And good Og, who would want to do that? :eek:
In practice, of course, “polygamy” almost always means “polygyny.” There are very few societies where plural husbands are acceptable, and even then it’s not terribly common, and the surplus husbands usually do whatever possible to obtain their own wife. Generally it involves people living in extremely harsh places like Tibet or the Arctic. (I’m just reading the chapter in How the Mind Works where Pinker goes into detail about polygamy and the psychological differences between the sexes, and it’s fascinating and depressing stuff.)
On the other hand, most of the polyamorous couples … um … triplets … uh … all of the polyamorous people I’ve met on the Internet who are in long-term relationships have been women involved with two men. Except for a recent guest we had here on SDMB a couple months ago who was the second wife of some guy…
(Raises hand)
It has a certain appeal. If my life were different, I’d think about it.
The penalty for marrying two women. Two mother in laws.
Just to clarify: the Book of Mormon is not where Mormons derived their polygamous doctrines from. In fact, what little it says about it is decidedly negative; it says that the monogamous Lamanites (normally the wicked group) are more righteous than the polygamous Nephites (normally the good guys) because the Nephites’ taking of plural wives is unauthorized, and they’ve erred in assuming it’s okay because David and Solomon did so. “David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me,” it says (or something very similar). The only hint that it might ever be okay is when it says, paraphrased, “If I want to raise up righteous seed, I will command it (polygamy). Otherwise it’s a big-time sin.”
It wasn’t until later that God purportedly commanded Joseph Smith, and through him the other Mormon leaders, to take multiple wives, and that’s recorded in Doctrine and Covenants section 132, wherein the Lord says that David, Solomon, and Moses took multiple wives and did not sin except “in those things which they received not of me.”
Anyway, so the Book of Mormon scarcely mentions polygamy at all, and seems to disapprove of it quite strongly when it does.