I was thinking about this today and I can see how some personalities would like a multiple house arrangement; it's just very much not me. I have a hard time describing it to myself in anything except unflattering comparisons. But I could see some scenarios where I'd end up in that arrangement. Not my first preference though by a long shot.
But there is nothing morally wrong about multiple households is there? Can it be practically done without dividing the fathers time with children too much? Are there any Biblical precedents?
Correct, nothing morally wrong. What matters here is a bigger principle, so let me throw this out there:
In our experience, one of the primary benefits of plural living, if not THE primary benefit, is the need for transparency, or put the other way, the need to drop all pretense. This is especially true when all are under one roof, and the pressure is attenuated (more or less in different cases, depending on how it's done, but at least somewhat in all cases) when the families/households are separate.
And one of the things you get to drop is any pretense to any kind of religious superiority. We're all just doing the best we can with the situation we're in and the tools and experience we have. It is more important that we learn to love and care for our wives
as they are, developing whatever kind of unity and teamwork our leadership skills and their temperaments (and followership skills) permit
at the time, than to get hung up with 'ideals' and trying to figure out the 'right' or 'wrong' way to do this.
As a metaphor, we're all just guys who like to hang out at the same gym. What's important is that we're all doing the work, and generally we're all helping each other improve. It's a journey, not a destination. When you're on the 'way' of self-improvement, you're where you need to be. And one guy may be focused on legs while another guy is more concerned about upper body. Or one guy might be training for form or for a body-building contest, another guy is interested in power lifting and brute strength, and the third buddy is an athlete who's more concerned about agility and flexibility than raw power. But what they all have in common is that they're all trying, they're all doing the work, they're all
at the gym.
The things that worked for me and my women I'm willing to share with anyone, but they may or may not work for you and your women because of vastly different backgrounds and current context. The most important thing you can do is aspire to get to know God and get to know your woman or women better than you do now, and then stay on that path until you die.
As a
general rule, though, the biggest rewards come to those who work the hardest, and
generally speaking, the hardest work is living under one roof. It's like living in the gym instead of going to it three or four times a week. But the guys who are living in separate houses are
making their families work for them, and that's what matters.
On another note, we lived for a few years in a distributed, 'campus style' setup such as rockfox described above, and it worked reasonably well. It was a retreat center property, with a central living/dining building and separate cabins that we used for bedrooms. Except for the extra distance you had to walk in the rain or the heat or the cold to get to your bedroom, it was pretty much the same vibe as living under one roof. But living under one roof is certainly more economically efficient, and it provides for more spontaneous interactions.
