@MemeFan , this is such an excellent question! It isn't just for wives though.
I am eager to please God, so it would seem that with the admission of my mistake and some education I should be able to make steady progress on the road to pleasing him. That seems to be all it should take if I were rational and capable. Then . . .there's reality. I'm so thankful that Paul said this:
19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Rom 7:19-25 ESV)
It is not an excuse to sin, it is a simple realization that I really
can do pretty much nothing on my own. As to "doing worse" when we discover what is right . . . Paul said that, too.
7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. (Rom 7:7-11 ESV)
When we
know we should do better . . . is where the battle really begins (for us as well as for our wives). The good news . . .is the Good News. He won't abandon us. Even when we can't
WANT what is right because of Sin, the LORD is working to teach us that HE ALONE is the one "who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." (Phi 2:13 ESV)
And not to take women "off the hook" for the things they struggle with in regard to polygyny, ultimately
men are responsible. . . and there are significant differences in the
masculine dimension of working and dysfunctional marriages in non-Christian cultures. Some masculine dysfunctions are favoritism, abuse, and
lack of substantial leadership. The last one is one that I have struggled with, because by and large the African men I have known are much stronger and more subtanstial in their character than I am by a considerable margin. In Western culture (and particularly Black culture of the US) men are not only relieved of authority, but typically dismissed from it. (Thoughts?
@bro. Dexter for YAH or peacekeeper?) I think this is part of
@b_ce 's question that deserves attention. I contend that one reason that many world cultures can have more successful PM is that the masculine authority structure is still in place culturally. In the West we have to develop a "work around" for our cultural deficit. It is a similar problem to challenges where the gospel enters a culture that has no notion of "sin" or "guilt." I think
@PeteR could speak to this more cogently. . .