Polygamy: In Today's Society?

Essay by supermanbeavCollege, UndergraduateA+, August 2005

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In the USA's current society lasting marriages are on the decline. The United States has the leading divorce rate and the number is not waning but slowly increasing. Currently 4.95 per one thousand people will get a divorce this year(North America:United States:People). Is this problem due to society or how we as individuals are psychologically set up? Or is this just something that, as a society, we've decided to stop working on and have taken the easy way out? Is monogamy flawed? Was the practice of polygamy in history the answer to today's monogamy problems? Those are all tough questions that may never really receive an accurate, agreeable answer and with many religions will now always be condemned. Polygamy holds many interesting insights to how ancestors handled marriage, it is something that some believe to be the answer to today's monogamy problems, and continues to be an issue fought by churches, individuals, and the law alike.

Polygamy is a practice that dates back to biblical times. Many of the ancient Israelites were polygamous. Some were known to have hundreds of wives at a time. It was written that King Solomon had seven hundred wives and at least three hundred concubines. Also King David had ninety-nine and Jacob had four. Advice given by some Jewish wise men state that no man should marry more than four wives but the restriction of just one wife was never made. In this time period society never put a strict number of wives allowed for each man or even how they were to be treated. And Jesus was never known to have spoken against polygamy. As recently as the seventeenth century, polygamy was practiced and accepted by the Christian Church. The Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), who believe...