345. (10) Polygamy is lechery. Polygamy is lechery because the love in it is divided among more than one; because it is love for the opposite sex; and because it is a love of the external or natural man, and so is not conjugial love, which alone is chaste. People know that polygamous love is love divided among more than one; and love divided is not conjugial love, for conjugial love is not divisible from one of the opposite sex. Therefore polygamous love is lecherous, and polygamy is lechery. Polygamous love is love for the opposite sex, because it differs from it only in being limited to the number the polygamist can acquire, and in being subject to certain laws enacted for the public good; also in its being permitted to take concubines in addition to wives. And so, because it is love for the opposite sex, it is a love of lechery. [2] Polygamous love is a love of the external or natural man, because it is engraved on the natural man. And whatever the natural man does of itself is evil, from which a person cannot be withdrawn except by elevation into the internal, spiritual man, which is accomplished only by the Lord. With respect to the opposite sex, the evil inherent in the natural man is licentiousness; but because this is destructive of society, instead of licentiousness a likeness of it was introduced, which is called polygamy. (Every evil into which a person is born from his parents is implanted in his natural self, but not any of it in his spiritual self, because he is born into this from the Lord.) From the arguments presented and also many others, it can be plainly seen that polygamy is lechery.