‘…he took eighteen wives and sixty concubines, and fathered twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters.”
~2 Chronicles 11:21~

Rehoboam ticked me off the other day. I feel like with Solomon you can kind of understand how having 700 wives and 300 concubines was in some way a formality and just part of being a famous king who had to make treaties and alliances with foreign nations. He didn’t really care about most of those women and there was no way he could actually be having sex with that many.

But then comes Rehoboam whose numbers when you read them seem to me as equally as outrageous and then some. I have never liked it when I read about these men and their multiple wives. It’s not that my blood boils, but it starts to get warm. The boys were at the table and Josh came in from the office and when he walked into the kitchen I said, “Hey, do you have a second?”

I started to talk but then stopped and whispered, “Is anyone in the office??” The amount of times I have humiliated myself because our house is connected to the office door is enough so that I can barely even look at the office secretary anymore. We used to talk and gab until time got away from us and once I broke down and got sick that all stopped. The counselors, the LCMS legacy guy…

Ugh. Lauren was in there but I didn’t care. She’s a grown up and a woman and can handle these things. He grinned while I ranted and he stood at the stove. Why is it the men can have multiple wives, indulging their desires for multiple women, while the women are afforded no such luxury. Why was it alright for them to rot away in harems with no further chance to find actual love?

He said it probably had something to do with women not being able to reproduce as quickly. But I’m not sure I buy that argument either. I have mulled this over in my head many times trying to figure out the answer to “Is monogamy natural?” Like how do you argue from science that it is? So Rehoboam could father many children, but there’s no way he could’ve been a good dad to that many.

Good dads are part of a thriving society. If something is good, it has to be good for all parties. Fathering children as a man is not beneficial unless he can provide a steady love throughout their lives. It was bothering me so much I asked my own dad about it. I texted my mom to see if either of them were free to chat. I heard back pretty soon that they both were there and we talked for a while.

My dad said we aren’t being conformed to the image of Rehoboam.