polygyny

Utah’s highest court weighed in on the long running dispute over a polygamous sect’s property trust Wednesday with one central question: Why did sect members wait so long to challenge a judge’s decision to remove the trust’s religious foundation?

Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints claim their Constitutional rights were violated when a judge reformed the United Effort Plan Trust, transforming it into a secular trust.

Rod Parker, an attorney representing the sect, said the sect initially viewed the trust takeover as a “religious test” but reached a point where they decided “the test was over and they needed to protect the trust.”

Parker told the justices he believes there is no time limit for raising constitutional objections in a matter that is “wrapped up in religion.” He asked the justices to stay all court proceedings, including sale of land considered sacred by the FLDS, while they consider the sect’s petition.

Source/Full Story: KCSG-TV

…photographer Stephanie Sinclair, with the help of National Geographic, somehow convinced the insular FLDS to let her in with a camera — perhaps because the FLDS wanted to show that there’s more to their religion than what you see on HBO. Sinclair spent more than a year documenting small communities in the American West and in Canada, and has this story in the February issue of National Geographic magazine. Hear Sinclair discussing her experiences on Talk of the Nation:

Source/Full Story: NPR

A B.C. religious leader who was charged with polygamy last year is suing the provincial government for damages due to “unlawful” prosecution.

The charges against Winston Blackmore, one of two warring leaders of a fundamentalist Mormon sect in the Bountiful community of southeastern B.C., were quashed in September.

In his lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme Court, Mr. Blackmore claimed that the attorney general’s ministry acted in a manner that was “high-handed, arbitrary, reckless, abusive, improper and inconsistent with the honour of the Crown and the administration of justice.”

Mr. Blackmore, who has at least 25 wives and 101 children, said he became “deeply indebted” to his lawyers after charges were laid and he had to travel to Vancouver on at least one occasion to attend a hearing.

“As a result of the pending charges, Blackmore suffered business and other financial losses and he and his family were put under extreme stress and anxiety,” said a statement of claim.

Source/Full Story: nationalpost.com

If this isn’t screwed up I don’t know what is.  Polygyny is a form of marriage, people.

A large proportion of Canadians believe certain specific social behaviours are morally acceptable, according to a poll by Angus Reid Public Opinion published in Maclean’s. At least 79 per cent of respondents feel this way about contraception, sexual relations between an unmarried man and woman, divorce, and having a baby outside of marriage.

In addition, at least half of respondents think medical research using stem cells obtained from human embryos, abortion, sexual relations between two people of the same sex, doctor-assisted suicide, gambling, buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur and the death penalty are morally acceptable.

Less than 20 per cent of respondents believe married men and/or women having an affair, polygamy, cloning humans and paedophilia are morally acceptable.

Source/Full Story: Angus Reid Global Monitor

What do you tell a person who has been living happily in a polygynous relationship as the second wife, has two small children, and now all of a sudden has to separate from her husband and sister wife because the hitherto happy family has realized, no doubt with the help of their Christian friends, that polygamy is wrong ?   The family wonders about moving to a place where wife #2 can live in a house or apartment of her own yet close to her former husband and sister wife so that the children still have both parents to grow up with and the poor second wife does not lose her husband’s and sister wife’s friendship because they are all really close.  But doing this of course would still pose a danger in their Christian friends’ opinion because who knows, they might be falling back into their terribly sinful polygamous lifestyle if the second wife does not take her children and move away and have her husband pay to support her and the kids from afar.

What would you tell wife #2 ?  What would you tell her husband ?  What would you tell the Christian “friends” who advise them ?

Well, I have advice for them all.

To the wife I would say:  Rejoice, there is nothing wrong with your marriage.  Return to your husband and sister wife and be happy and may Yahweh bless you with many more children.

To the husband I would say: Rejoice, take your two wives and be happy, and repent from the sinful idea of putting away your second wife.  Also, get rid of those so called friends who told you polygamy was wrong. They are of their father, the devil.

To the Christan friends I would say: Leave the poor family alone !  Your advice is wicked and ungodly, it creates pain rather than relieving it, it robs a wife of her rightful husband, and children of their father.  Keep your false teaching to yourselves and stop looking for biblical wisdom that helps you to argue against polygamy – there is no such thing because the bible tells you that polygamy is marriage, nothing more, nothing less.  Stay out of other people’s lives since you do not have biblical wisdom to offer, but only the adversary’s lies.

We have been pondering survival in many ways over the past year or so, and on several of our sites, but very recently thought it might be an interesting topic for our esteemed readers of Joshuah’s House too.  So we wrote a little bit about the basics of survival (Survive !) and also about polygyny in this particular context (Polygyny as a Tool of Survival).

Enjoy.

This post is for those of you, should you exist, who wish to comment on the most recent addition to JoshuahsHouse.com, entitled Polygamy and the Bible.

http://joshuahshouse.com/polygamy-and-the-bible.html

An interesting look at “christian” opposition to polygyny.

Source: THE ORTHODOX JEWISH PRO POLYGAMY PAGE

CHRISTIAN OPPOSITION TO POLYGAMY

Christian commentators with a perverted perspective following in the Roman Catholic tradition have tremendous difficulty with Yaakov having four wives. This very point shows to what extent the Roman church is not a continuation of Jewish traditions, society and morality, but rather the continuation of Greek and Roman pagan traditions, society and morality.

Homosexuality was a major force in ancient Greece. The warrior class considered themselves to be super masculine, and therefore the highest object of their affections and attention was other males. The preferred relationship was a seasoned soldier with a young boy. They viewed women as “breeders”, an unfortunate necessity for continued population, but not ideal partners. In Sparta, each new recruit in the army (age twelve) was given to an older soldier to be his sex slave for two years. Plato and Socrates, the supposedly great Greek philosophers also were homosexuals, and lauded the practice. (See “The Pink Swastika” by Lively and Abrams pages 15-19)

Christianity somewhat discouraged homosexuality, but adopted entirely the Greek attitude towards women and normal relations between men and women. Christianity adopted the view that the normal relationship between a man and a woman is intrinsically sinful, can only be justified for the sake of having children, and that the whole institution of marriage is only a concession to the yetzer hara (evil inclination). Christianity holds that the ideal is for a man to castrate himself (Mathew 19:12), and barring that he should if at all possible be celibate. Even having one wife is a concession to the yetzer hara, and having more than one wife is out of the question.

This is in stark contrast to Jewish ideals. Homosexuality is a capital crime. Normal marital relations are not just a concession to the yetzer hara, they are an ideal. A posuk in Mishlei says “In your youth you should sow your seed, and also in old age you should not let your hand rest.” Chazal (our sages of blessed
memory) interpret this to mean that one should be married and have normal marital relations even when past child bearing years. In many communities, a man would not receive s’micha (rabbinical ordination) until he was married. A person cannot be a teacher of small children unless he is married. We consider the married state to be the ideal state.

The Christian opposition to polygamy is deep rooted and still virulent. Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon religion was murdered in an anti polygamy massacre about 160 years ago. Within this decade U.S. Government agents murdered a cult leader and 100 of his followers. One of the “charges” against him in demonizing him to the United States Public was that his group practiced polygamy. We do not support pseudo religions or cults, but we can see from these two incidents the background against which the Cherem Rabbeinu Gershom was made. Similarly, the Christians censored the siddur (Jewish prayer book) and as a result, several passages which were interpreted as being against the Christian religion
were taken out of the davenning. It is just in the last few years that the siddurim are being restored and Jews again feel free to go back to the proper prayers. So too, the takonah against polygamy which was done to avoid massacres by the Christians, will probably totally disappear when we realize that we no longer have to worry about what the Christians want from us. And perhaps this is another interpretation of what the Vilna Gaon meant when he said that eliminating the Cherem Rabbeinu Gershom would bring the g’ulah (redemption) closer. When we can worship Hashem and do his commandments without worrying what the gentiles think, we will be much closer to the redemption.

Mipnei chata’einu galinu mei’artzenu, because of our sins we were exile from our land. We went into exile among Edom, the descendants of Esav. Rome and the church were our framework for one thousand nine hundred years. During that period, we defended ourselves as best we could. Among the defenses was to ban polygamy, something considered by G-d and his Torah to be moral, fine and normal. Something considered fine and normal in the vast majority of human societies since the beginning of history (as if we need them for justification). But because of our exile in Europe, we picked up certain alien values. We
somehow took polygamy, something practiced by our Patriarchs, by King David, etc. throughout our history, and associated with gilui arayos, the depraved sexual practices which are practiced or condoned by the peoples surrounding us. We must divorce ourselves from this goyish attitude. Polygamy was part of the founding of our people, and was part of Hashem’s d-vine plan for us.

Full Article…

Source: New Scientist

Want to live a little longer? Get a second wife. New research suggests that men from polygamous cultures outlive those from monogamous ones.

After accounting for socioeconomic differences, men aged over 60 from 140 countries that practice polygamy to varying degrees lived on average 12% longer than men from 49 mostly monogamous nations, says Virpi Lummaa, an ecologist at the University of Sheffield, UK.

Lummaa presented her findings last week at the International Society for Behavioral Ecology’s annual meeting in Ithaca, New York.

Rather than a call to polygamy, the research might solve a long-standing puzzle in human biology: Why do men live so long?

This question only makes sense after asking the same for women, who – unlike nearly all other animals – live long past the menopause.
Enforced monogamy

One answer seems to be a phenomenon called the grandmother effect. For every 10 years a woman survives past the menopause, she gains two additional grandchildren, Lummaa says. It seems that doting on and spoiling grandchildren aids their survival, as well as furthering some of their grandmother’s genes.

Men, by contrast, can reproduce well into their 60s and even 70s and 80s, and most researchers assumed this explained their longevity. But Lummaa and colleague Andy Russell wondered whether other factors explained the long lifespan of men, such as a grandfather effect.

To test this possibility, the team analysed church-gathered records for 25,000 Finns from the 18th and 19th centuries. People tended to move little, no one practiced contraception and the Lutheran Church enforced monogamy.

Only widowed men could remarry, and if they had children with their new wife, they fathered more kids, on average, than men who married once.

But ultimately remarried men “don’t end up with any more grandchildren,” Lummaa says. “If anything the presence of a grandfather was associated with decreased survival of grandchildren.”

Perhaps, Lummaa adds, the children of the first mother lose out on food and resources that go to the second mother’s kids. “It’s kind of the Cinderella effect.”

Even fathers with only one wife provided no benefit to their grandchildren, a finding supported by previous research.

…

Someone asks: polygamy is it godly?

Naturally, our position is that indeed a polygamous family is godly…always has been and always will be. In the Scriptures there is no differentiation between monogamy and polygyny. It’s all the same, ie. marriage, and we all know what God has to say about marriage.

“What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” Mark 10:9 ESV

A while back we had a brief blog post on one of our sites (I cannot recall which) concerning Oprah’s broadcast about polygamy. A main feature of this broadcast was an investigative reporter by the name of Lisa Ling. Well, it seems as though this particular episode has been re-broadcast, because many people are showing up on our sites who are looking for more information.

If you know anything about us, or have read any of the materials on our sites, you know that we do not watch television, and haven’t done so in several years, so we have no information about Oprah, Lisa Ling, or their perspectives on plural marriage in the United States…we can only assume it’s not much different from the majority viewpoint.

However, since people are coming to the site seeking information, we would to say a few words, since we have your attention

First, stop watching television. The reasons are numerous, and well documented, and require no elaboration from us…either you will read this little tidbit of advice and heed it, or you will not. We hope that you do. For us, there is not enough time in the day to waste on garbage like the Oprah Winfrey Show, and would hope that you discover some better ways to utilize the gift of time that God has given you here, such as working together in a family business, reading aloud, long walks, or rolling around on the floor tickling the little ones.

Secondly, the world is filled with false teachers and false prophets (profits), and it is our position that Oprah Winfrey is one of them. She leads people astray in all directions (away from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob),  with New Age mumbo jumbo, and has for years. Ummm, stay away from such people.

Thanks for listening

Recent articles and discussions about Christian polygamists in the news and the blogosphere have prompted me to finish the article that is in progress concerning the motivations for Christian polygamy.  It should be posted after the Sabbath.  This particular site is only a few weeks old, so please consider visiting our other sites which are listed in Joshuah’s House Network.

I have been actively involved in the christian plural marriage “movement” for a number of years now…since around 1998. I have heard the same arguments over and over again, and have been successful in defending the concept (it’s marriage!) from a scriptural perspective, without exception. It is this pool of experience that I draw from, and share with you the following.

One of the most interesting comments that has been made- and it has been made by numerous individuals, both male and female- is that while they come to realize that polygamy is not, contrary to popular opinion, condemned by the bible, and that at times it may even be commanded (think levirate marriage) they still insist that it’s “not for me.”

I would agree completely, that it is not something that just anyone should undertake, but the next part that inevitably follows is something to the effect that “I can’t understand why anyone would want more than one wife”, and is often accompanied by something akin to “I can’t even handle the one wife I already have!” This comes from the males of course.

I too have wondered why it is that some men (and women!) seem so hell bent on having a plurality of wives. I have a few ideas, but the most salient idea is as simple as…yep, you guessed it: Sex.

Often times, when you stumble across a christian family that is looking for a plural wife, what you find is a couple who is looking to add another wife to the family in order to increase the “love” for all parties involved. This is done under the banner of a rather liberal variant of christianity. They engage in intense bible studies that, interestingly enough, convince them that their initial impulses are actually biblically valid, that lesbianism is in fact not even treated within the pages of scripture, and  ultimately come to the conclusion that it is entirely acceptable for a christian family.

Afterwards this spiritual bolstering is complete, they end up searching high and low for any female who is willing to accept a plural marriage arrangement, and will, more often than not, compromise in any number of ways in order to make the situation work. And why not compromise? They have compromised already. Who knows, perhaps they will even begin a “ministry” to bisexual women, in order to help them in some fashion. Well, this motivation for plural marriage quite obviously includes bisexuality, and is forbidden in Yahweh’s law. You don’t need to look very hard in scripture to find prohibition against such iniquity, if you’re interested in knowing.

I say this with a certain degree of hesitation, because it is the #1 reason I hear from just about every opponent of plural marriage, (that it’s all about sex!) and although I resist the notion that it is true in every case, I think that, to a large degree, it is an accurate statement. How sad.

Another reason that tends to motivate couples to seek another wife is of an economic nature. They are looking for another income, a built-in babysitter, or perhaps another pair of hands to help chop the wood, plow the field, or milk the cows. Honestly, it has been my experience that these couples are lead by a man who has suffered some form of injury, and is either unable to work at all, or has significantly diminished income potential.  Hmmmmm…

Well, these are not good reasons in my opinion to engage in plural marriage.

So there you have it, in a nutshell: Sex and Money. Imagine that! These two things cause more trouble in a common marriage than anything else, and can only be compounded to disastrous levels within a plural arrangement that has, as its primary motivating force, sex or money.

Really, I wanted to get around to discussing our motivations for polygamy, but am running out of time, so I ask you to come back tomorrow for part II, which I will entitle “Kingdom Building.”

christian polygamy, plural marriage, polygyny

To live a godly life, it is of utmost importance to be removed from today’s society as far as possible (Rev 18:4-5), and to raise our children in God’s way so that they do not have to turn 35 before they realize which choices would have been right, which way they should have taken from the beginning to avoid defiling themselves with uncleanliness, immorality and fornication. (Pro 22:6; Gal 5:19-21) This removed lifestyle is much easier to put into practice as a group of adults than as a couple, for it needs many hands to build the family’s house and premises, to grow all the family’s food, to sew all the family’s clothes, to homeschool all the children, to provide for the old as well as for the young, in short, to build a Christian, godly home.
“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” (Pro 29:18)

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christian polygamy, plural marriage, polygyny

First of all, our husband will provide for you as he provides for all the members of the family (1 Ti 5:8), so that it might be well with his house (Deu 5:29). I am not talking about livelihood here, but about spiritual guidance and leadership (Jos 24:25), about life long responsibility and protection, about a commitment to God and to each other before God. Our husband will see to it that you are safe and secure, and you will follow God’s word and our husband’s lead – you will give yourself into the hands of our husband to love you and care for you all your life, and to protect you from the wicked outside world as well as from temptation to the best of his ability, and you will follow God’s commandments to show that you love God and your husband, just as all the other members do. You will join a group of adults that is determined to stand fast to the end (Mat 24:40), and cling to God’s word (Deu 30:19-20) as Scripture , both Testaments, conveys it to us.

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polygyny, polygamy, plural marriage, christian

Recently, our activities on various internet discussion groups have prompted us to consider providing an apologetic on the topic of polygamy, or plural marriage. At first I resisted this notion, because several years have already been spent in similar endeavors. I personally studied the topic from a scriptural perspective, and then tested this against the knowledge, wisdom, and opinion of various other people. In the end, I became not just convinced but convicted that, from a biblical perspective, plural marriage is right, and true, and as completely valid a form of marriage as that of monogamy. I also came to understand that, for all the biblical proof that points to this fact, most people will simply refuse to see the truth of it, and fall back on what is now common opinion and ethic, and so I laid a defense of the principle aside and turned more towards the practical aspects of living a polygamous marriage. That was 4 years ago…

As I said, however, our recent activities have prompted us to reconsider providing a defense of Biblical Plural Marriage, and so we will present the case, from a completely scriptural perspective, within the pages that follow. As we go through this together, I want to mention to you and have you keep in mind that we are primarily concerned with defending Biblical Plural Marriage against those of the Christian faith, as they are, first, the most rabid opponents of Biblical Plural Marriage, and second, they would benefit most from a proper understanding of Scripture in every regard, including that of Biblical Plural Marriage. Finally, we have no concern for the opinions of unbelievers and make no attempt to address their concerns here.

Stay tuned for more.