The Bible and Polygamy: Does the Bible Sanction Polygamy? — John Shaqi
The Bible and Polygamy: Does the Bible Sanction Polygamy?Newman, John Philip
Religion
The Bible and Polygamy: Does the Bible Sanction Polygamy?
Newman, John Philip
Bible -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.; Latter Day Saint churches -- Doctrines; Polygamy -- Religious aspects
The females, then, over twenty
years of age would be 603,550, added to 400,000 surplus women, making
in all 1,003,550 women over twenty years of age. The children, then,
under twenty years of age, to make up the two and a half millions,
would be 892,900, the total population of Israel being laid down at
2,500,000 people.
Now, then, for the number of families constituting this population.
The families having first-born males over one month old, see Numbers
iii chapter and 43rd verse, numbered 22,273. Families having no male
children over one month old we may suppose to have been in the ratio
of one-third of the former class of families, which would make 7,424
additional families. Add these to the 22,273 with first-born males
and we have the sum total of 20,697 as the number of the families in
Israel. Now, in order to favor the monogamists' argument, and give them
all the advantage possible, we will still add to this number to make
it even--303 families more, making thirty thousand families in all.
Now comes another species of calculation founded on this data: Divide
twenty-five hundred thousand persons by 22,273 first-born males, and we
find one first-born male to every 112 persons. What a large family for
a monogamist! But divide 2,500,000 persons by 30,000 and the quotient
gives eighty-three persons in a family. Suppose these families to have
been monogamic, after deducting husband and wife, we have the very
respectable number of eighty-one children to each monogamic wife. If we
assume the numbers of the males and females to have been equal, making
no allowance for the destruction of the male infants, we shall then
have to increase the children under twenty years of age to keep good
the number of two and a half millions. This would still make eighty-one
children to each of the 30,000 monogamic households. Now let us examine
these dates in connection with polygamy. If we suppose the average
number of wives to have been seven, in each household, though there may
have been men who had no wife at all, and there may have been some who
had but one wife; and there may have been others having from one up to
say thirty wives, yet if we average them at seven wives each, we would
then have one husband, seven wives and seventy-five children to make
up the average number of eighty-three in the family, in a polygamic
household. This would give an average of over ten children apiece to
each of the 210,000 polygamic wives. When we deduct the 30,000 husbands
from the 605,550 men over twenty years old we have 573,550 unmarried
men in Israel. If we deduct the 210,000 married women from the total of
1,005,550 over twenty years of age, we have 793,550 left. This would
be enough to supply all the unmarried men with one wife each, leaving
still a balance of 220,000 unmarried females to live old maids or enter
into polygamic households.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account