Matthew Effect, Pareto Principle, and Polygyny

[Joleneakamama]

I don’t believe that the future is going to resemble the present, the present doesn’t resemble what life was like 50 years ago, in greater society.
Polygyny cannot and will not overwhelm society in the next 50 years. I don’t see any mechanism for that.
So why should we concern ourselves about the numbers and percentages? Whatever we guess about what could happen probably won’t.

I could solve my consternation by avoiding this thread, but I won’t.

Only YHWH knows what when and how the future is going to change. Anything we ponder is just speculation based on our understanding and beliefs about where we are in His-story. He has declared the end from the beginning though.

I totally agree @steve, and the speed of change is accelerating and it's not for the good.

Those who have committed relationships, and who raise their kids to be descent, moral, hardworking people are going to become more of the exception than the rule.

We will be the exception until the so called rapture, when people start getting taken out. I think it's more like the harvest of the world....and I suspect it has already begun.

What Joseph told his brothers is not insignificant. God has not changed. What some men intend for evil He can intend for good. After the tares are destroyed then the wheat goes to the barn. Jesus said that "Then the righteous shine forth in the kingdom of their father" at that point those who are gathered to Shiloh all over the world will be revealed. He is going to judge the great ho. Revelation tells us to rejoice in that day. So fear not.....the meek will inherit the earth. It is our fathers pleasure to give His children the kingdom. At the sound of the last trump everyone shows up. No one misses the happy ending.

I expect things to change. The good news is that OUR GOD REIGNS!
I just wish more people professing faith would act like they believe that!

OUR GOD REIGNS!

 

[Keith Martin]

53% is the total, final proportion of women who end up in polygamous marriages, after all of the marriages occur.

If I've been misinterpreting what is being asserted (and I believe it's highly likely that I have been partially doing so), this particular sentence (above) may explain it. Are you actually asserting, Samuel, that either (a) 53% of ALL women end up in polygamous marriages or (b) 53% of ALL WOMEN WHO EVENTUALLY MARRY end up in polygamous marriages? Because, if you're asserting either one, I've been interpreting that 53% figure to indicate something very different: that 53% of all FAMILIES are polygynous [shout-out to @Maddog for pointing out the need to correct the previous phrase], each such family consisting of one man and two or more women. The statistical assertion I've been making is that the upper limits would be that only as much as 2/3 of all people could be married to accomplish 53% of families being polygynous. (I'd also be interested in knowing if @NS4Liberty has also been operating under the same assumption, because it would explain why he and I are coming up with the same basic conclusions, which are radically different from yours.)

It appears that there's another discrepancy between our assumptions, though -- yours being that the 53% figure applies to all women and their eventual marital status, whereas my assumption is that the statistic is a snapshot in time, which means that some included in the survey will be counted as monogamous even though they may be polygamous in the future or may have been in the past but aren't in the present. This actually represents three separate possible empirical postulates, and maybe @NS4Liberty can help solve this dilemma by pointing us to the citation for the 53% Guinea data. I've been attempting to research this, but the Demographic and Health Survey web sites themselves appear to be locked up to ensure that only paying customers can access their data. So far, though, it appears to me that all three of us have been talking apples and oranges and kumquats with each other in this particular regard: the polygyny statistics I've uncovered for other countries (for some reason, Papua New Guinea's are readily available -- 18%) are not for numbers of plural families as I assumed but are for the number of women currently in households where the husband has another wife. It has nothing to do with eventual or past polygyny.

I apologize for the amount of confusion I've caused by being wrong in my original assumption, and I have to now clarify one thing I've been asserting: it's statistically impossible among all known cultures for more than two-thirds of adults to be married if 50% or more of those who are married are members of plural families.

In addition, I have no problem recognizing that increasing polygyny will necessarily correlate positively in a causal manner with increasing the age gap between male and female marital partners, because plural husbands will necessarily force all men to compete for women at lower and lower ages in order for the monogamous men to successfully be fruitful and multiply. This, however, in the absence of an associated strong presence of cultural norms that insist on aging parents being kept in the homes of their adult children (which exist, as the Pew Research you cited, Samuel, also indicates, in most African cultures but decidedly not in Europe, the UK, Canada or the United States), also increases the likelihood of most women spending their final two decades living alone -- and even where the cultures promote keeping elderly mom in the household, the greater the age gap the greater the likelihood that elderly women (perhaps most especially widows) will live out those years without any true companionship or due benevolence. The greater the age gap between husband and wife, the shorter on average will be the length of time the two will spend together married, and -- especially in the context in which polygyny is entirely acceptable -- that has a much greater diminishing effect on women's intimacy life than it does on men's, because men could be sexually active in all legitimacy with another wife prior to marrying the younger wife. Anyone who thinks that this consideration doesn't absolutely correlate negatively with the likelihood that women in general will voluntarily cooperate with legitimizing polygyny in our culture haven't really thought this through, because if along with ushering in polygyny we're also intent on ushering in significant increases in marriages between middle-aged men and virgins or near virgins, the inescapable result of that will be to decrease the average lifespan of the average woman's sex life. Put in simpler terms: if what most men who want plural marriage want is younger wives, they're very much demanding that women should be willing to put up with getting less sex so they can get more sex with hot young things.

This is not likely a product that's going to fly off the shelves.

As a libertarian, I'm not at all for regulating who chooses which mate for whatever reason, but that doesn't mean the choices we make don't have consequences worthy of consideration. And I'll also repeat something I've written on numerous other occasions: if we can look around and see that most of us are actively seeking women with whom we can start another full brood, then the result will be that widows being taken care of will remain about as uncommon as four-leaf clovers.

I get it that many reading this may think it's irrelevant or unworthy of serious consideration, but that which is rewarded will be repeated and thus be most likely to persist. A great deal of talk goes on in this organization about how we're on the leading edge of an inevitable trend. If that's the case, yes, of course, the most important consideration remains that, as patriarchs, we ensure that the women already in our charge are fully taken care of. But I would assert that it also behooves us to recognize that how we individually and collectively prioritize our competing desires to fulfill both scriptural dictates and our own spiritual- and virility-associated preferences has very significant impact on the ways in which we shape the world going forward.

And, for me, the question is always there in the forefront: despite the attention the imperative for the care of them receives in Scripture, are widows just collateral damage in the general desire of men who seek polygyny to both be offspring-prolific and attain sexual variety with ever-younger women?

 

[Maddog]

Oh my... let me blink a little to get the glazing removed from my eyes...
I like numbers but this set of discussion got me a bit turned around. A few points, Keith said "that 53% of all plural FAMILIES are polygynous," uh, I thought that 100% of plural families are poly. I do understand your point though.
Second, more important point to me is: Are widows just collateral damage? And more to the point, Are older women just collateral damage in the quest for a tighter fit? In speaking with active missionaries to African countries, the indigenous peoples do NOT have a value system that is close to ours and so the poly-or-not discussion is moot and is only for our entertainment.
Next is the whole idea of who is collecting the info on who-is-doing-what-to-whom. Those collecting the stats are as guilty of changing number to satisfy the money source. "When there was no law, I had no sin" Apostle Paul said. A former boss of mine, a good man who is a Christian said, "Young men know the rules, old men know the exceptions."

 

[Keith Martin]

Keith said "that 53% of all plural FAMILIES are polygynous," uh, I thought that 100% of plural families are poly. I do understand your point though.

Thanks, Maddog, for catching that; I corrected it above.

Great post across the board, as well.

 

[Bartato]

If I've been misinterpreting what is being asserted (and I believe it's highly likely that I have been partially doing so), this particular sentence (above) may explain it. Are you actually asserting, Samuel, that either (a) 53% of ALL women end up in polygamous marriages or (b) 53% of ALL WOMEN WHO EVENTUALLY MARRY end up in polygamous marriages? Because, if you're asserting either one, I've been interpreting that 53% figure to indicate something very different: that 53% of all FAMILIES are polygynous [shout-out to @Maddog for pointing out the need to correct the previous phrase], each such family consisting of one man and two or more women. The statistical assertion I've been making is that the upper limits would be that only as much as 2/3 of all people could be married to accomplish 53% of families being polygynous. (I'd also be interested in knowing if @NS4Liberty has also been operating under the same assumption, because it would explain why he and I are coming up with the same basic conclusions, which are radically different from yours.)

It appears that there's another discrepancy between our assumptions, though -- yours being that the 53% figure applies to all women and their eventual marital status, whereas my assumption is that the statistic is a snapshot in time, which means that some included in the survey will be counted as monogamous even though they may be polygamous in the future or may have been in the past but aren't in the present. This actually represents three separate possible empirical postulates, and maybe @NS4Liberty can help solve this dilemma by pointing us to the citation for the 53% Guinea data. I've been attempting to research this, but the Demographic and Health Survey web sites themselves appear to be locked up to ensure that only paying customers can access their data. So far, though, it appears to me that all three of us have been talking apples and oranges and kumquats with each other in this particular regard: the polygyny statistics I've uncovered for other countries (for some reason, Papua New Guinea's are readily available -- 18%) are not for numbers of plural families as I assumed but are for the number of women currently in households where the husband has another wife. It has nothing to do with eventual or past polygyny.

I apologize for the amount of confusion I've caused by being wrong in my original assumption, and I have to now clarify one thing I've been asserting: it's statistically impossible among all known cultures for more than two-thirds of adults to be married if 50% or more of those who are married are members of plural families.

In addition, I have no problem recognizing that increasing polygyny will necessarily correlate positively in a causal manner with increasing the age gap between male and female marital partners, because plural husbands will necessarily force all men to compete for women at lower and lower ages in order for the monogamous men to successfully be fruitful and multiply. This, however, in the absence of an associated strong presence of cultural norms that insist on aging parents being kept in the homes of their adult children (which exist, as the Pew Research you cited, Samuel, also indicates, in most African cultures but decidedly not in Europe, the UK, Canada or the United States), also increases the likelihood of most women spending their final two decades living alone -- and even where the cultures promote keeping elderly mom in the household, the greater the age gap the greater the likelihood that elderly women (perhaps most especially widows) will live out those years without any true companionship or due benevolence. The greater the age gap between husband and wife, the shorter on average will be the length of time the two will spend together married, and -- especially in the context in which polygyny is entirely acceptable -- that has a much greater diminishing effect on women's intimacy life than it does on men's, because men could be sexually active in all legitimacy with another wife prior to marrying the younger wife. Anyone who thinks that this consideration doesn't absolutely correlate negatively with the likelihood that women in general will voluntarily cooperate with legitimizing polygyny in our culture haven't really thought this through, because if along with ushering in polygyny we're also intent on ushering in significant increases in marriages between middle-aged men and virgins or near virgins, the inescapable result of that will be to decrease the average lifespan of the average woman's sex life. Put in simpler terms: if what most men who want plural marriage want is younger wives, they're very much demanding that women should be willing to put up with getting less sex so they can get more sex with hot young things.

This is not likely a product that's going to fly off the shelves.

As a libertarian, I'm not at all for regulating who chooses which mate for whatever reason, but that doesn't mean the choices we make don't have consequences worthy of consideration. And I'll also repeat something I've written on numerous other occasions: if we can look around and see that most of us are actively seeking women with whom we can start another full brood, then the result will be that widows being taken care of will remain about as uncommon as four-leaf clovers.

I get it that many reading this may think it's irrelevant or unworthy of serious consideration, but that which is rewarded will be repeated and thus be most likely to persist. A great deal of talk goes on in this organization about how we're on the leading edge of an inevitable trend. If that's the case, yes, of course, the most important consideration remains that, as patriarchs, we ensure that the women already in our charge are fully taken care of. But I would assert that it also behooves us to recognize that how we individually and collectively prioritize our competing desires to fulfill both scriptural dictates and our own spiritual- and virility-associated preferences has very significant impact on the ways in which we shape the world going forward.

And, for me, the question is always there in the forefront: despite the attention the imperative for the care of them receives in Scripture, are widows just collateral damage in the general desire of men who seek polygyny to both be offspring-prolific and attain sexual variety with ever-younger women?

My wife and I recently ran into the twice widowed mother of our close friend while at a "you pick" blueberry farm in our area. We have known this lady fairly well for a number of years. After picking blueberries, we took her out to lunch and had a delightful visit.

While visiting over lunch, I thought what a nice addition to a family this woman could make. She was a very good wife to her first husband who died of cancer in his 40's. She remarried several years later and was a very good wife to her second husband for twenty-some more years until he died of cancer about two years ago. She is an excellent mother and grandmother. She fears, loves, and serves the Lord. She is hardworking, modest, generous, and extremely pleasant.

She seems to have good longevity genetics and a healthy lifestyle. She is in good health in her early seventies and could very likely live another twenty or more years.

I think she would perhaps be interested in marriage, and would be a blessing to a man. She probably doesn't know that polygamy is an option, since she is more of a mainstream Evangelical.

At forty-eight, I wouldn't consider her for myself, as I hope to marry and have children. On the other hand, if I was sixty-five plus, I would definitely be interested.

 

[Keith Martin]

At forty-eight, I wouldn't consider her for myself, as I hope to marry and have children. On the other hand, if I was sixty-five plus, I would definitely be interested.

Please know that this is in no way meant to either dissuade you personally from seeking a childbearing woman or persuade you to marry the woman you've so glowingly described, but I'm just asking this as a thought-experiment question: why does desiring a woman presumably 25 years your junior stop you from taking on this woman who is 25 years your senior? Wouldn't she be a great addition in your household in regard to more efficient use of resources, helping out with household tasks, and assisting in the raising of children -- not to mention being able to impart her respectfully-cooperative feminism wisdom to the younger wives in your quiver? You really already have confirmation that she would be prepared to provide you with some intimate comfort as well. Does one's potential younger fertile wife really eliminate the possibility of also having as an additional wife an elderly widow?

 

[Bartato]

Please know that this is in no way meant to either dissuade you personally from seeking a childbearing woman or persuade you to marry the woman you've so glowingly described, but I'm just asking this as a thought-experiment question: why does desiring a woman presumably 25 years your junior stop you from taking on this woman who is 25 years your senior? Wouldn't she be a great addition in your household in regard to more efficient use of resources, helping out with household tasks, and assisting in the raising of children -- not to mention being able to impart her respectfully-cooperative feminism wisdom to the younger wives in your quiver? You really already have confirmation that she would be prepared to provide you with some intimate comfort as well. Does one's potential younger fertile wife really eliminate the possibility of also having as an additional wife an elderly widow?

I see what you are saying. The one does not preclude the other. I would consider marrying an older widow. That said, I'd probably consider one ten years or less my senior much more seriously than one twenty-five years my senior. Likewise with younger women, fifteen years younger generally makes more sense than twenty-five years younger.

Twenty five years is a whole generation difference, and that is substantial.

There's also the matter of sexual desire. I would need to have it towards a wife. Again, that's a big age difference.

 

[frederick]

Please know that this is in no way meant to either dissuade you personally from seeking a childbearing woman or persuade you to marry the woman you've so glowingly described, but I'm just asking this as a thought-experiment question: why does desiring a woman presumably 25 years your junior stop you from taking on this woman who is 25 years your senior? Wouldn't she be a great addition in your household in regard to more efficient use of resources, helping out with household tasks, and assisting in the raising of children -- not to mention being able to impart her respectfully-cooperative feminism wisdom to the younger wives in your quiver? You really already have confirmation that she would be prepared to provide you with some intimate comfort as well. Does one's potential younger fertile wife really eliminate the possibility of also having as an additional wife an elderly widow?

Good questions Keith, and not irrelevant to real life needs of older women.

 

[Keith Martin]

I see what you are saying. The one does not preclude the other. I would consider marrying an older widow. That said, I'd probably consider one ten years or less my senior much more seriously than one twenty-five years my senior. Likewise with younger women, fifteen years younger generally makes more sense than twenty-five years younger.

Twenty five years is a whole generation difference, and that is substantial.

There's also the matter of sexual desire. I would need to have it towards a wife. Again, that's a big age difference.

[Caution: I'll probably repeat this in one or more ways as I write this response: I'm not actually directing one bit of what I'm writing toward @Bartato; I simply believe his willingness to bravely engage in such an interchange provides an opportunity for all of us to question our constitutional approaches to implementing plural marriage.]

Again, not an attempt at directing your behavior, Bartato, but let's continue the thought experiment. Comparing a 25-year-older or 10-year-older woman with a 15-year-younger woman is an uneven playing field. If you're asserting that you'd put a floor on age-difference younger than you at 15 years, what about a widow with all the qualities you described who is, instead, just 15 years older? Not only would she also be less than a generation older than you, but she'd only be 31% older than you, whereas you would be 45% older than the 33-year-old woman. (And, by the way, the 73-year-old woman is just 52% older, which is less of a ratio difference from that 45% difference between you and the 33-year-old than its 45% is from the 31% difference between you and the hypothetical 63-year-old.)

Are you limiting your marital willingness to women 33 years old or older? If not, why bring up the 15 vs 25 or 15 vs 10 comparisons? If so, though, is that 33 floor going to increase by one-year-per-year as you age year-by-year during your search for plural marriage? Part of why I ask is because, absent an unattached ready-to-get-married-tomorrow, fully-fertile, salivating-for-a-48-year-old-married-man, fully-acceptable-to-both-you-and-your-wife, entirely-compatible-with-your-household-habits-diet-and-climate 33-year-old drops out of the sky today, it is likely that significant separate chunks of time will pass before you first meet your next wife, get to know her, introduce her to the legitimacy of polygyny, court her, successfully navigate resistance from your first wife, marry your 2nd wife and then successfully impregnate her, all of which will in all likelihood take at least a few years -- and then at her age y'all will have to deal with the very real issue of geriatric eggs and problematic pregnancies.

Bartato, I'm not directing these questions specifically to you. In fact, questions just like these are questions I actively pose to myself. I'm 68, so they end up being different in certain significant ways (e.g., not too many years ago I concluded that, despite the fact that my stepfather sired two daughters when he was 67 and 68, it just isn't the norm, and both of those daughters spent almost their entire adult lives without a living father). For sure, if a 28-year-old childless widow stranger were to knock on my door and declare that she'd heard about me from so-and-so and feels compelled by Yah to ask me to give her serious consideration to become Kristin's sister wife, as well as to beg me to do whatever I need to do to make her a biological mother, I certainly wouldn't toss her out in the street -- but I'd also just as surely accept a free gift of a winning mega lottery ticket.

Neither are going to happen.

Not for me, and in all likelihood not for any one else reading this.

To be prepared for actual possibilities, it behooves us to stop clouding our eyes with unrealistic fantasies just because we can point to anecdotal-evidence exceptions to the rules of natural law. At your age or my age, if we truly want to produce more than perhaps one child with a new wife, we would need to focus our openness on women in their early 20s in order to, by the time we'd actually be able to get through the meeting/exposure/polygamy-teaching/courting/marrying/conception process, start producing children before her womb begins the very typical process of becoming uncooperative due to lack of having been activated back when her body was programmed to do so. At my age, seeking a wife 1/3 my age puts me in Jeffrey Epstein territory in the eyes of women/girls of such a target range. At your age, seeking a wife 1/2 your age -- unless you're a high-status multimillionaire -- generally speaking would still qualify you in the eyes of those young women as a creeper.

You spoke of sexual attraction. I'll never forget having a staff of about 40 college-age men back when I was about 30 and witnessing their gut-level disgust contemplating what it would be like for one of their similar peers on another staff to have sex with his wife: he was a29-year-old graduate student; his wife was 44. (Many of us here in the age range of 48 have current 1st wives who are in the age range of 44.) The experience of watching their reaction of incomprehensibility of sexual attraction to any 44-year-old woman shy of Sophia Loren was highly instructive to me, because most of them further declared that all women over 30 were gross. I knew in an instant that, while the 44-year-old also seemed old to me at the time, she certainly had to be hot to her husband -- and that what was in store for all of us was learning as we ourselves aged that we were entirely off-base by concluding that older women couldn't inspire our little brains down there to rise to the occasion.

Yes, it is highly preferable to be attracted to a woman we marry, but I will also suggest (as I regularly remind myself) that it's more a reflection of our own lack of imagination than it is any attractiveness deficit on a woman's part if we can't muster up arousal with any of Yah's delicate female creatures, no matter what age they are.

On the other hand, if one's reproductive imperative is sufficiently strong that it or belief that a third (older) woman would interfere with the proper functioning or financial capabilities of one's family, at, say, one's age of 48, then targeting women 25 years one's junior isn't entirely unreasonable (especially if one is willing to bet the farm and avoid polygyny unless one hits the jackpot), but then one also has to acknowledge (as I can promise I earlier reluctantly acknowledged) that it isn't actually the specific age difference (and probably also isn't just the reproductive-capability component) that makes a 73-year-old woman unqualified to be one's wife.

Every bit of what I'm addressing involves natural, Yah-endowed motivations, so I intend no condemnation whatsoever. I just believe it's always useful for us to be honest with ourselves and forthright about what those motivations are.

 

[Joleneakamama]

My husband really never expected to be where he is. After 26 years with me he has a beautiful sweet wife that wasn't even born when we met.
The recent thread titled sobering is sad. So is the fact that opposition and doubt come from unexpected places. For example, even my own pro poly (he asked two other women to marry him after my mom) dad had 'concerns' probably largely because of the age difference. He was supportive as I kept him aware of the change in our family....then must have let his wife cast a different light on things and was expressing concern....then decided based on my expressed positivity and certainty that he now "feels better" about it.

Most people aren't going to look back and see that God had a hand in it. That her working with the business was a legit need, her pay earned and our intentions in hiring her unselfish. They are going to think she was cleverly played and that her job was just to coerce her into this subservient slavery.

Yet we know the truth. *shrugs*

Not trying to hide anything. Just know most people can not in any way imagine this reality. They will distort and force their own idea and warped lack of understanding onto our family and life.

 

[frederick]

My husband really never expected to be where he is. After 26 years with me he has a beautiful sweet wife that wasn't even born when we met.
The recent thread titled sobering is sad. So is the fact that opposition and doubt come from unexpected places. For example, even my own pro poly (he asked two other women to marry him after my mom) dad had 'concerns' probably largely because of the age difference. He was supportive as I kept him aware of the change in our family....then must have let his wife cast a different light on things and was expressing concern....then decided based on my expressed positivity and certainty that he now "feels better" about it.

Most people aren't going to look back and see that God had a hand in it. That her working with the business was a legit need, her pay earned and our intentions in hiring her unselfish. They are going to think she was cleverly played and that her job was just to coerce her into this subservient slavery.

Yet we know the truth. *shrugs*

Not trying to hide anything. Just know most people can not in any way imagine this reality. They will distort and force their own idea and warped lack of understanding onto our family and life.

Sounds like the all too typical situation of those not liking the message attacking the messenger.

Congrats on your bold stand @Joleneakamama

 

[Bartato]

[Caution: I'll probably repeat this in one or more ways as I write this response: I'm not actually directing one bit of what I'm writing toward @Bartato; I simply believe his willingness to bravely engage in such an interchange provides an opportunity for all of us to question our constitutional approaches to implementing plural marriage.]

Again, not an attempt at directing your behavior, Bartato, but let's continue the thought experiment. Comparing a 25-year-older or 10-year-older woman with a 15-year-younger woman is an uneven playing field. If you're asserting that you'd put a floor on age-difference younger than you at 15 years, what about a widow with all the qualities you described who is, instead, just 15 years older? Not only would she also be less than a generation older than you, but she'd only be 31% older than you, whereas you would be 45% older than the 33-year-old woman. (And, by the way, the 73-year-old woman is just 52% older, which is less of a ratio difference from that 45% difference between you and the 33-year-old than its 45% is from the 31% difference between you and the hypothetical 63-year-old.)

Are you limiting your marital willingness to women 33 years old or older? If not, why bring up the 15 vs 25 or 15 vs 10 comparisons? If so, though, is that 33 floor going to increase by one-year-per-year as you age year-by-year during your search for plural marriage? Part of why I ask is because, absent an unattached ready-to-get-married-tomorrow, fully-fertile, salivating-for-a-48-year-old-married-man, fully-acceptable-to-both-you-and-your-wife, entirely-compatible-with-your-household-habits-diet-and-climate 33-year-old drops out of the sky today, it is likely that significant separate chunks of time will pass before you first meet your next wife, get to know her, introduce her to the legitimacy of polygyny, court her, successfully navigate resistance from your first wife, marry your 2nd wife and then successfully impregnate her, all of which will in all likelihood take at least a few years -- and then at her age y'all will have to deal with the very real issue of geriatric eggs and problematic pregnancies.

Bartato, I'm not directing these questions specifically to you. In fact, questions just like these are questions I actively pose to myself. I'm 68, so they end up being different in certain significant ways (e.g., not too many years ago I concluded that, despite the fact that my stepfather sired two daughters when he was 67 and 68, it just isn't the norm, and both of those daughters spent almost their entire adult lives without a living father). For sure, if a 28-year-old childless widow stranger were to knock on my door and declare that she'd heard about me from so-and-so and feels compelled by Yah to ask me to give her serious consideration to become Kristin's sister wife, as well as to beg me to do whatever I need to do to make her a biological mother, I certainly wouldn't toss her out in the street -- but I'd also just as surely accept a free gift of a winning mega lottery ticket.

Neither are going to happen.

Not for me, and in all likelihood not for any one else reading this.

To be prepared for actual possibilities, it behooves us to stop clouding our eyes with unrealistic fantasies just because we can point to anecdotal-evidence exceptions to the rules of natural law. At your age or my age, if we truly want to produce more than perhaps one child with a new wife, we would need to focus our openness on women in their early 20s in order to, by the time we'd actually be able to get through the meeting/exposure/polygamy-teaching/courting/marrying/conception process, start producing children before her womb begins the very typical process of becoming uncooperative due to lack of having been activated back when her body was programmed to do so. At my age, seeking a wife 1/3 my age puts me in Jeffrey Epstein territory in the eyes of women/girls of such a target range. At your age, seeking a wife 1/2 your age -- unless you're a high-status multimillionaire -- generally speaking would still qualify you in the eyes of those young women as a creeper.

You spoke of sexual attraction. I'll never forget having a staff of about 40 college-age men back when I was about 30 and witnessing their gut-level disgust contemplating what it would be like for one of their similar peers on another staff to have sex with his wife: he was a29-year-old graduate student; his wife was 44. (Many of us here in the age range of 48 have current 1st wives who are in the age range of 44.) The experience of watching their reaction of incomprehensibility of sexual attraction to any 44-year-old woman shy of Sophia Loren was highly instructive to me, because most of them further declared that all women over 30 were gross. I knew in an instant that, while the 44-year-old also seemed old to me at the time, she certainly had to be hot to her husband -- and that what was in store for all of us was learning as we ourselves aged that we were entirely off-base by concluding that older women couldn't inspire our little brains down there to rise to the occasion.

Yes, it is highly preferable to be attracted to a woman we marry, but I will also suggest (as I regularly remind myself) that it's more a reflection of our own lack of imagination than it is any attractiveness deficit on a woman's part if we can't muster up arousal with any of Yah's delicate female creatures, no matter what age they are.

On the other hand, if one's reproductive imperative is sufficiently strong that it or belief that a third (older) woman would interfere with the proper functioning or financial capabilities of one's family, at, say, one's age of 48, then targeting women 25 years one's junior isn't entirely unreasonable (especially if one is willing to bet the farm and avoid polygyny unless one hits the jackpot), but then one also has to acknowledge (as I can promise I earlier reluctantly acknowledged) that it isn't actually the specific age difference (and probably also isn't just the reproductive-capability component) that makes a 73-year-old woman unqualified to be one's wife.

Every bit of what I'm addressing involves natural, Yah-endowed motivations, so I intend no condemnation whatsoever. I just believe it's always useful for us to be honest with ourselves and forthright about what those motivations are.

The ten older and fifteen younger are not absolutes. I would consider outside that range.

Our friend that I am interested in, and who seems like she would be a good fit for our family is 30 (or 5/8ths if my age) . I know that time is flying and that she is also getting a little old for having children.

Furthermore, I still need to work on my wife's willingness, and also instructing this friend about the legitimacy of polygyny. I'm not sure how to proceed, but am praying about the situation.

It's all a longshot for sure.

Still, I believe that my Father in Heaven is both exceedingly powerful and extremely generous. He sometimes chooses to work miracles. He blessed me once with a wonderful wife, and might do so again.

Stories like that of Joleneakamama and the Pease's encourage me that such things are possible.

 

[Joleneakamama]

I know that time is flying and that she is also getting a little old for having children.

Oh bull! 30 is not too old. I know you know that....you mean old to start...but sheesh!

 

[Bartato]

Oh bull! 30 is not too old. I know you know that....you mean old to start...but sheesh!

I think 30 is fine. Fertility is dropping some but most women can still have kids at that age. Starting at 20 instead of 30 likely means a woman might have 5-8 children instead of 1-3.

Since we currently have none, (and I'm middle aged myself) I would be ecstatic to have even 1 child. Having two or three would be an extreme blessing.

 

[Keith Martin]

Oh bull! 30 is not too old. I know you know that....you mean old to start...but sheesh!

Bartato has addressed some of this already, but what I also think he's pointing to is that, given that the woman is already 30, by the time he convinces his wife and teaches the now-30-year-old the legitimacy of polygyny -- and then weaves in whatever other courting needs to occur -- she's likely to be closer to 40 than 30.

 

[Keith Martin]

Since we currently have none, (and I'm middle aged myself) I would be ecstatic to have even 1 child. Having two or three would be an extreme blessing.

Every child is a blessing!

 

[Keith Martin]

Stories like that of Joleneakamama and the Pease's encourage me that such things are possible.

Both stories are stories of providential blessing. They are also, as is quite often the case with providential blessings, miraculous in nature. Worthy of inspiring hope, but a recent video I watched put some of this into perspective for me. A 44-year-old never-married woman was asked how, after all she'd been through, she still continued to have hope that she would not only marry but find a man earning in the top 5%. "Because there's hope; that's all; I hear all the time about it happening somewhere." Have you observed it? On television. Right.

Hope is worthy as a source of inspiration, but it's also worthwhile to contemplate the actual odds. If something happens half the time, it's a fair bet, especially if the outcome is something highly valuable, to rest on hope that it will happen to oneself; the risk is then worth holding out for the reward. If, however, the odds are 1 in 20 at best, relying on hope is a particularly risky strategy. If not ever getting married -- or, in the case of what we're discussing here, not ever implementing plural marriage -- isn't really very important to one, then it's entirely reasonable for one to just hope that one will be one of the 1 in 20 who hits the jackpot. If, however, actually accomplishing plural marriage even if one doesn't get a universally-recognized prize of a wife is a strong imperative for one, then following a path that means that not accomplishing it is 19 times more likely than accomplishing it, altering one's approach is just as imperative.

We all have a comprehensive number assigned to us in the mating marketplace. Unless, after considering all relevant factors (income potential, emotional stability, respect status, fitness, marital status [including the degree to which being a polygamy-supporter lowers that status], age and only to a very small extent looks for men; and beauty, womb status, submissiveness, femininity and fitness for women), one can sincerely believe one is an 8, 9 or 10 on a 10 scale, it's simply irrational to seek a 9 or a 10, especially when one is talking about inspiring a woman to join a plural family.

 

[Keith Martin]

Returning to the Original Post:

Do you think the Pareto distribution would apply to wives? Should it?

Should we view relationships in economic terms? (ex. Sexual Market Value)

Re: SMV (sexual marketplace value): I was just listening to one of my favorite podcasters (and, no, it's not Dr. Fauci), and a conversation he was having with a woman started like this: He: "high value men don't cheat; they just exercise options." She: "High value men don't cheat?" He: "No; if you do it it's called cheating; if I do it it's called being a man."

Isn't that just a reflection of Torah in both the Garden of Eden story and the way Scripture defines adulterous sexual intercourse as only being relevant when a married woman is inivolved?

 

[Bartato]

Returning to the Original Post:



Re: SMV (sexual marketplace value): I was just listening to one of my favorite podcasters (and, no, it's not Dr. Fauci), and a conversation he was having with a woman started like this: He: "high value men don't cheat; they just exercise options." She: "High value men don't cheat?" He: "No; if you do it it's called cheating; if I do it it's called being a man."

Isn't that just a reflection of Torah in both the Garden of Eden story and the way Scripture defines adulterous sexual intercourse as only being relevant when a married woman is inivolved?

Pretty much

I don't don't think a man should hide a relationship with a woman, as that shows weakness, or a lack of integrity.

 

[Bartato]

Returning to the Original Post:



Re: SMV (sexual marketplace value): I was just listening to one of my favorite podcasters (and, no, it's not Dr. Fauci), and a conversation he was having with a woman started like this: He: "high value men don't cheat; they just exercise options." She: "High value men don't cheat?" He: "No; if you do it it's called cheating; if I do it it's called being a man."

Isn't that just a reflection of Torah in both the Garden of Eden story and the way Scripture defines adulterous sexual intercourse as only being relevant when a married woman is inivolved?

Is it Kevin Samuels?