REASON # 6
POLYGYNY BUILDS WEALTH
Imagine being a woman alone raising five or six kids while your husband is hard at work trying to put food on the table and you know you could help him, but you just don’t have the time. Imagine, you could get a full-time baby sister that you didn’t have to pay because she’d be sharing the same resources you have as your co-wife? Suddenly, you have two household incomes and a full-time mother. Take it a step further. Your co-wife falls pregnant and now needs help, so you help. You decide that you’ll take turns to look after the kids and do household chores. Eventually you leverage your extra income to start a business where you don’t have to pay for labour right away because you now have ten kids, half of whom are practically adults. Everyone helps in the family business, and suddenly you find that you have enough money to open another business. Your eldest son is just about in a position to manage it ahead of getting married himself. Now you have several businesses, several children, several grandchildren, and a network of people in almost every profession because you used your growth in a smart way. Polygyny has the potential to build immense wealth.
A man and his wife are limited in capability and are often stretched far too thin in modern society where the extended family has collapsed. People no longer have grandparents, uncles and aunts stepping in to help with kids. The man is hard at work and the wife, if she is lucky, is at home trying to raise the kids on her own. More often than not, she has to work to supplement her husband’s income and they have to pay for daycare. There isn’t a single parent at home and the children are raised with a value system over which you have no control. Every year you run further and further behind with payments because a salary never keeps up with inflation and before you know it you’re divorced because the marriage cannot handle the pressure. Does all that sound familiar?
Can’t find a husband?
Women often struggle to find the perfect match. It can be difficult and worrying. Added to that stress is that loud ticking of your biological clock! Will you be able to have children? Should you just grab the next guy and settle? What should you do? How do you find love? How do you find a man who will finally stick around? Let’s have that conversation.
Well, it doesn’t have to be that way. I know a lot of people out there believe that it is a man’s job to provide for his wives and his twenty kids by himself with his normal job at the post office or he has to count himself out. He should forget about polygyny. Ironically, however, almost every woman works in monogamy and brings home her paycheck because he doesn’t have a choice. The modern economy requires a dual-income home. What if we thought laterally and not only about “a woman’s right to maintenance” What if we are already living through the time when a woman would say, “I’ll bring my own food and clothes, just call me by your name” as the Bible puts it? Indeed, we are in those exact times because yes, objectively, most men can’t even “afford” one wife by traditional standards. When putting the numbers together this is what we get:
To determine how many men in the U.S. can afford a stay-at-home wife with 3-5 children, we need to estimate the minimum annual income required for a single-earner household to cover basic living expenses (housing, food, healthcare, transportation, taxes, and other necessities) at a modest standard, based on data from sources like the MIT Living Wage Calculator and EPI Family Budget Calculator. This assumes a “living wage” level—adequate but not luxurious—and accounts for the lack of childcare costs since one parent stays home.
Estimated Income Threshold
- For a family of 5 (2 adults + 3 children): Approximately $110,000 annually (after adjusting for no childcare, which averages $25,000-$30,000 for 3 children nationally, offset slightly by added adult costs).
- For a family of 6 (2 adults + 4 children): Approximately $120,000.
- For a family of 7 (2 adults + 5 children): Approximately $130,000.
- Average threshold across 3-5 children: $120,000 pre-tax. This is a national estimate; costs vary significantly by location (e.g., lower in Arkansas, higher in Massachusetts or New York).
These figures are derived by starting with budgets for similar family sizes (assuming both parents working, including childcare) and subtracting childcare costs for the stay-at-home scenario, while adding minor incremental expenses for the additional adult. Actual affordability depends on factors like location, lifestyle, debt, and savings goals.
Number of Men Who Can Afford This
- Total adult males (18+): Approximately 136 million in 2025.
- Number of male earners (employed or with earnings): Approximately 92 million (based on a ~67.5% labor force participation rate for adult males).
- Percentage of male earners with income ≥ $120,000: Approximately 22% (estimated using a lognormal distribution fitted to male income data: median $60,110, average $89,730).
Thus, roughly 20 million men have incomes high enough to afford this family structure at a basic level nationally.
| Family Size | Est. Min. Annual Income Needed (Single Earner) | Approx. % of Male Earners Who Qualify | Approx. # of Qualifying Men |
| 2 adults + 3 children | $110,000 | 25% | 23 million |
| 2 adults + 4 children | $120,000 | 22% | 20 million |
| 2 adults + 5 children | $130,000 | 20% | 18 million |
Note: These are estimates and do not account for variations like state taxes, benefits, or extraordinary expenses (e.g., medical needs). In high-cost areas, the threshold could exceed $200,000; in low-cost areas, it might be under $80,000. If “afford” means a more comfortable lifestyle (e.g., including savings and discretionary spending), the threshold rises to $200,000-$280,000, which only about 10%-12% of male earners meet (~9-11 million men).
It is safe to say that only 22% of men can afford a stay at home wife who has three to four children. If each of these men were traditional Muslims or Christians than only 22% of traditional women can get married and stay at home. The other 78% of women would have to work and sacrifice their Islamic / Christian rights to be fully provided for, or not get married. It’s a choice they’d have to make. Whereas some women could choose to marry some of the higher earners in that 22% bracket and add an income. The result would be a surplus in income and savings because higher costs are offset by a shared home and resources plus an additional household income. There is also greater savings because they won’t need daycare.
Polygyny Maybe Not?: A Guide to Monogamy (eBook)
Polygyny isn’t for everyone. The first handbook I wrote was for people who were interested in practicing polygyny. It was called, ‘Polygyny Maybe?’ Some of my readers who bought my previous book, told me that I discouraged them from practicing polygyny and that they decided it was not for them. However, since I seemed to be suggesting that polygyny is the most natural mating system for human beings, was it at all possible to be truly monogamous? How would one best uphold the Christian marriage vows of “Until death do us part?” This book is an attempt to answer that question. I will look at the importance of raising good children who will be capable of monogamy and how best to choose a suitable monogamous mate. Finally, I will teach you how to stay faithful within your monogamous marriage.
We don’t have to stop with income in terms of dollar value. What if you and your family were living on a smallholding and doing homesteading? Yes, each wife may not contribute financially, but they can contribute in labour. There’s a lot of work to do around a smallholding. Raising a few animals and growing crops require labour and a man with a few wives and many children has labour on hand. Of course, none of this would work for the princess wife- the modern trad-con Muslim or Christian- who dreams about sitting at home with servants to do all the work. It does work for adults who understand that existing in the world requires work because if you don’t contribute then you are eating from the contributions of others. Polygyny requires adults who live in the real world and who understand that everyone must do everything they can do to contribute to the survival of the family and the nation. Polygyny is about the collective economic upliftment of a group of people.
In the past women were homemakers and being a homemaker required a lot of work. In fact, the average modern man would probably not be able to do what the average woman did in the past. He would not be able to bake bread from scratch, skin goats, and carry heavy buckets of water. Whoever gave women the idea that they didn’t have to work in a marriage were getting their knowledge and advice from satan. At no time in history did the average woman not have to work very hard. The ideal that so called traditional women are aiming for only existed amongst the elite, and everyone can’t be part of the elite- otherwise it wouldn’t be elite. Only a few people could afford slaves to do all their chores for them. That’s not the world most people live in, and hence that isn’t an ideal we can aspire to. We can build wealth in the long-term in polygyny through cooperation and leveraging the collective efforts of the group as a whole. If every person does their part, the entire family will flourish. Even if your women aren’t financial contributors, but they don’t sit around all day, they are contributing. Wealth is not only measured in monetary terms.
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