Polygamy has been getting a lot of chatter on the internet these days. Indeed, as many of you remember, I did a whole paradigm-busting show on it about 6 weeks ago.
I’ve broached the conversation with a somewhat heavy heart, because I know it’s a taboo topic that many (especially my beloved Christian followers) consider absolutely anathema.
However, I am discussing this less to advise it (there are a lot of downsides as we’ll discuss in this article), than to simply explain what is coming. Polygamy has been a trend in the works for years and has become the de facto state of modern dating. Older generations — boomers, gen x, even most millennials — still grew up with a serial monogamous (albeit not truly monogamous) dating culture. But Gen Z has grown up with complete romantic disorder. Since Tinder hit the masses 10 years ago, the Pareto principle of dating has been stretched to its absolute limit. Actual committed relationships are less and less common, and it’s become normal for women to share the most appealing men in drifting “situationships”.
This is obviously completely fucked up, but it is reality. And trying to deflect from it by saying “polygamy is anti-Christian” comes across tone deaf, especially with divorce and promiscuity rampant in the church, and essentially tolerated. A lot of young men today are struggling to get any female attention, including from the women in their congregations, because these women all have “higher standards” than the men they meet. Indeed, it is pretty fair to say that modern polygamy is being driven more by the women than the men.
So polygamy is here, whether we like it or not. The only problem is the polygamy we have today is the worst possible iteration of it: purely hedonistic, commitment-less chaos. These relationships are all low-trust and produce zero children. Nothing is being built from these ephemeral liaisons whatsoever.
But I believe this is on its way to change.
We are facing a demographic crisis, and this extinction-event for civilization is being paired with a broken dating market. Meanwhile the effects of feminism and technology are creating a massive filtering so that among Gen Z men (and to a lesser extent, millennials), you see a large number that are completely useless and retarded, while another cadre are unbelievably impressive and mature for their age.
In other words, you have a perfect storm: a lot of single, conservative men who want big families and have the pick of the litter among women because the competition has been obliterated… and a culture that is shifting its values from liberalism, hedonism, and feminism towards conservatism, natalism, and masculinity.
Which is why although it might be to say strange now, I firmly expect the stigma of having children with multiple women — especially when the man is committed to them — to start to disappear. If gay people can get married and adopt, if people can swipe an app for casual sex, if women can select sperm at a bank to get inseminated by (and have their baby through a surrogate or — maybe soon — an artificial womb), if people can get divorced and break up families without cause — what exactly is the moral case, relatively speaking, against a man providing for multiple women and having children with them?
The latter is OBJECTIVELY better than all of the above, and at this point laws are the main thing getting in the way of it already happening at scale (the same family court issues that scare men away from regular marriage are obviously magnified with multiple women). But laws have a tendency of changing with the culture.
Polygamy and Christianity
When I discussed this on Twitter the other day, it became a vibrant topic of discussion in my Dynamic Man group on telegram (available to all clients and masterclass buyers).
Have some relevant commentary from my experience training as a pastor for @pstedman post about Christianity and Polygamy:
Pat’s basically bang-on theologically but I would add some nuance:
– Polygamy never explicitly condemned anywhere in the Old Testament or New Testament
– However, polygamy’s consequences are always framed in a negative light:
– First polygamist was Lamech, a descendant of Cain and also a murderer (Genesis 4)
– You’ll basically never find a situation where polygamy leads to good family outcomes. Always seems to cause some chaos/problems.
– Roman monogamy isn’t based around the nuclear family, but the Paterfamilias. Actually Patriarchy where the head of the household had legal power (even power of life/death) over the extended family structure including adult male children.
There’s a quote attributed to Demosthenes of Athens that captures the attitude: “We have courtesans for pleasure, concubines for daily attendance, and wives for the procreation of legitimate children and to be faithful guardians of our households.” So again, not nuclear family as we think of it.
And on Pats point on the return of polygamy, 15 years ago I was with a group of pastors discussing how to handle the breakdown of marriage culture within the church. We fully expected within our lifetimes to have people converted who would have multiple wives and we’d have to deal with it:
– Can they become church members? Do they have to divorce one wife, and if so, which one?
– Can they be eligible for church leadership?
We decided:
– membership would be allowed and they wouldn’t have to separate from their recurrent spouses. There’s an obvious measure of cruelty in separating a family, even if it’s polygamous. However, existing members would not be able to take another wife.
– We discussed it would be similar to how common law works. If someone comes into the church and they’ve been living with their partner for seven or eight years and have a kid, just cause they haven’t had a marriage ceremony doesn’t mean they aren’t married. But that doesn’t mean existing church members will be encouraged us to live together without being married.
—
Another guy chimed in:
I remember a sermon from my old congregation in Saigon: polygamy generally never ended well in the Bible, caused more problems than it solved. You shall know them by their fruits kinda deal
It reminds me of the family situations of the emperor in the Chinese dynasties. Always scheming, plotting, backstabbing, murder by the concubines to get their kid in line to rule. Shit sounds tiring AF to navigate, and honestly it sounds like all the energy spent navigating polygamy could be better spent elsewhere.
Whether someone does that or not doesn’t affect my life in the slightest. It obviously works for some so more power to em. But I know that’s not what I want personally for me in the future
—
This was my response:
Yeah it’s one of those things that is possible in theory to work well but becomes increasingly unmanageable and deteriorating as the relationship burdens scale exponentially
You and a wife is one relationship
You and two wives is three relationships
You and three wives is six
Etc.
Every single one of them needs to go well for the family dynamic to be stable and function.
I think most polygamists pursue the numbers game with it and don’t manage the relationship portion, which leads to drama and backstabbing (I saw overheard this constantly in prison from guys with multiple baby mommas). There is also the element of multiple extended families and the intrigue each woman’s own family brings into the equation. You have to keep these women in separate houses; you’re in the harem kinda polygamy, it’s all politics.
So if guys want to be polygamous they need to think through all of these things ahead of time. Even though a big family is important to me, ANY chance that it would lead to a toxic family dynamic is out of the question.
It seems you have the best chance of low-drama and stability for the family if you establish a strong monogamous relationship first where the trust and structure is established (which incidentally reduces jealousy), and then choose *with* that wife additional women on a gradual and mutual basis, prescreening them for compatibility and cooperation.
This means basically your extra wives are typically going to be close friends or even sisters / cousins of your first wife.
This seems to be how the mormons did it and although I’ve heard some horror stories from extreme mormon cults (sex abuse and neglect is rampant), I’ve also heard many less fundamentalist types do it quite well and without major issue because they take this gradual, consensus “sister wife” approach. Sometimes the wives themselves suggest he take on a specific woman.
This is the only iteration that seems to mitigate costs while maximizing benefits. Apparently polygamy was stamped out among the mormons not because it had created any issues but because of politics.
The Costs and Benefits of Polygamy
As you can see, the conversations we have in here are top-tier. There are guys asking questions about their personal situations, but also discussing these big picture concepts.
However I want to get a little precise and practical. What exactly are the costs of taking a polygamous route, and what are the benefits?
The costs are pretty obvious:
- Finances – You have presumably more dependents than you would in a monogamous relationship, especially if you have so many wives and kids you need separate houses. You can mitigate this by choosing more remote / rural lifestyle but bottom line is it’s more money. You’ll be hard-pressed to pull this off comfortably without being at least a millionaire, as the providing portion is a major part of the success here.
- Intimacy – People who defend polyamorous dynamics often say if you can love more than one child, you can love more than one woman. But although it is true having more than one child doesn’t reduce the love you have for each of them, it does (especially at a certain point) reduce the amount of connection you have. There is no question that parents bond more deeply with their children when there are less of them (being an “only child” and having overprotective parents are cliches). Connection takes time and focus; beneath a certain amount of emotional investment you can’t hit a critical mass of bonding, and the relationship becomes superficial or purely role-based. Too many wives means either no time to work or no time to bond.
- Leadership – Even if the women get along and trust each other, they will still feel jealousy and competition. You have to be extremely fair and avoid favoritism, which is more mental burden in how you conduct yourself in the relationship. Things you do to connect with one woman may bother the others; you are constantly balancing your attention. Not only more communication and trust, but more decisive leadership than ever is required to keep things moving smoothly.
- Spirituality – This is less concrete, but even putting aside scripture, a marriage is supposed to be a spiritual union. Does marrying multiple women dilute the sacredness of the covenants? Qualitatively, it certainly feels different to me when I imagine it. Maybe it is just cultural or genetic conditioning, but there remains something holy about exclusivity.
However there are benefits too:
- Progeny – If you want more children, polygamy will get you them. Not only because you have more wombs to bear kids, but the nature of the dynamic encourages it among the wives — it is a vector that their intersexual competition (even if healthy) is reflected. Even if all the kids receive equal inheritance, the woman who has the most kids will indirectly receive the most shares. (In a monogamous relationship this doesn’t apply; they’re all hers, unless you had a kid from a prior marriage).
- Sex – Although I believe a thriving sex life in monogamy is possible even if your woman doesn’t have a naturally high sex drive, there is no question that multiple wives means not only more sex but more enthusiastic sex. Women can cultivate an interest in sex through choice, but nevertheless biologically speaking female arousal is only prompted from hormones (high T or ovulation) or sexual competition. Multiple wives naturally takes care of the latter.
- Community – This is the benefit that is most overlooked with this topic. Running a household and taking care of children is not only hard, it’s lonely. One of the major reasons women have been less inclined towards having kids and not working is because they don’t have community support that they used to have; they are largely alone caring for kids, and believe it or not, many if not most women struggle with this alienation. However, if a woman is around co-wives all day, there is not only an easier division of labor but sisterhood. Caring for a family feels like less of a burden when you’re doing it with your best friends all day. (Another reason it is so important the women like each other!)
- Status – This one cuts both ways, as social norms currently stigmatize polygamy. However it’s notable that the instinctual reaction towards polygamy is that it confirms high status of the male (the impact on the woman is mixed; other women tend to judge them at first blush, but this judgment is ultimately neutralized if they are provided for better). Western society rejected this arrangement historically because it was considered indulgent of the men, not because it wasn’t considered masculine. It’s for this reason most people who dislike polygamy nevertheless accept it as an exception among the wealthy and powerful, in the same way Kings and Nobles weren’t stigmatized for having mistresses.
The Two Types of Polygamy
Now that we have the pros and cons, we need to determine what we are thinking of when we say “polygamy,” because there are broadly two styles of it.
We touched upon these earlier, but to be more clear — the first kind is the “harem” dynamic where the man has multiple women who all raise his kids separately from each other, and largely also away from him. He is typically a somewhat involved father, but transiently. He does not live with these women, and essentially visits their houses (which he usually provides) for sex with the women and to visit the kids.
This is a lower time-investment iteration but it is also requires a greater financial investment, since you have multiple households to maintain. There is usually a lot of competition between these women; they are all rivals.
Men who purse this style of polygamy tend to have:
- Less interest in romantic connection with women
- More interest in sexual variety
- More interest in sheer numbers of children
- More resources to spend
There is much more of a transactional power dynamic between the man and these “wives” (if you can even call them as such), but only in very extreme cases is it completely transactional. Most guys who do this still want the women in question to be devoted to them, and they pick their women based on these qualities.
The second kind of polygamy is a “sister wives” type where the women all live in the same house or at least in houses on the same compound. These women raise the kids together in a much more communal manner, and the dynamic is characterized by more cooperation than competition.
While in the “harem” dynamic the women are typically from totally different backgrounds or circles, “sister wives” typically knew each other beforehand. They are indeed either family or close friends.
Men who purse this style of polygamy tend to have:
- More interest in romantic connection with women
- More interest in maintaining a family structure and culture
- More desire for investment in children
- Less interest in achieving simply sheer numbers
Because of the focus on stability and cooperation, “sister wives” tend to have less drama. But the higher investment required by the father means that for men whose priority is their work / who care about having an independent lifestyle, it’s not ideal. You may in fact be tied MORE to the house than you would if you were monogamous.
Should You Be Polygamous?
If you’re rich, deeper connection with women is not a priority, and your main objectives are sexual variety and having as many babies as possible… “harem” type polygamy will probably meet your goals. Indeed, it will probably meet them much more than a monogamous relationship, which likely wasn’t that appealing to you anyway. If you weren’t doing this, you’d probably just be playing the field.
But these goals don’t apply to most of my clients, who generally want to develop a deep and fulfilling relationship with a woman, and ultimately have and raise kids (even if they’re not in the place to do it quite yet).
For these guys, “harem” type polygamy isn’t compatible with their objectives. The only version that could work is the “sister wives” iteration.
However, even if this appeals to you on some level, my recommendation is that you should still NOT be focused on becoming polygamous (at least at first).
Polygamy introduces enormous complexity into your love life, and the bottom line is if you cannot manage a healthy relationship with a single woman, you should not try to have ones with multiple women.
Would it be wise to take on an additional job when you can barely manage the current one you have?
PROBABLY NOT
And yet a lot of people — and this is extremely true of those who indulge in hedonistic polyamory — want multiple partners not because they really have so much love to give, but because they are afraid of genuine love and commitment. It is a sign of arrested emotional development, not integration. Being with multiple women is simply a way to escape from being truly vulnerable with one.
This is what we call “skipping steps” and almost guarantees drama and chaos, because there is no security in the attachment. These men are NOT equipped to handle intimacy, and play their women off each other, getting emotional and sexual validation while avoiding getting too close to any given one. The result is a competitive power dynamic, which is unstable and ultimately falls apart… and is terrible for the children.
The truth is that the only way to have a successful polygamous marriage is to first have a successful monogamous one. And that means becoming completely HONEST, OPEN, and SHAMELESS with your woman.
Why do these traits matter?
Because they are what makes a woman trust you. You often hear that women let certain guys do things they would never let other guys do, and the main reason for that is these men are honest, open, and shameless about what they want. They do not fear her negative reaction, and because they do not fear her, they can be completely transparent with her. This means even if she may not like what he says at first, she will bond more to him later, because she realizes she can be herself totally with him. It is only by being comfortable with himself, that she is truly able to surrender to him.
This is the paradox of a man wanting more than one woman: a woman may feel threatened and her pride hurt by the presence of other women, but if the man is honest, open, and shameless about his interest, she can at least respect him for saying it. I am not saying every woman would accept the proposition, and I think you are almost guaranteed some shock and outrage if you didn’t set these expectations from the beginning of the relationship. But if you can remain unashamed through those reactions, she will at least will not trust you less. On an unconscious level, she wants to see whether you have the balls to own it.
I want to reiterate, however, that the point of this entire conversation is not to blow up your otherwise healthy marriage to sleep with more women. I consider this peak irresponsibility as a man; it’s nothing more than degeneracy. My point is simply that more complex relationship dynamics require even more trust between you and your woman. In the same way that you need to overcome some internalized shame to get a girl, even more to keep her, and even more than that to have a dynamic and exciting relationship with her — you need to overcome MAXIMUM shame to even have a chance of a woman accepting sharing you. Shame — aka fear of rejection over expressing your desires — is indeed the limiting factor in intimacy, and overall relationship expansion.
But just because you are not ashamed of wanting something, it doesn’t mean you should necessarily do it. Constructive polygamy — polygamy with an overarching goal to maintain connection and family cohesion — needs both you and your woman to be onboard with it. Which means you cannot simply sell her on your desire for more kids with other women, but that it will be a net benefit for her.
And the only way she’s going to see that is a) if she feels confident that you are already so much on point that these additional burdens and complexities will not affect your ability to be present and provide for her and her kids, and b) that the addition of another wife will make her day-to-day easier and more enjoyable.
This means she not only has to agree to the idea of being co-wife, but that she has to be equally involved with the selection of such a woman, so that drama is minimized and trust maximized. She has to want to spend her life with this woman just as much as you.
Guys who have dated open, bisexual girls know that these women typically take the lead of picking up chicks for the two of you; your girl feels in control and less threatened, and the other woman feels more safe and open to the liaison. It’s the same principle here. You win over your wife to the idea first, then to the woman, and then once there is an agreement in principle you let her broach the topic with said woman.
Do not try to force any woman on your wife that she doesn’t want. Not only will this make her feel uncherished and trust you less, your wives are going to have to like each other and to work well together for this to succeed. I cannot stress how important this is. It is inevitable there will be moments of ego clashes between them even if they adore each other; if they don’t trust each other, if they annoy each other, if one is competitive rather than cooperative in disposition — it is going to be a disaster and you will destroy your family’s life. If you end up remaining polygamous, you are going to drift into the harem dynamic… but the low-trust version, with family court waiting in the wings to bleed you dry in child support.
Conclusions And Predictions About Polygamy
Although I see polygamy as a growing trend in the next few years, I don’t think it will ever become “normal”. Indeed, outside of sub-saharan Africa, it’s not even normal in most Islamic countries, despite it being culturally sanctioned. In the Middle East and North Africa, polygamy accounts for <5% of all marriages, and the overwhelming majority of these are bigamous (2 wives only). Only among the very wealthy elite — like Saudi princes — are the official islamic maximums of 4 wives (and sometimes more) common.
Nevertheless I do think we are likely to see polygamy become more common and accepted among young, wealthy westerners in the coming years. Elon Musk, Pavel Durov, and Andrew & Tristan Tate have paved the way for normalizing the harem sort of polygamy for the super rich. And as the wealthy and powerful do, so do the fashions for those beneath them. It would not surprise me if many up and coming Gen Z men (and some millennials) who find they have options with women, decide they ultimately want to keep more than one of them. The residual boomer cultural still opposes this, but as that generation’s influence fades and demographics become the fixation of society, people will start to shrug. The left’s moral relativism has taken its toll on societal norms. And the rich, after all, have always done what they do — they just don’t feel the need to hide it anymore.
But however much polygamy enters into the picture, it will just be a smaller part of the greater divide in society between those who are escaping from the future and those who are building it. We are currently seeing a massive divide not only between haves and have nots, but between lives and live nots. More and more men and women alike are checking out of the real world. It’s becoming a massive selection event, where some become stronger and use technology to create, and those who become weaker and use it to dissociate.
Which means that polygamy is not really going to be in opposition to monogamy, but to casual sex and those opting out dating and family formation altogether. Big families — whether from polygamy or monogamy — will be in their own cohort of those building the future.
For most of you in that cohort, monogamy is going to be the best route for you, and the most rewarding. But if you find yourself tempted by polygamy – just remember, more is not always better. There is always a tradeoff between quality and quantity. Unless you’re willing and prepared to endure the costs, you might want to pass up on the benefits.
