Breckon

I agree with a lot of what has been said above, so there is no need for me to repeat it. I would only add the following in addition to the other reasons: Marriage has been used throughout history to create bonds and bring peace (or subjugate, bring into line, gain leverage, or create a claim to power through bloodlines), as a currency and for many other reasons. I always felt like Caemlyn was the center of the civilized world, like a Rome, and a marriage to Elayne gave Rand a claim to the rule of the civilized world. Avi was Rand's marriage claim to the Aiel - I know this was not necessary, but it made sense to me that the Aiel would need him to father Aiel children. Avi, having spent so much time with Rand and being so powerful with the one power, would naturally be in a position of respect with the Aiel. Min was the fulfillment of a "marry for love not power" trope. Many kings throughout history had more than one wife for purely political reasons. Jordan loved his politics. I'm not saying that we are meant to believe that Rand thought about those three women in that way, but in the WoT, things happen for a reason. Of course the most powerful Ta'veren of all time would pull in Elayne and Avi. As with all things Jordan and WoT, I think it is more complex than just the answer that I gave here (for instance, I think the other posts covered important points), but I think that this is one of the pieces of the puzzle as to why we see the three wives. On another note, I understand why the original poster had strange feelings about this. I read somewhere that authors often try to keep their main protagonist as vanilla as possible. The reason is because many readers immerse themselves in the story by putting themselves in the shoes of the protagonist. I presume most people do not do this consciously (as in, they don't actively pretend to be "Rand"), but there is a bit of fantasy in, well, fantasy. Who hasn't walked as Frodo through the mines, or faced Darth Vader as Luke? We live these stories through the character's eyes. If you, as an author, make the decision to have your main character possess some defining trait that doesn't resonate with the reader, it can unconsciously disrupt that fantasy - like a kind of cognitive dissonance. I understand why Rand had three wives, and I have no problem with it. But, it did stick out to me (like it obviously did to the original poster). I /presume/ this is because the idea of polyamory is a culture shock to me and causes that cognitive dissonance - I had a hard time relating to it. I am not judging it in any way, and this is not a comment on polygamy or monogamy, other than to say that it defies my personal "norms" and therefore accidentally pushes me out of my immersion into the story. The more vanilla your main character, the less people you will accidentally have losing that fantasy immersion. So, it is not surprising that the polygamist Rand would be like a tiny marble in the shoe of people that grew up surrounded solely by monogamy.