Family time versus business time

Being a busy bee, I am not at home all that much. In classic families, this often leads to tensions between the busy networker and the coasy home bird, or between two busy networkers never at home on the same moment. Does a poly family require more presence at home, or does the company of a sister wife complement the absence of the alpha male?

Definitions of the word "harem"

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about the word "harem". Indeed, by us Westerners the term seems very often referred to as "the enclosure of the female property of a sultan". Some dictionaries even limit their definitions to muslim practice, where others have much wider interpretations that go as far as "respectful female privacy".

Let's have a look at some of the definitions I found browsing the internet:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harem: The word itself means: privacy that is very respected and honored. Coming from the Arab tradition, the harîm (compare haram) is the part of the household forbidden to male strangers. In Western languages such as English, this term refers collectively to the women in any polygynous household as well as to the 'no men allowed' area, or in more modern usage to a number of women followers or admirers of a man.


• http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/harem:
  • a usually secluded house or part of a house allotted to women in a Muslim household
  • the wives, concubines, female relatives, and servants occupying a harem
  • a group of women associated with one man
  • a group of females associated with one male -- used of polygamous animals


• The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition:
  • A house or a section of a house reserved for women members of a Muslim household.
  • The wives, concubines, female relatives, and servants occupying such a place.
  • A group of women sexual partners for one man.


• http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/harem
  • the part of a Muslim palace or house reserved for the residence of women.
  • the women in a Muslim household, including the mother, sisters, wives, concubines, daughters, entertainers, and servants.
  • Animal Behavior. a social group of females, as elephant seals, accompanied or followed by one fertile male who denies other males access to the group.
  • Facetious or Offensive. a group of women associated in any way with one man or household: Father joked that he has a harem of five daughters.

On quite some polyamory websites and blogs, I find the word "harem" or "harem-like" as a reference to explain what polyamory is not. In those cases however, the word "harem" refers to the possessive meaning of "owing women" or "enforced relationship". On this blog, the word "harem" refers to the situation in which a man and many women share an intimite relationship. There is no question of any kind of possession. My first posts will clarify that too.

I hope this post eliminates some misunderstandings.

What about the kids from a previous marriage

An important factor in each newly created family is the smooth integration of the children from the previous marriage -- definitely when those children are not all the time at daddy's place. Being a dad of two wonderful daughters, I consider any new friend as not OK, if my kids do not feel comfortable with her. This of course becomes extra complicated when more than one friend wants to start living in and with the family. I welcome any suggestions and experiences on this topic, since it is a basic struggle for me to get this question resolved.

RLLC -- a business model for modern relationships

While browsing the internet, I came across a site that promotes using a business partnership as the basis for a modern marriage. I like the idea, and beleive it could at least give the partnership a legal form that can act as a legal entity for purchasing a house, cars, etc. Moreover, if the partnership should ever ceise to exist, or one partner would want to leave, the partnership model and actions are the most correct and objective way to step out, or to dissolve the partnership.

Read more on http://www.relationshipllc.com/.

Great idea.

Some polyamorists beleive it is up to them to decide what polyamory is and what it is not ...

I just received a mail from a less open-minded web master -- a person who beleives he is the one to decide what is polyamory and what is not. Polygyny and harems are to be considered non-polyamory, is what he said. That is in contradiction to other polygroups (including the poly ring) and the wikipedia pages. And it feels very inner crowd (and not poly-like) to decide someone does not belong to 'us'.

I hope one day, he will open his eyes and realize that the Western viewpoint on harems is very wrong. In this respect, I dare to humbly refer to Fatima Mernissa's work "Sheherazade goes West". More about her work is on http://www.mernissi.net/books/books/scheherazade_goes_west.html

Pleasant reading.

Full wives, mistresses, and concubines

In the wikipedia article on polygyny, there is an interesting paragraph on various ways modern polygamous families are 'constructed' across the planet.

"In some cases the male may have a second (or more) family with non-legally recognized wife, supporting her and his children. In some situations the wife not only is aware of the husband's mistress, but also has helped him select one that is 'suitable' to his station. The estate of 'mistress' or 'concubine' does not rank as highly as 'wife'. In some societies, a mistress or concubine may be placed under the authority of a full wife. A man may have as many full wives as he can support, with concubines assigned to each wife to aid in managing the rather large family."

The idea of a man having a full wife, who selects the concubines as her aid, and adding more full wifes, that on their turn add concubines, seems worth exploring, since it shows a potential road map into the creation of a harmoneous harem. Step by step, the family would grow without braking existing bonds whenever a new woman enters the family -- and if she does, she can be detected as breaking in and she can be expulsed.

To be bi or not to be bi

From an erotic viewpoint, I think the four women will have the optimal enjoyment when they are bi. That way, they have more pleasure and are more relaxed during the shared erotic moments. And when the alpha male is absent, they can still enjoy erotic moments with their sisters.

Sharing critical resources

In ancient history, harems were often created because of scarce resources. Frequent war fare drastically reduced the number of men, hence women had less opportunity to find a partner -- or they needed to marry the brother of their former husband, to be able to keep on taking care of their family. In agricultural societies with a high death rate among babies, the labor-intense activities were better spread among many children. And of course, rich man were able to attract women that would never have access to the luxury and education the wealthy family could offer them. Today, of course, these arguments are not valid any longer -- except for wealthy men. But today, career women face different scarce resources: they do not want to devote all there free time to a household and they have almost no time to maintain social networks other than the business networks they are part of. Spreading work over a broader group, increasing the family capital and being able to outsource labor-intense tasks, and enjoying a family of friends, could greatly increase the daily comfort of the family members.

What wikipedia says about polygyny

Browsing the internet, I found an interesting page about polygyny. One of the conclusions I draw from that page, is that polygyny practices are spread all over the world and that catholicism has tried to bann it ... with secret polygyny as a result.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygyny#Human_polygyny

Interesting to read.

First wife or not

This is a point I am still struggling with. Should there be one first wife around the house? Today, I think that would not be a good idea. It would break the symmetry and increase the fighting among the other women to try and take her place. On the other hand, if I would need one woman to be my advisor or my confidant, it would be impossible to devote this function to one of the women without promoting that person to be an implicit first wife. Sharing the confidant function among four is too difficult and would increase a mutual suspicion among the four wifes. But also in classic monogamic relationships the confidant you can discuss with about your marriage can not be the same person as the one you are married to. That is why I now beleive I would need a fifth person to be my confidant -- just like business people who have their external advisor(s). That person preferably is a woman, since only women can get deep into the understanding of other women's motives. Should this person be known around the house? Should this person also advise me on the recruitment of the four wifes? Can I be her best friend or even have sex with her? Many questions that are still open, but definitely need to be answered before I can even start with the implementation of my community.

A harem does not have to be equal to an enforced community

Today, I received a nice e-mail from Harry (Holland). He has built a website in Dutch in order to support his quest to find like-minded polyamory people in Holland. His site is http://home.orange.nl/hcsm/. His definition of polyamory is wide -- I translate freely from his mail: "as long as your relationship is not enforced or misleading, you can call it polyamory. The structure you give it, is your personal implementation." Thanks Harry, for being such a positive person.

The word "harem" might frighten some people. On the Dutch polyamory website, I saw another discussion forum where some reactions were going bluntly against the use of the word "harem" without trying to find out whether the intentions of the use were open and honest, or not. Just by its structure, a community with one alpha male and four woman is named a polygamous relationship or harem. Whether the harem implies enforced stay, locking up, eunuch guards, etc is a choice of implementation. For those who still have their doubts, my implimentation has nothing to do with enforcement.

Career women have more to win from a harem

Yesterday, I had a chat with an old friend of mine. He said modern woman are too independent to want to join in in a community. That made me thinking. I can imagine an intelligent career woman is not likely to fit in a classic marriage -- one that builds upon the social family patterns and is converted into a setting that enables a woman to be equal to man. In most cases though, the woman in such modern households is indeed enabled to build a career and spend much time outside the family cradle, but in reality she is the only one to combine that busy career with a majority of the household activities, raising the kids, etc.

So maybe, career women are the kind of women to win more than family women. By sharing the household responsibilities among more people and obtaining an advantage of scale allowing ful-time house personnel is indeed a great gain. Even more, I know a lot of young career women that are very lonely at home ... even those that are married. Living in a community might overcome that evening loneliness, whilst spreading the house tasks over more people.

Sultan Murati

Is a harem considered polyamory?

Does polyamory allow a community of peope to build boundaries to their openness? In this case, do polyamory experts think of a harem as a case of polyamory, or is the one-to-four relationship not real polyamory?

Not that it really matters of the answer to the above questions is yes or no. Everyone designs his life according to his own standards. So will I. But it would be interesting to find out whether I could promote my harem concept into polyamory circles or whether doing so would be considered artificial - or worse - a lie.

Sultan Murati

A symmetrical structure around one alpha male

The idea of building a community around one man, is not only a consequence of my personality that does not allow a second alpha male around the house. It also brings in symmetry. One central male figure allows the group to spin around a leader that enables all the other members to be more or less equal. This avoids the difficulties arising from two captains or from a full democracy.

From my personal business experiments allowing a high level of complete democracy, I have learned that natural and accepted leadership stimulates growth and increases the level of fairness of a group -- provided, of course, the leader is an objective and honest person. I can imagine some of you might be more fond to build a full democratic community, but that is not my personal opinion and drive. Leadership however, is not the same as tirrany. Fair leadership requires the leader to regularly investigate the requirements and feelings of all members, and steer the community towards a direction that allows members to feel well. On the other hand, leadership prevents the group from trying to cover the largest of possible set of requirements. It is better to try to cover a clear and basic set of member requirements and 100% stick to them.

At least that is how I see things.

Sultan Murati