual first step toward leaving.

one of my friends here repeated the old but true saw about how the best way to decrease a woman's libido is to marry her. It's the stuff of movies, legends and a great deal of fodder for comics:

Or songs!! I heard this one for the first time this year.

Most women don't want to accept the truth. Yah gave men the authority to divorce, or take another wife.
If he does take another, her unfair and selfish (and stupid!) denial of him loses much of it's sting. She is then the one doing without....perhaps longer then she was willing if pride and stubbornness get started.

It's just a fool's game to start with......but one many play.

To a woman it feels like betrayal, even if the original agreement was made under ignorance.

Believe me, the way your life and husband can change without polygyny can leave the woman feeling like "I didn't sign up for this!"

This is why many of those lines are in traditional vows. You cannot make those vows and later say that life's changes weren't part of the deal. Not honestly at any rate. Those vows should prevent divorce by causing each to weather the storm for conscience sake. Too many don't live honestly though and have a seared conscience.

Welcome back, Jolene!

We were looking at a bunch of canning.....then the sheep got into the garden. Canning postponed until see how well the plants recover.