He's engaged!?

Marriage is a concept that began as arranged "breeding" under a religious doctrine, usually for the purpose of power, wealth or politics. Love was not a part of it. However, because of human nature, love got in the way anyway.

IP, actually, that sounds as a doctrine.

Do you really think that marriage wasn't related to love at the begining? what you have said is just to hard. even for humans...

How many lines does the word "No" take?

How long is it gonna take for you to get the fact that you don't need to bring something up and then say you won't say what you're talking about?

Under normal circumstances, bringing up something means wanting to speak about it, and saying you don't want to talk about it is just a way to say that you don't want to be bothering people, just so that they will ask, and you can tell with a clear conciousness... at least that is how I normally think of it...

As for the original matter at hand... I think that marriage as an institution is losing importance more and more... Don't get me wrong, I don't mind marriage, but I think that living together is taking over... I think a real wedding would be nice, but I want to have lived with the girl I'm gonna marry a while first, to see if things work out and get used to it and such things... This is probably very confusing, my posts usually are when I try to explain things... :/

I think JL just wants attention

Marriage is very important but people are going into it expecting too much and not being prepared to give. It's lost it's importance in our society which is why the institution is falling appart imo

Rogue I agree with you on that, except for the "being designed" (marriage being designed?)
But it's true that people these days tend to rely on the other making them happy. They forgot about the fact that making the loved one happy is truly what can make you happy.

IP The problem with modern society, it's that divorce is allowed (tolerated) in the religion. Most couple do not even think of the children before getting split. I've seen person my age that have many problems because they lacked the presence of one parent.

FM Sad but true. In the history, marriage have been set for families to gain more power, wealth of influence. It's only near the end of the first millenium that the tought of marriage for love started. Even then, it was hard to really marry the person you loved. In these days, adultery was common. (And is still )

And finally, I agree with Tater and Manwe... I'm not a psy, but I know that when someone does something like that, it's usually because they need attention. This problem is often seen when the father was not present enough in the childhood, or did not show appreciation marks toward the child.

I wonder how polygamy fits into this scheme..... I hear Mormon wives are actually quite cheerful about sharing a husband, kinda like the Aiel.....

Maybe being able to joke and gossip about the same man helps a lot?

Hum... these mormons are weird

A very few Mormons practice polygamy. There are people in our society who do have more than one wife and some I am sure are Mormon, just like some of them are are not. I know a Muslim who has two wives, although only one of them is recognized by the state.

The majority of Mormons do not believe that polygamy is right, and it is a huge misconception that they do or that they practice it at all. Very early in Mormon history I do think that that some, including John Smith (was that his name?) had more than one wife. It is sterotypical thinking to believe that Mormons as a rule have more than one wife.

As for them being weird, I know plenty of non-Mormons that are pretty damn weird myself. Not to mention that one of our beloved although absent members, Elanor, is Mormon and pretty darn proud of it and I think she is the least weird person I know. If you want to see real weird people, go over to Greg's Strangelove board. Now some of those people are as weird as they come.

LOL!!! The most weird people are sometimes the ones that appear to be the most normal...
In today's society, being weird is so normal that it is almost unnormal to be normal, so you can almost say that it is the normal people that are weird, since they aren't weird like all the normal people are.
And when you have read that sentence, can you believe that there are probably some people out there that don't think I'm weird? I actually understand perfectly well what I meant by that, and I say a lot of things like that...

Actually, another major reason why a lot of Mormons are not polygamists is because some state laws prohibit the practice.

A patriarch with five wives was arrested for this just a few months ago. Don't remember his name, or what state he was from.

I think that it is illegal in all states in the US....could be wrong.

Sorry, Shan, perhaps I should have said that marriage serves certain functions and doesn't serve others. That's really what I was getting at, since societies and cultures evolve constantly, rather than being something we sit down and draft out, like a form of government or a philosophy.Marriage is not an easy thing, and you can give up on it too soon, or refuse to give up on it when you should.

There are Mormons who practice polygamy nowadays, but they are in the vast minority, although they themselves seem to be proud of the practice. It is illegal and therefore only the first wife is recognized (marriage license etc). Any wives after that get a religious ceremony only and their kids are legally illegitimate, although that has little meaning anymore.


IP, as I recall, that patriarch with five wives was named Tom Greene. He's in jail for polygamy and for a number of counts of welfare fraud. At one time he had more wives but five have left the family compund with their kids, leaving five wives still there with a total of 22 children.

Anduin, that was Joseph Smith, Mormonism's founder. He instituted the practice on the strength of a vision he said he had. Ended up with 20-something wives. After his death,Joseph's first wife Emma disavowed the vision and the practice of polygamy, and claimed he had never married any other women. *shrug*

I don't know if polygamy is illegal in all the states. However it's possible that someone of another religion which practices polygamy (Islam, for instance) may test the law and win, in which case we may have a constitutional problem on our hands. Utah was admitted into the Union conditionally on their state constitution specifically making polygamy illegal, a unique occurrence. If someone else does insist on making a test case of being allowed to have a polygamous marriage, Utah may have something to say on the subject.

Funny how this particular subject always gets a response.

Marriage is a good thing in my opinion. It serves useful social and legal purposes and provides a platform for a stable family for those that choose to have children. I may be predjudiced, because I have a good marriage in a number of respects. I married one of my two best friends, however, rather than someone I was infatuated with.

Polygamy is illegal in all of the US.

In OT times it was necessary, because the human race was small and needed to grow. Now, it is not. Polygamy had nothing to do with love, it was about having multiple possessions, ie wives, and about populating the world

what if the men loves all his wives and his wives love him too

is that not love ?

I'm really just looking for attention. And I can't wait to spill my guts about all of my life's problems, especially the really nasty ones that I'd probably be prohibited from talking about by forum rules.

You win. Hope you're happy.

Ah.. I was going to do a long post explaining something we already did to JL... but it's 12h05 am and I'm working tomorrow...

JL... don't worry, you still have plenty of time ahead you to understand what we meant.

Xivigg: Yes, it is... but I think that the wives has to love each other as well for a polygamous relationship to work... sort of like the aiel, as someone mentioned earlier.. I think it was Anduin...
And I'm not in favor of polygamy, if you think that... I don't really think that it is wrong, but I could never have more than one wife or girlfriend...

Me neither... part of our education I guess.

The guy I know that has two wives, treats them both equally. If he buys a car for one he has to buy a car for the other. He has two houses too, one for each of his wives. The wives are friends but they don't live together....they each have their own house and their own belongings. And he spends equal time with each, including the children.

Hmmm, seems an expensive way to go if you ask me.