What is the best argument or reason we have against polyamory?

Question: What is the best argument or reason we have against polyamory (open relationships and marriages)? Personally, I find the language of “many loves” suspect.  I doubt “love” has anything to do with it, especially in its contemporary expressions.  It just seems to be disordered desire or promiscuity or libertinism in pseudo ethical clothing.

Response: This is such a great question. In wedding ceremonies, I’ve often said, “As you know, in this life, all our deepest desires are not fulfilled, and we live in a world under a curse. Yet in this world God does give us this one unique, tangible opportunity to sample the ultimate relationship that constitutes the Kingdom of Heaven – our final destination. Well, that gift is marriage. Where you vow body, soul and spirit to one other person, the way we are to vow ourselves to Christ (as Christ has vowed himself to us–we are one). You can do the math if you like, but here on earth, stuck in the confines of space and time, you cannot fully vow yourself to more than one person at a time. So, to sample Heaven on Earth, through marriage, takes all the courage, energy, and devotion two people can muster.”

So, I think the best argument has to do with space and time and the nature of fidelity. In space and time, I give all of myself to one other person (or God in one other person) at the exclusion of others, for I can’t give all to two without dividing two in half. I suspect this isn’t the case in the age to come. God can give all of himself to each one of us, but we can’t give all of ourselves to God in 9 billion people (space and time won’t allow it). In eternity I suspect that we can. I’ve wondered if this is reflected in Scripture’s apparent relative ambivalence about polygamy–sexist polygamy. The idea that Jesus (the male) is singular, and the bride is plural and yet singular (“We” are the bride. And Jesus makes us one with each other and one with him in the covenant of Love.). 

What I just shared, I highly suspect, is a very inadequate answer, but it helps me. And practically it makes a great deal of sense to me. By the grace of God, I’ve been monogamous my whole life (at least physically if not mentally). It would be much more difficult for me to enjoy and rest in our relationship if I was consciously comparing my wife to others or thinking that she was comparing me to others. And it really is physically impossible to give my all (money, inheritance, time etc.) to two women. So, monogamy makes perfect sense for learning fidelity and sacrifice, and yet I’m also supposed to learn grace for all.

So, it also makes sense to me that although God calls many to a lifetime monogamous relationship (who may not want to be monogamous, but remain so out of fidelity to our Lord and Bridegroom), that he also calls others into a prophetic witness to, and communion with, himself as one who suffers the pain of broken covenants and overcomes that pain with relentless-love and furious grace. In other words, God calls Hoseas to know his heart and experience his sacrificial love. And yet, there could be no knowledge of his sacrificial love without broken covenants. 

In the end, whether one is married their whole adult life, or suffers the pain of divorce and infidelity over and over, we all in some degree, experience Hosea’s pain and a bit of the Bridegroom’s hope for a faithful bride and the Bride’s hope for a faithful husband.