Narrative: These two verses begin Jacob’s introduction to a sermon contained in the next chapter. His injunction against polygamy will be discussed there.
Culture: It is not by chance that Jacob’s discussion of multiple wives and his indication that his people “began to search much gold and silver” come close together. Each statement is a manifestation of increasing wealth and emphasis on the trappings of wealth. Even in societies where it is allowed (or even encouraged), maintaining multiple families requires greater control of substance. Thus, it tends to be practiced by those societies’ wealthier members.
The appearance of the practice among the Nephites at this point, perhaps seventy years after leaving Jerusalem and after sixty years in the New World, suggests that the Nephites have not only managed to become wealthy, but also that the supply of marriageable women made more than one wife a social possibility. Once again, both the wealth and the availability of desirable women of the proper age, sufficiently removed from the kin group, provide strong confirmation of native populations with whom the Nephites interacted.