Some guys get all the gals, right? Pity them!
King Solomon is purported to have had 700 wives and 300 concubines, he surely must have experienced being nagged.
I surmised in a novel excerpt, based on his proverb, the answer he gave Bilqis, the Queen of Sheba what he did when his wives nagged him. The novel is a contemporary application of a story form to promote understanding of proverbs and ancient wise sayings in relation to our modern times. (continued here)
Supposedly, the guy with a harem or the “successful” philanderer is having a great time. Such a man is more likely to be lonely. His only “success” is in making one woman after another upset with him. A wise man knows one woman is enough; two or more is just trouble.
Citizen Tom
Citizen Tom 
Ha! A fun reblog, Tom. I simply do not understand the fantasy, the desire, or whatever it is that would lead one to want so many wives!
I know a couple whose parents where both divorced and remarried multiple times, and they themselves were each on their 3rd marriage. When they met they realized the number of relationships that had impacted them was phenomenal, both good and bad. We all bring baggage with us right? They had truckloads of historical luggage to unpack. Anyway, they are still married today and seem happy, they just drew a really clear picture for me of why we might want to keep our inner circle small and our relationships simple.
@IB
Why do we need to keep our inner circle small? We are finite. We cannot be infinitely loyal and loving. We can only give our best to one person. Jesus described the problem of divided loyalties this way.
Here Jesus describes the problem of putting an idol, mammon, before God, loving riches more than our Creator. Similarly, marriage requires a couple to put their love for each other BEFORE their love for anyone else (except God). Wisdom requires that a couple make this choice before they become one.
Love defines our loyalties. When everything becomes about me, love of self, loyalty becomes meaningless, and tribalism becomes a term of derision. Yet the term tribalism speaks of our loyalty to our extended family. Is there something wrong with the love we have for our relations? Doesn’t this love stem from the love we have for our parents?
If we love all men and women as our brothers and sisters, don’t we do so because we all have the same Father, our Creator? Is this not why the Bible speaks of our adoption into the family of God?
What then is wrong with multiple marriages? Why shouldn’t we give our love freely? Why do multiple marriages pull a man or a woman apart inside? We innately want to love, to be loyal to someone outside of our self. When we establish multiple marriages — unions — we have no way of resolving the conflicts, the confused loyalties, that must result. Because we are finite, we must choose. We cannot put everyone first.
Tom, Thanks for the reblog and commentary.
700 wives and 300 concubines is beyond my comprehension.
Regards and goodwill blogging..
Yet the fantasy lives on. 😆
I have a friend who was a teacher in Kuwait for about three years. She said most of the wives in those polygamous marriages hated each other, and had to be separated (a different floor in the home or different homes for each of them). The families were not close either, there was an intense amount of sibling rivalry, and the father’s affections were selective (which the Bible also details).
@Liz
The Bible never comes out and says it. It just tells stories, and those stories make it obvious that polygamy is a horrible idea, a fantasy that inevitably goes wrong.