Jacob’s sermon presents two seemingly unrelated issues. One is the pride of self, coming from the search for wealth, and the second is multiple wives. Is there a connection between those two?
Assuming a Mesoamerican background, around the time that Jacob is giving this sermon, the early cities of the Maya have been forming, and social distinctions are becoming apparent in the archaeological record. Archaeologists studying that rise have suggested that one of the mechanisms for the rise in social segregation was a set of people they have called aggrandizers. These were people who attempted to accumulate more than others, and were eventually successful.
The actual mechanism for such aggrandizing was trade. Trade required goods in surplus that were available for trade. Therefore, those who could produce a greater surplus of trade goods were in a position to receive more in the exchange, and thus elevate themselves above those who did not have that ability.
In the early stages of the trade, production was largely family based, and one of the ways to have more workers was to have more wives and more children. Thus, there were more workers who would create the trade goods.
In the assumed Mesoamerican context, the very time and place in which we suggest for the early Nephites is right in the middle of a larger culture that is going through the very same growing pains, and is witnessing the very same sins that Jacob decries. Across the region, there were those who were creating social segregation based upon the wealth they were accumulating, and they were accumulating that wealth through large families consisting of multiple wives and, therefore, a larger number of children.