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Poly Practised Elsewhere

Frank S said:
https://www.reuters.com/article/tanzania-marriage-idINKCN0SL0CP20151027
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This one is really good...

Sharing a husband may lead to greater wealth and health, study says
Katy Migiro
4 MIN READ
NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Children can thrive in polygamous families and are often better off than those from monogamous households in poor communities, researchers said on Monday, calling for greater cultural sensitivity among campaigners seeking to ban polygamy.
In Tanzania, polygamous families owned more cattle and farmed more land than monogamous ones in the same villages, according to a study involving 3,500 households in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.
There was no evidence that children whose fathers had more than one wife were less healthy or hungrier than those in monogamous households.
“Children in polygamous households either do better or just as well as children in monogamous households within the same village,” the lead researcher, David Lawson of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
First wives, who tend to live with their husbands, had significantly better nutrition and less stunting among their children than monogamous families.
The children of later wives, who usually live in separate homes adjacent to the first wife, were as healthy as monogamous families, although their food security was slightly lower.
“It’s an important finding because we have this very strong language used by the United Nations and others that polygyny is universally harmful,” Lawson said.
“Most of the policy speak on this topic is not actually very evidence based... What we are arguing for is cultural sensitivity.”
Polygyny refers to marriage systems where men can have multiple wives, while polygamy means marrying more than one wife or husband at the same time.
The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women says polygamous marriages should be discouraged and outlawed because they are unequal and have negative emotional and financial impacts on women and children.
“Of course we want to improve the status of women,” Lawson said. “But if you just change marriage laws without addressing the underlying position of women within society, you may restrict their options, so it could be detrimental.”
One in four married women in rural Tanzania have at least one co-wife, government data shows.
Maasai women often enter polygamous marriages with wealthier men in the community, unlike the Meru, who live on fertile mountain slopes near the city of Arusha and tend to be better educated and monogamous.
“Polygyny can be potentially protective within cultural settings where women lack direct control over resources,” said Lawson.
For example, under the custom of widow inheritance, women whose husbands die are re-married to the brother of the deceased, often as a second or later wife.
He is expected to provide for the widow who loses her marital home when her husband dies because women traditionally cannot inherit land.
“In contexts where women are unable to own resources, it can be within their strategic interests, within those confines, to share a husband,” said Lawson.
Reporting by Katy Migiro; Editing by Ros Russell
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Frank S said:
http://www.plant-fhg.org.uk/dna_polygyny.html
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Ok that one is huge. I always hear Europeans cast as being monogamous. But pre-Catholic law the peoples of the British Isles were polygynous. Thats the Celtic peoples. It also implies the ancient Franks were as well. And we know the Viking peoples (North Germanics) were. So that accounts for the biggest people groups of northern Europe and beyond.
 
Frank S said:
https://cruxnow.com/church/2014/09/11/surprise-one-of-the-churchs-family-issues-is-polygamy/
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...

Catholicism, however, has held the line. Speaking to a Black Catholic Congress in the United States in July 2007, Cardinal John Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria, said that on polygamy, “the Catholic Church is particularly firm and consistent, giving no room whatsoever for doubts and exceptions.”
The church’s tough stance has been shaped not only by defense of tradition, but also impressions that polygamy discriminates against women. In the late 1990s, a survey of African Catholic theology cited 23 female African Catholic theologians who argued that since mutuality and equality are Biblical ideals, Scripture should not be used to justify polygamous marriage.
On the other hand, some Catholic bishops and theologians support greater pastoral flexibility in dealing with the complicated realities of polygamy. Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana made this argument at a 2005 Synod of Bishops in the Vatican.
“You can’t just say to a man, let the other [wives] go and stay with the first wife,” Turkson said. “There’s a question of justice. You can ask the man to provide for her ongoing security, setting up a small business for her, for example.”
“There’s also [the wives’] need for a sexual partner,” Turkson said. “You can’t just say to everyone they should be celibate. … You don’t want to expose them to prostitution and so on.”
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So the RCC's tough stance against polygamy comes from tradition; which they show by....pointing to the opinion of 23 female Catholic theologians!

You can't make this up.

Women.....mutuality, equality!....anti-polygamy
Men...justice!......pro-polygamy

Equality, that's just a watchword for feminism, which is really just matriarchy; female rule. So too is mutuality just another way of saying mutual submission; which isn't really but just getting the man to surrender to the woman. So basically polygyny offends women because it means they no longer have uncontested rule over the man. And that is apparently more important than justice.

But feminism's never been big on justice; especially if a woman stands to benefit.
 
rockfox said:
So basically polygyny offends women because it means they no longer have uncontested rule over the man.
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Precisely why God allows it and the adversary hates it so much! It is a punch and counter punch to the adversary's deceit in the Garden.
 
Frank S said:
http://www.kavanaghfamily.com/articles/2005/20050714.htm

This article is lengthy, but contains a small bit about Celtic poly-law which was in place before RC law was imposed.
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Fascinating. Their legal system bears much resemblance to that of the north germanics. Every year when their Thing met they had a person who would recite the law (which he had to memorize).

They differ from Western laws in that they developed without Roman influence and reflect a tribal society where the crime of an individual was the responsibility of a tribe or family.
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In other words, the family was the basic unit of society, not individual. This has many benefits against our own system. I can see how polygyny would lead to the development of a more family/clan centered society.

Polygamy

Polygamy was acceptable under the Brehon laws (of course for those who could afford its attendant responsibilities), but the first wife remained the most important. The mark of a man of standing was that he had a “cétmuintir” or chief wife. Her honour price was half his, while in the case of an additional wife or “dormuine” or “bean carrthach” (literally love woman) it was one quarter of the husband’s honour price. The Brehon legislation encompassed rights in ten different types of relationships, extending even to deception and force.

The Brehon laws recognised that variations could arise in the affections of men and women towards each other and they legislated for these rather than simply condemning them as illegal. Those who could afford more than one wife were legally entitled to do so, which of course was not in line with the Christian Church’s ideas on the matter. The acceptance of polygamy meant that the number of descendants of chieftains could rapidly reach major proportions over time. The Norman system of primogeniture was alien to the system, as it would rule out offspring from multiple wives from succession to chieftainship, in a manner in which Irish custom did not
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So chief woman and love woman. "Love woman" is a good summation of the deep roots of the word concubine in various ancient languages. Interesting how that same association has come about in radically different cultures. You can tell from this language alone that the first wife was often married for status/power reasons. Although it could also be a reflection of what naturally happens to some extent when you add a much younger woman.

Lack of Illegitimacy Concept

In his book “Sex and Marriage in Ancient Ireland”, Patrick C.Power points out that the Brehon laws humanely legislated for all children, irrespective of the circumstances of their conception and their rights were recognised. The laws were not framed for the notion of a single lawful marriage, only the issue of which could be deemed legitimate. Basically, the notion of “illegitimacy” was foreign to the Brehon laws and children were not narrowly branded as under Norman law. Moreover, given the acceptability of polygamy, the lack of illegitimacy was a logical outcome. In fact, the paternity of a child was recognised on the sole basis of a mother’s claim. One example in the sixteenth century is that of the origin of Matthew “the Baron” O’Neill of Dungannon, who grew up as a boy named Kelly in Dundalk until his mother claimed that his father was “the O’Neill”. This was accepted by O’Neill and Matthew eventually succeeded to the chieftainship.

This lack of the concept of illegitimacy was later to come into conflict with Norman ideas, notably in the case of the Caomhánach lineage. Of course the Normans were happy to use the idea of illegitimacy when it suited them and ignore it when it did not. William the Conqueror was not a “legitimate” son under Norman law and neither were some of the leading initial Norman invaders of Ireland.
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This never dawned on me, but illegitamcy / bastards are a necessary result of monogamy. It also denigrates the father and his power as some of his sons can be made to have lower social standing. Not to mention whatever social ills result from this artificial designation. Really, it shows a level of matriarchy inherent in monogamy: legitimacy is confered from the mother and her status.
 
Frank S said:
http://www.kavanaghfamily.com/articles/2005/20050714.htm

This article is lengthy, but contains a small bit about Celtic poly-law which was in place before RC law was imposed.
Click to expand...

Now this part is very notable...

Polygamy was permitted under the Brehon laws and persisted right up to the 1600s.
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While Christianization in Ireland started in the 400's it wasn't complete until about 800. But that is still 800 years of Christian polygamy. And these weren't backwater Christians either. Some say the Irish Christians saved Western Civilization. They preserved the Roman/Greek learning during Europes darkest days, had access to many early writings of the church fathers, and were instrumental in spreading Christianity in England and Europe.

Now of course I wondered, where the Christians polygynous or was it just pagan holdouts? Enter this...

https://www.womensmuseumofireland.i...-multiple-marriages-in-later-medieval-ireland

Up until the Norman Invasion, there is a wealth of information in the saints lives to substantiate the theory that among the wealthy aristocrats in early Christian Ireland, polygyny (a form of marriage in which a man has two or more wives at the same time) was an accepted practice. It would appear that the church reform of the eleventh century succeeded in dismantling the ecclesiastical framework that supported polygyny, but did not succeed in swaying cultural attitudes over to the ecclesiastical doctrine that supported one monogamous, Christian marriage for life.
Gaelic-Irish marital customs did receive a large amount of criticism during the eleventh and twelfth centuries for basing these marriage customs not on church doctrine, but an older, Irish customary law.
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In other words...the people were polygynous, the secular leaders were polygynous, and the church leaders supported polygyny. It took outside pressure from the RCC to end it. One of the major moves in this was the Synod of Cashel in 1172. But the polygamous Brehon law would nevertheless be held to by the people and reign all the way up until the time the English took full control of the Island.

Although I would be remiss if I did not note that a) this practice came from their pagan roots and b) they also had an unbiblical divorce practice.

However, my main point here is that European Christians practiced polygamy, with the support of their not uninfluential church theologians, for several hundred years. This probably constitutes the largest 'stream' of Christianity which embraced polygamy.

This disproves those who claim variously that
  • Europeans were historically monogamous
  • Polygamy was not an accepted practice of any church / theologian
  • Western Civilization was monogamous
  • Monogamy is more fit for building civilization (to the contrary, it played a part in the power of the clans)
I have heard it said that the prohibition of polygamy by the RCC had a lot to do with breaking the power of influential families. The history of Irish polygamy makes a great proof of that. Polygamy was a prominent feature of the clans which ruled Ireland. The afformentioned Synod seems more about establishing church power (against the people, the clans, and Christian lay workers) than morals and theology. And the monasteries in Ireland were very powerful, owning much land and even engaging in war with one another. The monasteries had serfs that constituted a big part of their income, much like any other feudal lord.
 
rockfox said:
Now this part is very notable...



While Christianization in Ireland started in the 400's it wasn't complete until about 800. But that is still 800 years of Christian polygamy. And these weren't backwater Christians either. Some say the Irish Christians saved Western Civilization. They preserved the Roman/Greek learning during Europes darkest days, had access to many early writings of the church fathers, and were instrumental in spreading Christianity in England and Europe.

Now of course I wondered, where the Christians polygynous or was it just pagan holdouts? Enter this...

https://www.womensmuseumofireland.i...-multiple-marriages-in-later-medieval-ireland



In other words...the people were polygynous, the secular leaders were polygynous, and the church leaders supported polygyny. It took outside pressure from the RCC to end it. One of the major moves in this was the Synod of Cashel in 1172. But the polygamous Brehon law would nevertheless be held to by the people and reign all the way up until the time the English took full control of the Island.

Although I would be remiss if I did not note that a) this practice came from their pagan roots and b) they also had an unbiblical divorce practice.

However, my main point here is that European Christians practiced polygamy, with the support of their not uninfluential church theologians, for several hundred years. This probably constitutes the largest 'stream' of Christianity which embraced polygamy.

This disproves those who claim variously that
  • Europeans were historically monogamous
  • Polygamy was not an accepted practice of any church / theologian
  • Western Civilization was monogamous
  • Monogamy is more fit for building civilization (to the contrary, it played a part in the power of the clans)
I have heard it said that the prohibition of polygamy by the RCC had a lot to do with breaking the power of influential families. The history of Irish polygamy makes a great proof of that. Polygamy was a prominent feature of the clans which ruled Ireland. The afformentioned Synod seems more about establishing church power (against the people, the clans, and Christian lay workers) than morals and theology. And the monasteries in Ireland were very powerful, owning much land and even engaging in war with one another. The monasteries had serfs that constituted a big part of their income, much like any other feudal lord.
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This in my opinion deserves its own thread.
 
frederick said:
It just occurred to me. This thread is nine pages long and you've stuck to topic, @Frank S ! You deserve the all-time top achievers award for this one. Thanks heaps for your monumental effort. Shalom
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You are welcome Frederick. And thanks for the encouragement. I hope what I am doing will be used of God to spread the truth and further build the kingdom of his Son. I know the links I've been posting will sooner or later no longer be functional as websites eventually take pages down. I've wondered if it might not be useful to turn a lot of them into PDF documents to have them permanently available in a special section on this site, not just within a thread as they now are, but as a future resource for us as members and for others who may be curious about Biblical-poly. I can imagine a benefit for curious web-surfers if they could see poly is not just a thing that a few odd-ball Mormons or some backward tribes in the jungle do. I think a lot of people don't even have it on their radar at all, especially that it might be Biblical! These links I've been putting up are showing just the tip of a very big iceberg of what now is and historically has been going on out there in the wider world re poly. I would like if this could become known by more people in our part of the world. It is relatively easy to turn webpages into PDFs for permanent keeping, I just don't have time to do so at the moment. A volunteer with some time would be needed along with a place on this website to store and have the PDFs accessible for future use. ...this is just an idea I've had. Of course it would need input/facilitation from this website's administration to make such an idea happen - that is - if the idea is assessed as useful ...maybe?? ...nudge nudge;). What think ye administrators?
 
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