freakazoid
Well-Known Member
Because those are both forms of birth control in a time when contraceptives may not have been available. Perhaps you should be asking why he might not have wanted kids with these other women. If there was a legitimate reason for not wanting children with these other wives, then it stands to reason that they may have taken steps to avoid such. Maybe his first wife was willing to accept other wives, as long as they didn't also bear his children. Who knows?
-
The no birth control claim doesn't hold water. Mo has already shown that birth control existed not only at that time, but much earlier in multiple cultures. That doesn't mean it was necessarily available, so assuming it wasn't, it seems the conclusion you're jumping to is that they just had sex with no thought given to unwanted pregnancy. That just wasn't the case. Pregnancy was not only a risk to the mother's life, but it was also fairly common for families to give up children when they couldn't feed them all. People were smart enough to figure out how to avoid unwanted pregnancy, regardless of the presence of contraceptives, or lack thereof.
When polygamy was first suggested, it was not just accepted due to JS's status as a prophet. Many people questioned this, and I would imagine, especially the women. HeyHey posted a letter describing this very thing. It's not too difficult to imagine that wife #1 went along reluctantly, with a stipulation that he didn't father children with anyone but her. Also, by not fathering children with multiple wives, he kinda avoids people claiming he's only starting a new religion for his own purposes. There are other more reasonable explanations, IMO, than he married them, but didn't touch.
The same reasoning can be applied to the question, "Why didn't he have sex with his other wives?"
So far, I've seen no explanation that no sex makes more sense than sex with the intent of avoiding pregnancy.
Last edited:
