This entry was posted on Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 2:40 pm and is filed under General Discussion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Should a man’s religious right to take more than one wife be legalised in the United States, and what does the individual do when his spiritual belief contradicts the law of the state?
My reports on polygamy in Utah are on the BBC on Saturday May 21st.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7953270.stm
3 Responses to “Polygamy & God”
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March 20th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
I think you should phrase it a bit differently — to be gender equal. If the question is posed for a man to take multiple wives, then it should apply to a woman wanting multiple husbands.
What I don’t understand is if the laws are in opposition to religious beliefs in this specific case, why doesn’t the religion simply just sanction it as a religious relationship (and forego the legality)?
It’s simple, just live in a polygamous household, have it sanctioned by a religious body that does not consecrate legal weddings. So in the eyes of the religion and community there may be multiple spouses but it does not run afoul of the law.
A little tinkering with semantics…
March 21st, 2009 at 12:15 am
It’s illegal in Utah to declare you have more than one wife. Technically a man who flaunts his many mistresses can be prosecuted under the same law.
On the gender issue, firstly it is not decreed in the Bible. Secondly there is the issue of genealogy of the children.
March 21st, 2009 at 4:29 pm
In today’s politically correct society, it’s easy to forget that polygamy serves a valuable social purpose in many societies at different times in history.
This has been particularly true on the Arabian peninsula for centuries, where war was a way of life, because population growth has always quickly outgrown the ability of the desert climate to support them. People frequently killed each other just to get food and survive. And since it’s men that are mostly killed off in war, many women are left without partners. In those situations, the only way for most women to receive protection from a man is through polygamous marriages. Many of Mohammed’s wives were widows, and there is evidence that many of the marriages were specifically for the protection of the women.
I don’t know enough about the history of the Mormons to understand why they adopted polygamy in the first place, but I imagine that it must have been for a similar reason – shortage of men and protection of women. That’s presumably not the case today, however, so what I would find most interesting is something that explores the visceral reasons why so many people in this population — men, women and children — find polygamy so appealing.
In an America with a 50%+ divorce rate, it’s very hard to sustain the argument that polygamy is bad for society. Personally I’ve always had enough trouble getting along with one woman, let alone trying to get along with three.
Finally, as someone who finds an unending source of humor in culture wars, I think it’s hilarious that the feminists who demand that women who love each other should be allowed to choose to marry each other also demand that women who choose to enter a polygamous relationship should be forbidden from doing so. In the end, this argument about polygamy is really nothing more than man-bashing.
Sincerely,
John
GenerationalDynamics.com