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Growing up, I was always taught that polygamy was necessary in the CK due to the lack of male representation there. Approximately seven women would need to cling to each man. Does this seem odd? I don't mean peculiar in that women have to share a spouse - that's a whole other thread, but odd that a creator would design one gender in such a base and carnal fashion, that their probability of regaining the fathers presence is so slim.

I believe the PoGP gives some idea as to how the three kingdoms will be populated. The inhabitants of the Telestial kingdom being as numerous as the sands of the sea? I could be confusing a scriptural reference - but that's what I remember being taught. Anyway, it seems that the chance that a son of God will inherit Celestial glory is absolutely minuscule.

Maybe in the pre existence some spirits chose to be male in a bold gamble, letting it all ride for the opportunity to have 72 virgins. Ooops, wrong faith there, I mean seven women. You know, I'm getting the feeling that religion has all the trappings of being man made. We are bound and determined as men, to create harems for ourselves, if not in this life then at least in the next.

Recently, I've heard the idea that men may not be in such short supply in the CK, but that we will just get additional women from other planetary systems. I think its supposed to be like one of those pyramid schemes where the system tries to support itself by increasingly borrowing from the folks below.

I'm just not getting it. :(

I personally never heard a number as specific as seven. I just was taught that there would be more women than men. Can you recall in what context you heard this?

Sethbag wrote:I personally never heard a number as specific as seven. I just was taught that there would be more women than men. Can you recall in what context you heard this?

I believe it came from the old testament, something about seven women clinging to one man to share their bread with. Maybe someone will have a more accurate quote. Yes, the correct term was "bread", not "bed"!

Ah, and then someone extrapolated it out from there to the Celestial Kingdom and the average number of women to men there.

Maxrep wrote:

Sethbag wrote:I personally never heard a number as specific as seven. I just was taught that there would be more women than men. Can you recall in what context you heard this?

I believe it came from the old testament, something about seven women clinging to one man to share their bread with. Maybe someone will have a more accurate quote. Yes, the correct term was "bread", not "bed"!

I thought that was an analogy and that the seven suburbs of Jerusalem would cleave unto the Holy City in order to share in it's glory.

The other thing that makes this odd is that the vast VAST majority of human beings will die before the age of 8.

Then if you add in the belief that some have that when an egg is fertilized a spirit is assigned to it, well, there's a few more gazillion spirits that will miscarry.

When you mix in the "worlds without number" that God has scattered around the universe, those of us that actually make it past the age of 8 will make up such an insignificant portion of those in the CK, that it should be statistically close to 50/50 male/female.

THe idea of seven women for one man comes from here:

Isaiah 4:1:

1 And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.

I found something with a quick google:

The book, "An Ordered Love"
Sex Roles
and Sexuality in Victorian Utopias --
the Shakers, the Mormons, and
the Oneida Community
by Louis J. Kern


Capter 8 deals with polygamy and is titled:

Seven Women
to One Man Shall Cling": The
Ecclesiastical and Legalistic
Aspects of Sexuality under
Patriarchal Polygamy

So that notion has actually been floating around for quite some time.

The Nehor wrote:

Maxrep wrote:

Sethbag wrote:I personally never heard a number as specific as seven. I just was taught that there would be more women than men. Can you recall in what context you heard this?

I believe it came from the old testament, something about seven women clinging to one man to share their bread with. Maybe someone will have a more accurate quote. Yes, the correct term was "bread", not "bed"!

I thought that was an analogy and that the seven suburbs of Jerusalem would cleave unto the Holy City in order to share in it's glory.

this is the same group of zealots who teach that if "eight were saved by water" that means baptism happans at the age of eight. there are many more examples, but i have a hangove.r

The Nehor wrote:[I thought that was an analogy and that the seven suburbs of Jerusalem would cleave unto the Holy City in order to share in it's glory.

Ah ha, you've stumbled upon the crux of Mormon scriptural interpretation! It doesn't really matter what or why the seven women were clinging, it matters that the church was able to put that scripture to use in representing plural marriage. Its like, "Other sheep I have that are not of this fold" - it doesn't have to really be about the Book of Mormon, so long as it can be INTERPRETED as such.

Jason,

Thanks for the correct quote.