@ravenwind43 Well that's always nice to hear...but interpersonal relationships are no small task, so from a pragmatic standpoint, your post is spot on...
In the US it was most noticeable with the Mormans as they moved to Utah. The trip was long and many perished. There were a lot of women who had lost husbands. The goal of the Mormans was to colonize and flourish. The widows would have perished too without someone to protect them and provide for them. The surviving men agreed to take the widows on as another wife, even if they had children knowing that the more pregnancies they had the better for the health of the colony.
I think eventually it will be a more common thing. in the past there are a few reasons why it wasn't like that but the main reason is natural selection of cultural traits. if one culture is based on women having many husbands the consequence will be that many women will have no husband while others will have many. that limits the ability of this community to produce kids. if their neighbours are based on men having many wives the consequence will be that many men will have no wives but this has no consequence on the number of children produced by this community so one community will grow much faster than the other one and the tradition of one man with many wives will spread much faster so that is why humanity is the way it is. monogamy has some advantages over polygamy and for this reason its more common. natural selection of cultural traits.
I've wondered about that as well, since (1) women are multi-orgasmic and men not so much; (2) a man has enough of a challenge satisfying one woman, let alone multiple women; and (3) women tend to be more possessive and competitive, less wiling to share their men. I think it all has to do with going back to primal jungle days where it was all about where might made right, and man created initial societies where women (and the children they could bear) as property and sources of indentured labor. Unfortunately some societies haven't progressed much beyond that.
@dancingtongue Those are practical reasons against it. The reason for it, however wasn’t really practical: women were property. A man acquired another wife in some cultures the way he would any other [b]possession[/b].
We were always a very vanilla couple. Then a gentleman friend of my partner became widowed and very depressed. My partner invited him over for dinner and joked about having me for dessert. Feeling sorry for his widowed friend and wanting to please my partner, I went along with it. And I still do. We see him every three or four weeks. We don't swing and I only have sex with my partner and also with his widowed friend. We all have a great time together. Does that make me a polygamist? 😊 Birdie
SW-User
Men are territorial by nature. You're not going to find many men open to the idea of sharing a wife.