Ladies, Why the opposition towards polygny?

[BiblicalLiteralist]

This one is more for the ladies, I am curious what are the biggest concerns/fears that ran through your heads before onboarding polygny? Why were you resistant or opposed to the idea? How many of your preconceived notions actually turned out to be true, either good or bad?

 

[MemeFan]

You also need to ask ladies opposed to polygyny. Only problem there are no such ladies on this forum.

Comparing these two groups would be very interesting.

 

[MeganC]

This one is more for the ladies, I am curious what are the biggest concerns/fears that ran through your heads before onboarding polygny? Why were you resistant or opposed to the idea? How many of your preconceived notions actually turned out to be true, either good or bad?

I wasn't resistant or opposed to the idea. It was my idea to seek it out.

But my preconceived notions took a lot of damage in the process.

I did not expect to lose all of my friends from before and I did.
I was not prepared to deal with the pressure to get pregnant but to be fair everyone around me had told me to expect this. I chose to ignore them.
I did not have a real grasp of just how much work it takes to keep a family going every day.
I did not have a grasp of how much of that work would be assigned to me.

Did I mention that it's a lot of work?

 

[Joleneakamama]

I did not have a real grasp of just how much work it takes to keep a family going every day.

I had 25 years of marriage and 9 children before my husband had a second wife.
I know very well what it takes to feed a large family, and do the laundry, and help hubby as his secretary.....all while having another baby every couple years.

I did not have a grasp of how much of that work would be assigned to me.

When you are an only wife.....it is all on you.

This is why I don't understand why women are so against the idea of being part of a bigger team. It long appealed to me!

 

[BiblicalLiteralist]

Surely not every lady here started with an open mind to polygyny?

 

[paterfamilias]

I am conspicuous by my total lack of femininity but...
Gonna guess that it is

- perceived hierarchical struggle

- centuries worth of inculcation, especially the most recent century

- late stage values derived from historically high food and physical safety

 

[Tamara]

This one is more for the ladies, I am curious what are the biggest concerns/fears that ran through your heads before onboarding polygny? Why were you resistant or opposed to the idea? How many of your preconceived notions actually turned out to be true, either good or bad?

Well, as a widow and open to being a subsequent wife, i can say that polygyny just seems natural and practical. When I was a first wife, I did not see it as natural or practical at all and my openness to it had an underpinning of a desire to control. I honestly believe that is was never meant for me to be a first wife, but I needed this much time (over 12 years) and exposure to be open to the life in the season I am in now. I have learned there are much more terrible things that can happen in my life other than my man sleeping with another woman. All my previous anxiety regarding it just seems so small and silly now. I am no way disregarding the emotional rollercoaster a first wife can go through. I get it. Just now, I want to get into building God's kingdom. I feel the time is short and there is still much work to do.

 

[NVIII's Babe]

Self-consciousness and poor self-awareness came up a lot for me. They manifested as thoughts of not being good enough, not being sufficient, being a bad wife, being unable to match my husband's ideals.

Confusion about it due to cultural indoctrination into mononogomy-only marriage also played a role. I simply accepted it was wrong at first because everyone said it was, and if it wasn't, why weren't more people on board? That developed into me pursuing understanding, but I had to begin by simply submitting to my husband even if I disagreed with him on polygyny. The understanding was granted by God. I did pursue it in good faith - instead of reading material opposing polygyny (which was my own viewpoint at the time, and resources for that are plentiful), I specifically sourced pro-polygyny material to scour and try on my own to poke holes in the arguments. I actually read a lot on BibFam - the articles - not realizing there was a forum here. When I wasn't able to find the flaws in the arguments, I had to accept logically that polygyny was not sin. The deeper spiritual faith about how it would or could affect my own life came later.

There is an element of selfishness that I still struggle against. I read a lot of polygynist women who are so happy to have help with the housework, the cooking, the child-rearing. When they are relieved to have help in sexually satisfying their husbands, I can't relate to that. I recognize that I cannot do it all, all the time. But I *want* to. My husband's sexual needs don't feel like a burden to me, I don't have the desire to "get a night off". And I want to do all the housework and child-rearing. I recognize my limitations, but instead of looking to another woman to increase my capacity by adding her own, I just want to have a higher capacity! I think that is selfishness and just an unrealistic mindset. I think it stems from a habit of laziness in my younger years. I have worked really hard to overcome that, but I still struggle mentally with laziness. And so now, I tend to go the opposite way where I see laziness where there is simply a genuine lack of time or energy. I am very critical of myself in an effort to not slip back into those old bad habits. I'm not sure if I've explained this one well or not.