*s* I´m sorta´ late getting around to this thread too heh! Here´s some reflections on your post(s).

Polygamy as such was not very widespread in AE. Most commonly practiced in the Royal families as a means to secure loyalty from foreign areas, and even at one period, within the land. (Tanis-Thebes, dyn 21). But for commoners, economics was an important factor in this issue and from more than one point of view. Having more than one wife for pleasure or luxury meant also having the financial means to keep her and her offspring. As the major part of ancient Egyptian population was less than well-to-do, here was a natural limitation. But - and here comes the twist: if a woman was widowed or unmarried or unable to support herself for some reason, it befell male relatives (and probably not just male ones) to see to her survival. Thus families often consisted of more than one man and his wife. Extended families with siblings, elders, cousins must have been quite common.

In AE the family was an important institution, though perhaps not in exactly the same way as a Westerner like to regard it. Having many children was an insurance for old age and an aid for survival but there were also risks attached, as famine could strike any year if the inundation of the Nile failed. The mortality of babies and birth-giving women was high too, why having a large family with many children was considered lucky and desirous.

Actually using the word polygamy is a bit misleading in the light of this. We think of a man with many wifes, happily visiting them at nights in turn, but the reality was probably much more pragmatic, as in the King accepting a foreign princess in token of a peace treaty, or the farmer re-marrying when his wife died in giving birth. The considerations of survival and conditions of society dictated to a high degree how the issue of wives was handled.

Pieces of information found in Anq-Sheshonk and other wizdom literature - these texts were not for public use, they were intended as instructions for those who were destined to become leaders or even kings, so it´s impossible to draw any far-reaching conclusions about the majority of the people based on them.