345. (x) Polygamy is wantonness.
This is because the love of it is divided among a number; it is sexual love, the love of the outward or natural man, so it is not conjugial love, which is the only chaste kind of love there is. It is well known that polygamous love is a love divided among a number; and a divided love is not conjugial love, for this is a love inseparable from one of the other sex. So the other kind of love is wanton, and polygamy is wantonness. Polygamous love is sexual love, because it differs from sexual love only in being limited to the number of women a polygamist can take on. He is also bound by certain laws enacted for the public good, and he is allowed to have mistresses in addition to wives. So being sexual love, this is a love of wantonness.
[2] The reason why polygamous love is that of the outward or natural man is that this is imprinted on that man. Whatever the natural man does of himself is evil, and he can only be guided out of this by being raised to the inward, spiritual man, something only the Lord can do. The evil which concerns sex inherent in the natural man is fornication. But because this is destructive of society, a replica has been substituted for it, and this is called polygamy. Every evil a person inherits from his parents by birth is planted in his natural man; but none of this affects the spiritual man, because he acquires this by being born from the Lord. The reasons cited here and many others make it plain to see that polygamy is wantonness.