Polygamy

[Jenny]

I am going to start this thread, but do not know how often I can check in. I do not tend to get 'into' the depth of these type of issues (holy...disclaimer or what?) I guess I am trying to learn the ropes of these types of topics.

ANYWAY... what do you think of it?

I watched a special report (Dateline?...it was "the outsiders") a few weeks back and it featured a modern day polygamist family. I also watched a made-for-tv movie a month or so ago that showed the darker sides of polygamy.

After the movie, I was quite disturbed, but after the dateline report, I thought "hey, its not so bad, they choose to live there"

Then it goes back to my belief that people who willingly choose to follow a certain religion, should do so. I realize that marrying more than one woman is against the law, but who's law? Was this law initially created by a Christian man way back in the day when Church and State were not seperated?

Oh and I was going to add that I read an article in a men's magazine (GQ?)about how there are too many men than women in these communities and these young boys get thrown out into the 'real' world. They are lost and usually end up homeless/addicts, etc.

When I was in a town this summer, one of the old fashioned polygamist communities (bountifull) is very close by. We saw some of these families and it was just so surreal to see them (I know it sounds horrible).

We were swimming in this water hole and there was this young boy there who kept wanting to interract with us, but didn't know how. We saw him in town a few times during the week we were there. Then I read that article and wondered if he was one of the casted boys. That makes me really sad.

okay I will stop now.

[off-kilter]

I wrote on another board when this was brought up from the same show you watched:
I think that trying to legally bind more than one adult to another in what we commonly refer to as "marriage" is unwieldy and impractical. Someone on a much different board brought this point home to me by noting that from a LEGAL standpoint, marriage confers automatic hierarchy in who is next of kin, who is the first to receive custody of shared children, property, money, taxes, etc .... You can't have more than one #1 person for all of these things, so a multitude of legal partners results in a hierarchy of rights and responsibilities that our legal concept of marriage is incapable of addressing at present.

Right now, a person and their spouse have about equal access, rights, and responsibilites toward one another, but if you add more "equal" people to the mix, it confuses things greatly and creates a necessary imbalance.

If people want to go ahead and impose that kind of imbalance in their own personal or spiritual life, I must admit it makes me uneasy and wary that it's ripe for abuse (like many noted cases), but as long as it's not a legal definition and is actually between consenting adults, I can't do more than comment that it's not for me. However, to the people that might say that polyamory is the next step if we allow same-sex marriages, I'd say that marriage of many with "levels" of marriage amongst them is not the same as a marriage of equals, no matter the genders involved.

ETA: I have read that polygamy often occurs where there is a severe imbalance of wealth and resources. Women/girls might indeed find that they'd rather have a man with the ability to provide and other women with whom to work beside rather than have just any man who is barely making do with no other women to share the load. This same text argued that monogamy benefited the average man just as much as the average woman (under different circumstances) because of this, so monogamy might have developed as a default from pressure from a larger middle class and potential unrest of the have-not males.

An interesting concept. Anyway, it sounded good!

In a religious sense, I don't care who is "married" to who as long as their expression of that is not illegal (13 year olds getting forced to "marry" and have sex with their uncles springs to mind). I *do* care if it's legally binding because of the points I addressed above.

[Val]

Like you pointed out, there are different ways for it to happen. One side is adults who knowingly choose it, and to me that is a personal choice and not something I am really offended over (I'm thinking Big Love, the Henderson's that don't live on the compound) and then there are the Colorado City polygamists where girls are marrying far too young and reports of abuse are rampant but go unpunished by law outside of the group- which certainly bothers me.

[Lori]

Legally, I think there are very good reasons to keep marriage a contract between two people, simply because of what the marriage contract entails. But, while I personally think that monogamous marriages are preferable over polygamous ones, I don't think that consenting adults who choose polygamous relationships should be in any way persecuted or harassed.

[Desirae]

I don't agree with polygamous relationships. ;)

[Val]

I had another thought about this. It may be "illegal" but it's not something being prosecuted against. And there are ways around it. There's no law that you can't live with and date 3 women who you aren't married to like Hugh Hefner. So the law doesn't seem to matter much either way because lots of people are doing it regardless.

[gr8mommy]

I am against polygamy, either by law or by practice.