According to missionary Auden Lujan, in Peru, "fathers have many families."  That's hard for me to understand.  I can't imagine rotating from one family to another, but it's quite common in the Peruvian culture.  It also took place in the Old Testament, and this practice of polygamy obviously led to problems.  For example, King Solomon "had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines.  And his wives turned away his heart ... after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the LORD his God" (1 Kings 11:3-4, ESV).

As for me, I'll stick with the New Testament qualification of elders: "An elder must be blameless, the husband of one wife ... " (Titus 1:6, CSB).  According to a note in the Ryrie Study Bible, "the husband of one wife" could be translated literally as a "one-woman man."(1)  That model sounds good and wise to me!    

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(Photo of Auden and Wendy Lujan)

1.  Charles C. Ryrie, Ryrie Study Bible, ESV (Chicago: The Moody Bible Institute, 2011), 1485.