[thechat] King Preaches Abstinence to Parading Maidens

[Erika Meyer]

Syed wrote:
>Men have more durable sexual
>ability than women in accordance with age.

wow!  I hope so!  I've always heard the opposite, actually.  I
personally think the issue is that men have a harder time sticking to
a single partner. (as you noted.)

>That's why, in Islam, a man can have
>maximum 4 wives simultaneously.

How many husbands do I get?  (oops, forgot I'm not Muslim.)

This could be good though, because as a woman, you don't have to have
your guy hanging around all the time... more time to hang with the
girls and live your own life.

>But there are strict laws for such man to keep
>justice among his wives. One of those laws is that each wife must have a
>separate home and all wives must enjoy same standard of life.

Good deal.  Also means you have to have some $$ to have more than one wife.

Recently I was offered to get into a mistress-type relationship.  The
guy was not American and said it was natural to his culture.  In
America there is divorce.  In his culture, there are mistresses.

Once I got over my initial surprise, I actually considered it briefly.
But in the end I said no for these reasons:

1. It's dishonest.  (straightforward polygamy appears to be not
dishonest in this way)  I want to live an honest life.

2. My being a single parent complicates it far too much.

3. All the power imbalance.  He didn't offer me anything, really.
Token gifts.  Which I thought was cheap.

I believe this man has a child out of wedlock which he supports
financially, in addition to his wife and another child.  Probably he
is just spreading himself too thin.

Anyway, I never had thought I'd even consider such a thing, but then
I realized that there are many ways in different cultures to address
the problems associated with marriage and the natural boredom that
tends to set in after many years of simple monogamy.

The American way, divorce, is not necessarily preferable to these
other arrangements.  It's just more culturally acceptable here to
divorce and remarry than to have multiple partners.  At least in the
latter situations, the family remains intact.

Sometimes I'm just so glad to be single.

Erika

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