[grizelda]

Not to mention the fires started by alternative cooking methods (processed food is even worse when eaten raw). An article I once read stated that the biggest kept secret in Saudia Arabia at the time was the population. Seems the practice of polygamy was resulting in a non-increasing population. Probably Reader's Digest propaganda, but still, many (okay, men) would see this as a viable way to cut down the populace to manageable numbers. Not specifically forbidden by the Bible, and allowed by that other book, so would seem to be more palatable to the religious cohort (the main opposition) than most other methods.

[alancalverd]

Seems the practice of polygamy was resulting in a non-increasing population.

Someone slept through Biology 101, I think. On my planet, one male can fertilise thousands of females, and marriage merely increases the probability of doing so. 

[grizelda]

It's unlikely one man could fertilise thousands of females in one year, but thousands of men could, year after year, which seems to be the problem.

[alancalverd]

One young man can happily (and I mean happily) fertilise three or four women a day, say a thousand a year, by traditional means, and still find time for employment and other recreations. Hence the irrelevance of polygamy - it doesn't matter whether you have one husband or a thousand, you will still get a thousand offspring from a thousand wives.

[grizelda]

The success rate under ideal conditions is only about 1 in 12, so, unless you are Bill Clinton, you may be waiting a while for those thousand offspring. It's not a biology problem, it's a math problem.

[alancalverd]

The traditional method may well be that inefficient, but farmers and lesbians have developed technologies that make 99.9% of males redundant. 

That said, we do seem to be straying from the subject.