Polygamy...any thoughts?

There's a lot to be said for it in some ways. Sometimes I think having a little mini-tribe of women raising children together wouldn't be such a bad thing. The con would be you'd be sharing a man. The pro would be, you'd have someone to fob him off on when you just freakin' wanna go to sleep!

Lynn Siprelle, Editor

The most positive view of polygamy I've seen is The Red Tent, which is, of course, fiction, however historical.

Right now when I think of polygamy I think of the very closed, scary communities of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (not the mainstream Mormon church), where their interpretation of scriptural legitimization for polygamy seems to similarly legitimize all kinds of abuses of women. I would be extremely interested in hearing about polygamist families or cultures where the men were the ones in danger of abuse, but it seems likely that biological considerations would make such cultures rare to nonexsistent. In short, I see a strong correlation (as opposed to causal link) between polygamy and misogyny, but I would certainly invite someone to prove me wrong.

One intimate relationship seems to be about all I can handle anyway!

Shaun
"Home is not the one tame place in a world of adventure; it is the one wild place in a world of rules and set tasks."
   -- G. K. Chesterton

I am actually a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons), so this is something I know a fair bit about. Several of my ancestors were practicing polygamists, but, for the record, NO ONE in the LDS church practices polygamy now. Anyone who chooses to do so is excommunicated. There are many offshoot churches who practice polygamy still. I'm not sure what to say about that. There is definitely room for abuse of women and children there. At the same time, I'm sure there are many loving families who happen to have a different religious belief than most of us.

This is not common knowledge, but since no one here knows us in real life...

My husband actually grew up in a polygamist family. He later converted to the mainstream LDS church. In his family, I would say it was a disaster. They did not live as part of a polygamist community. Instead, his dad maintained separate households. One wife was somewhat favored over the others and her children benefitted from that. It was often hard for DH's mom to even have enough food for her kids. She worked nights a lot to make ends meet. She did not use any type of welfare. None of DH's siblings have good feelings about polygamy. I think that that is different from many people who grow up in a polygamist community where people help each other out.

As far as welfare, etc goes, I don't think that there is much difference between polygamy and people who have babies out of wedlock and get on welfare. After all, as far as the government is concerned, that'e exactly what polygamy amounts to since the marriages after the first are not legal and binding at all.

My religious beliefs aside, I think that anyone considering practicing polygamy should think long and hard about it, but I also think that in a society where practically anything goes sexually, the government is not likely to suddenly begin enforcing the laws against polygamy. Generally, I guess the other issues associated, such as abuse of women, should be delt with individually.

Interesting topic. It's fascinating to me to hear what others think of this.

Lauralyn

There is a tradition of polyandry in some parts of Tibet, where a woman has more than one husband. I think they would generally be brothers in that case. I don't know if it is still practiced or not, but my source is the book The Struggle for Modern Tibet by Tashi Tsering, who was brought up in a polyandrous household.

One can mow the lawn while the other takes out the garbage, right?

Right?

Jana

I'm crackin' up.

No way could I handle more than one of DH.

I'm sure that most of the people who know me here won't be shocked to learn that I don't have a problem with polygamy/polyandry. I am not interested in doing it, but I don't really care if other people do. I believe that a family is a group of people who love each other and choose to function as a unit, so if one man and two women, or two women and three men, etc., choose to do this, it's no skin off my nose.

In our culture polygamy has a bad name because it's so often associated with the opression of women, but laying aside all that, I have no problem with the concept of multiple partners in a love relationship.

Danna =]

By which I mean Old Testament, not a left-turn off the subject.

It's just interesting to me that every close-up picture we get of polygamy in the OT is associated with a dysfunctional family. Jacob's being the primary example... I mean, the guy married *sisters*! Ew, gross!!! I guess I never thought much about it, having been familiar with the story from childhood, but that's pretty sick stuff, resulting in serious family problems. Not only that, but the guy took their maidservants as concubines too (at their insistence, in the "baby wars"!).

Interestingly, in Leviticus, God later lays down the law that a man cannot marry his wife's sister while she is still living. However, that is how the twelve tribes of Israel came about.

And then, Hannah and Penninah come to mind...one wife making the other miserable because she is favored in spite of her barrenness.

It's obvious that the laws God gave to Moses allowed for things like polygamy, slavery, and divorce because of hardness of the human heart, but also established a system of justice for the vulnerable. Like the Year of Jubilee, for example. It's also obvious from Genesis 2:24 that polygamy is not the scriptural ideal.

Other than the tall tales in *Roughing It,* that is the extent of my knowledge on the subject.

http://mark-twain.classic-literature.co.uk/roughing-it/ebook-page-41.asp

(Edited to fix link.)

Julie--
Polygamist wives do refer to each other as sister wives--I think even in cases where they don't all live together. There are polygamist groups in Utah still--where I grew up(even though they aren't LDS), and I think that it is more common for people to be born and bred into it rather than converting to the idea of polygamy. That's just my impression though. I don't know the actual statistics. However, my DH's dad was an exception. He became sold on the idea of polygamy after he was married and the woman he was married to at the time was not exactly happy about it. That was one source of the problems in that family. I think that it would work a lot better if all the wives believe in polygamy.

For the record, the official doctrine of the LDS church is that polygamy in the Old Testament was not necessarily wrong. Rather, God can, at times, command His people to practice polygamy for His own reasons--mainly in order to have more children born in righteous families. We still believe that God did command that for the early members of our church, but that it is wrong to practice polygamy when it is not commanded by God. There are examples of this in the OT as well. It is kind of a tough doctrine, and I certainly don't pretend to understand all the ins and outs of it. I'm just glad no one expects me to practice polygamy--or polyandry for that matter.

Lauralyn

That's the community I was thinking of when I first responded. They've been in the news on and off for various reasons -- in general I think because law enforcement fears another Waco, as the article suggests.

Ugh, that story about the boys literally made me nauseated. Especially the boy totally cut off by his mother. What miracles will it take for these boys to grow up as healthy men?

IMHO, just goes to show that where there is misogyny, a general contempt for human life is usually not far behind.

Shaun