Polygamy, Promiscuity, Porn, and Promises Broken

Happily ever after...

It’s entertaining watching guys online argue for polygamy (excuse me, I’m sorry, polyGYNY, my bad). They pull all sorts of cultish exegetical gymnastics to try to get around the clear teaching of Scripture and the Christian church, and they say that they do it in order to defend the Biblical view of marriage.

But we all know that that’s not true. It is patently obvious that there is something else going on entirely. The foundational desire for the polygamist is… Lots of hot chicks.

Now, I’m going to focus on the polygamy issue in this post, but if you are wrestling with either of the other two Ps that started us off, hang with me. This applies all the way around. I’m ultimately talking about our understanding of sex.

I have argued the Scriptural merits of monogamy elsewhere, but I would like to give the polygabros something else to think about:

The central allure of polygamy (as with porn or promiscuity) is a false promise.

Sex is something that is designed by God to grow sweeter over time, as the man and wife grow more and more into one flesh. Godly sex doesn’t get old – it actually gets better.

However, one thing that does “get old” is the fascination of the new. The honeymoon phase does indeed pass away. When I first married my wife, every kiss was an absolute Hiroshima-level explosion, every touch a lightning storm- even catching her eye was like the Arizona sky on the Fourth of July.

That is not the case anymore. The thrill of the new is gone. Which is to be expected after being married for almost 10 years at this point. This thrill of the new is what is promised to the polygamist. He will have so many women falling at his feet that he will constantly have something new.

This is also true with porn and promiscuity- the promise of pleasure, ever fresh, ever new.

There are (at least) two problems with this.

Trading the Honeymoon for the Fine Wine

Firstly, if all you look at is what was lost, you might conclude that the married man is in a bad situation. He has lost the thrill of the new, and he cannot get it again. But the truth is quite the contrary.

While the thrill of the new – the honeymoon phase – has passed, it has been replaced with something even deeper. Even richer. Even more satisfying. Believe it or not, sex within a healthy marriage does get better over time. The husband and the wife grow in unity, both generally and also in the bedroom. It’s not simply an ivory tower theory – marriage, and particularly Godly sex, actually does get more delightful as the years go by.

I know this from experience. I’ll keep it PG-rated and just say that if somebody says we need to get a TV, we might just go ahead and tell them TV is not nearly as fun.

The honeymoon phase is gone, but the romance is not. In fact, I now know exactly how to completely discombobulate my wife if I want to. I know just how to walk into the room and look into her eyes and kiss her so that she will forget whatever it was she was trying to say and be left in a daze.

It’s a lot of fun. We have a great time.

You’re not going to get this with 32 wives. You’re not even going to get this with two wives.

I have lived with my woman intimately for almost 10 years now – physically, spiritually, emotionally. We give all praise and glory to Jesus for bringing us this far, but we also testify that doing it His way by His grace is awesome.

We’ve worked through so many struggles and conflicts and miscommunications. We have laughed, and we have cried. We have grown together. I have shepherded and prayed and encouraged her through many things, and she has prayed for me and encouraged me and confronted me on many others. We have made a whole carload of humans and then met them and are now watching them grow. This kind of joyful and deeply fun unity is not something that you get on your wedding night.

But for the polygamist – or the young man addicted to pornography, or the young woman addicted to explicit romance novels, or the couple that is sleeping together to “try things out” – this fine wine is not on the radar. They are settling for cheap gas station beer.

And so often they don’t even know what they are missing.

Diminishing Returns

The second point that I want to make is that the three Ps are subject to the law of diminishing returns. Just like anything else in life, if we go for the fast way instead of God’s way, the result in the long run is a constant pursuit with no capture.

You do drugs? You will have to keep increasing the dosage in order to try to get the same high. You idolize money? There’s always a more expensive car to buy. Do you have a gluttonous relationship with food? There’s always another thing on the menu. Porn or explicit novels? They just leave you wanting more. Steroids? Permanent damage to your body later on. The list goes on.

So it is with polygamy. The young man daydreaming about his harem is thinking about endless honeymoon phases – the thrill of the new, but as many times as he wants.

This is simply a lie. You can either marry one woman and then trade in the honeymoon phase for the fine wine phase, or you can – theoretically – marry 1000 women (good luck with that), and have decreasingly awesome honeymoon phase for the first few, until by the end of it you have neither the honeymoon phase nor the fine wine.

So even setting aside all of the theological and practical objections to polygamy – how it misrepresents the gospel, how it violates what Jesus said about God’s original design for marriage, how it is impossible to fulfill the true and Christlike Ephesians 5 duties of a husband to more than one woman – even setting all of those aside, the foundational appeal is, like all the appeals of sin, a complete lie.

Instead, first, come to Jesus. Slaves to lust cannot free themselves. Come to Christ, and come for Christ, or don’t come at all. Jesus is not a path to a good sex life, but rather the path from death to life.

Then, having come to Christ, you will have the duty and ability as a free man or woman to walk in obedience to Him. If His plan for you includes marriage…

Boy howdy, it’s awesome.

"Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth. As a loving hind and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times; be exhilarated always with her love." - Pr. 5:18-19