Joe The Polygamist
My previous post about Bountiful has made me wonder about polygamy. It’s an odd issue with weird alliances — in general, feminists are likely to be opposed to it, but so are social conservatives, albeit for vastly different reasons.
Presumably most would choose not to engage in polygamy — it’s just not a concept most Canadians are comfortable with. But notwithstanding Bountiful, where polygamy is rife with extenuating abuse issues, consider the regular run-of-the-mill Joe the Polygamist living down the street with his wives (none of whom is abused or exploited): Awesome set-up? Nobody’s business? Or a gang of perverts to be shunned and vilified and driven from the neighbourhood like rabid dogs?
And what about women? Is it even possible for a woman to survive having 3 or 4 husbands at once?
Giggedy!
Polygamy/polyandry (thanks, deBeauxOs) is definitely not my bag. I find it almost impossible to live with even one guy on a full-time basis, and my past experience with simultaneous multiple boyfriending has taught me that it’s a confusing and time-consuming endeavour at best. Plus, unlike men, I think women probably have more of a biological imperative to be monogamous, if only because of the childbearing aspect of things.
On the rare occasions when I’ve thought about polygamy, which only happens when Bountiful is in the news, I usually conclude that apart from abuse issues, it’s nobody’s business. What say you, thoughtful readers?
UPDATE: In this post at Rusty Idols, Cliff pretty well sums up my feelings about polygamy in general and the Bountiful arrests in particular. Well said.
Mutiple husbands. Oh lordy. It was hard enough to get one to put the f’ing seat down consistently.
I figure t’ain’t nobody bidness so long as they’re self-sufficient.
I’m with you though, JJ on the other matter. One-to-one relationships are difficult enough. Ditto on ’simultaneous multiple girlfriending’, despite whatever stereotype some folk may have about musicians.
I don’t necessarily think it’s a good idea. In fact I find it personally abhorrent. And sick and twisted. That being said, if other people want the hassle, fine. But each marriage has to be legal, because of the welfare thing. If you are a third wife, sorry, you’re not a single mom. On the flip side, you can’t claim all of your spouses and children as dependents for tax purposes. In that case, only the wealthy will be able to afford plural marriage, you say? Like I give a fuck. Fair is fair, everybody pays their share.
What about polyandry? Hey, if it works for breeding female cats, aka queens …
Dr. Prole – “Mutiple husbands. Oh lordy. It was hard enough to get one to put the f’ing seat down consistently.”
LOL, I can see the jokes will be writing themselves on this one.
What about the TV remote? They’d have to all have their own — and then the TV would never be on the same damn channel for more than 2 seconds.
FF – “I figure t’ain’t nobody bidness so long as they’re self-sufficient.”
Yeah, that’s my feeling.
The multiple boy-girlfriend situation is a delicate balance, too delicate for me. My little house of cards came crashing down one night when they all showed up at the same time. Ack! Too confusing!
Dr. Prole – Agreed, I personally find it kind of gross. Most people would. But who am i to tell someone else they have to share my opinion? If the wives are okay with living that way, nobody’s being coerced and everyone’s treated fairly (inasmuch as such relationships can be fair), it’s none of my beeswax.
deBeauxOs – That was the word I was looking for – polyandry.
I kind of doubt women would be into it though, it’s just too much trouble. It’s bad enough to come home from work and find one of them sprawled out drunk on the couch in his housecoat with his junk hanging out and a beer in his hand, I can’t even imagine three. Or four! Arrrghh!
I gave my take Here.
Ultimately, every argument I’ve heard against it – statutory rape, coercion, abuse and women being treated like property – can also be found in traditional marriages.
Now maybe all of these things are far more prevalent in Polygamy – I don’t know, but I think I’m still not willing to cede to the state this much control over how people organize their personal lives and trust they’ll only use it against people who deserve it.
Concentrate on making cases for statutory rape, coercion and abuse. Anyone guilty of those crimes belongs in jail.
I knew all these people in the 70s who believed in non-monogamy as an ideal for everyone of every gender. The most doctrinaire for sexual freedom were Christian fundies who’d moved here from the US mid-west to escape their tiny home-towns with one church and church-controlled school and no other population but the same. Some were terrorized as tots that if they ever mentally questioned the LORD’s word as represented by their parents’ authority they would burn in a real, physical hell. No one, including men, was to feel pleasure while performing procreative obligations, and monogamy was the LORD’s way. Women were to obey men at all times. Child-abuse and cult brainwashing? You betcha.
After these escapees moved here they began fucking all kinds of people, some narrowly avoiding exposure to HIV which was out there but not recognized yet. Those who could sexually function at all, that is.
Decades later, most choose to be in stable, monogamous relationships, but they will not judge others’ choices. And they profoundly distrust religion.
I think sickness begets sickness, albeit in different forms. I think in such a sexually sick world, we can hardly know what healthy sexuality would be. But personal freedom tempered only by responsibility toward others must be a starting point to fix the whole thing.
Great post, Cliff. There’s also a terrific comment there by Dumoustier that brings up something i think we’ve all missed in the two discussions here:
What about genetic diseases such as Tay-Sachs or sickle cell
anaemia? If one had several partners, couldn’t the risk
of affecting future generations rise because of polygamous/
polyandrous relationships? And how many generations before
the recessive genes begin to take their toll as they do
on intermarried families/clans? This whole situationof
intermarriage is played out with the royal families of
Europe and they have their attendant genetic problems.
I’m not an expert on these things but I hope someone could
come forward with helpful information on this aspect.
Cliff – Great post, I linked to you.
I totally concur with your assessment of the Bountiful arrests. IMO, Oppal is using the easy way into an investigation, since it’s obvious that the polygamy law is being broken. The reports of abuse etc are a little harder to prove.
I agree that any abuse, especially involving minors, should be prosecuted to the furthest extent of the appropriate law. But I’m not so sure this is the best way to do it either.
Non-monogamy that is open, ethical, and not tied to the sorts of blatant, rigid patriarchy that often is a part of religious polygamy is alive and well and often, though not always, goes by the name of polyamory. Practices that go under that label encompass a lot of different things, some healthy and functional, some less healthy and less functional, just like with monogamy. But consistently, the most inspiring examples of people that I know who are poly are feminist women, often queer feminist women.
I don’t know much about the specific case of polygamy that you are discussing, but I think it’s important in having such discussions to focus on opposing violence, coercion, patriarchal practices, and other sorts of nasties rather than multiple, simultaneous sexual/romantic patnerships per se, precisely to avoid further stigmatizing the relationship practices of people who do non-monogamy in ethical, open, and feminist/pro-feminist ways.
orange – I think the situation you describe is one that centers around control more than freedom, which is typically how these cults flourish. Someone figured out a long time ago that scripture is a good way to rook the gullible into doing things they’d normally find abhorrent, and offshoot sects of the Church of Latter Day Saints ran with it and established harems for their leaders.
To me this is more of a cultism issue than a marriage issue. Religious Cults routinely engage in all kinds of coercion, including ripping their cultists off for whatever money they’ve got– polygamy is just one of them. I’m not so sure that polygamy without the religion attached to it is odious enough to be a crime, and as Cliff said in his post, I’m not ready to let the state make that decision. Take away all the extenuating circumstances like abuse and marriage is still a personal decision that the state really has no business in.
If this is a voluntary arrangement by freely-consenting adults, it’s something that is hard to get worked up about. Now that I think about it, it’s not all that different from a man with a longstanding mistress whom he supports economically and whose existence is known to his wife (and at least tolerated). What troubles me about the FLDS gang is that it looks a lot more like sexual slavery of underage girls than a free and voluntary arrangement.
PS: on a personal level I’d think it would be damn near unworkable for me. How do you divide your affection like that. Also double the number of birthdays to remember
One reason why this case will probably crash on the rocks of the Supreme Court is that the more than century old polygamy laws were specifically and unambiguously about keeping ‘Jack Mormon’ out of Canada.
In 1890, as mainstream and dissenting Mormons who still favoured multiple spouses settled on the Prairies, Canada passed its first laws against polygamy. They were, if you like, Mormon-specific.
In fact, until the 1950s, the Criminal Code prohibition on marrying more than one spouse mentioned Mormons in the text. Nowadays, section 293 isn’t aimed at any particular group, just those who “practice or enter into any form of polygamy … or any kind of conjugal union with more than one person at the same time.”
And Oppal will argue that the law is about statutory rape and coercion and abuse, but the justice system doesn’t really work that way. If a specific law was founded on one motivation you don’t get to shift the meaning when that premise becomes socially unacceptable.
So another question; How much is it going to end up costing the legal system to launch a prosecution with such a high probability of failure?
FF – Interesting point that commenter made. If guys like Blackmore are abusing their authority in dictating who can marry who, the government is doing the same thing.
Which just renews my feeling that government shouldn’t be in the marriage business at all.
Scott – “Non-monogamy that is open, ethical, and not tied to the sorts of blatant, rigid patriarchy that often is a part of religious polygamy is alive and well and often, though not always, goes by the name of polyamory.”
Exactly, that’s what I’m talking about in my post, consenting adults, nobody’s being abused, everyone’s free to be part of it or not, which I’m pretty sure the women in Bountiful are not.
Though it’s not my thing, I can’t see that kind of non-traditional relationship is so destructive that it deserves to be illegal. As you point out, some are functional, some are less so, but so it is with “traditional marriage”. Dysfunction, coercion and abuse happens in all kinds of marriages, and for that matter, in the office and on the shop floor. It should be opposed wherever it’s found.
Abuse, exploitation and authoritarian patriarchy that happens in religious cults like Bountiful is the issue, not the polygamous context in which it occurs.
Dan – “it’s not all that different from a man with a longstanding mistress whom he supports economically and whose existence is known to his wife (and at least tolerated)”
It’s almost exactly the same, the only difference is nobody’s admitting what’s really going on.
“What troubles me about the FLDS gang is that it looks a lot more like sexual slavery of underage girls than a free and voluntary arrangement.”
Exactly. That’s why Bountiful isn’t a polygamy issue as much as it’s an abuse/coercion/exploitation issue. Polygamy is just the easiest thing to prove there, so they’re using the polygamy law as a way to get in and investigate the abuse.
“on a personal level I’d think it would be damn near unworkable for me.”
It wouldn’t work for me either, but I can see why some women might be okay with it. If a guy is high-maintenance, in a polygamous situation there’d be someone to pick up the slack. I guess it’s the same reason some women are okay with their husbands having mistresses — it takes some of the pressure off them.
Cliff – Yet another question is why are they even using this tactic if it’s destined for failure? I thought maybe it would provide a window of opportunity where they could properly interview witnesses and get proof of abuse… but if will it even do that?
I’m on the same page as Dan. It looks like the higher ups in the church have their pick of the cute 14 year olds while the young men are shit out of luck. When you see them on TV they look like a bunch of inbread brain-dead fucks. Even Islam has stronger rules about poligamy.
JJ- My guess on why they are (or Oppal is) doing this now is 1) May provincial election; 2) making the appearance of having done something, and with trials dates so far into the future, so that it’s not an election campaign issue.
Torontonian – “This whole situation of
intermarriage is played out with the royal families of
Europe and they have their attendant genetic problems.”
Oh yeah, for sure. Those things are definitely issues in the types of clan situations you mention, but the polygamy I’m talking about would be basically a guy who has 3 mistresses who all know and accept each other. The only difference is, they’d be called wives instead of mistresses. So there’d be no issues with inter-family marriage (yuck) and all its problems. Their kids would still be half-siblings and wouldn’t be marrying each other.
There’s definitely a case against inter-clan marriage, though. The gene pool.
bountiful bizarre! back in the early 80s i knew a group of artists that all lived together in a sort of communal family. they had a big chunk of land with an old farm house and a few smaller buildings. they lived as an extended family and were quite successful until a fire destroyed the place and two of the kids died. their rationale was that as individuals none of them were especially suited to long term, one on one relationships. yet they all still wanted some semblance of family life. also, being artists, they weren’t exactly affluent as individuals. by coming together in a supportive, communal arrangement they were able to contribute from their strengths and find support where they lacked.
their choice allowed them all to live quite nicely as post punk hippies. they grew some of their own food, had some chickens and a woodlot that supplied fuel for the wood stove. the main house was a crazy old mansion full of noise and laughter, people coming and going and there were a couple of places for people to peel off and get solitude when needed, a guest house and a trailer. the drive shed was a combination rehearsal space, studio and workshop. one of the great things about it was the dearth of duplication. they had two industrial washing machines, a dryer and some wash lines. if you had broken them up into five or six couples that would have meant a truck load of appliances to serve their needs. even when it came time to create, rather than three or four crappy p.a. systems, they had one really nice rig to work with and a back-up that was perfectly good. the kids had their mom and dad and built in aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters and cousins.
it was a place that i always enjoyed visiting and walked away from feeling more hopeful. not a circumstance that suits many folk but for them, in that time and place, it really did work quite well. i think the key was that they weren’t bound by contracts and that they understood that people and their needs would change and shift over time. after the fire it all sort of dissolved and they were broken up by the loss. i know that two of the pair bonded couples moved west together to start over but i lost track of them. what they had was a big beautiful extended family and i never saw any evidence of the sexual jealousy and control issues that cripple so many monogamous relationships. it can work, wouldn’t be for me, but for the right people, why not?
I too wrote about Bountiful on my blog because I have been following the story for several years and as a newbie feminist I am seeing such newsworthy events through different eyes. My resounding problem with Bountiful as a feminist is the manner in which the women in Bountiful (and other Polygamist communities) find themselves isolated from the outside world. I don’t doubt that there are women in the world who practice Polygamy in a consentual, informed manner. But that’s not what we are dealing with in Bountiful. I honestly do not believe these young girls are living a life in which they have any control over the decisions they make regarding their bodies or their futures. It’s disturbing that the Canadian government has not intervened sooner-but I believe Wally Opal had no other choice than to wait for Crown to approve charges based on the evidence at hand. No doubt this case will be seen by some as a disgraceful way for the Canadian justice system to make an example out of shaming Polygamist sects. This case will no doubt set off a shit storm of media attention which will further exploit the women and children in Bountiful, and a nationwide debate over the Charter of Rights and Freedoms versus the Canadian Criminal Code.
I’ve also seen what you’re describing, psa, but it’s much different than the ’set-up’ at Bountiful. I think what you’re describing, although it does fall under the definition of polygamy, is probably more accurately called polyamory.
“Cliff – Yet another question is why are they even using this tactic if it’s destined for failure?”
To throw the political hot potato to parliament when it does.
In a perfect world consensual polyandry could exist without any negative consequences for the parties involved. But I don’t think we live in a perfect world and I think the children of such unions would suffer most. The father is going to be more isolated from the children because he has to take care of the other spouses and/or the children could suffer emotional abuse if the wives were competing with each other or there was jealousy between them. But while I agree that abuse and neglect can be found in monogamous relationships, I think these problems are inherent in polyandrous relationships. That is the key difference.
One thing that is rarely discussed is that young men are often expelled from these communities because they are deemed to be in competition for the limited pool of women. That would still be a problem even if the teenage weddings were stopped and abuse curbed.
Then there are the economic and financial consequences. If the state recognized polygamy, businesses and government entities would then be forced under current law to provide benefits for the extra wives and dozens of children in these relationships. If a worker produces $100 of widgets per day for company X is paid $50 dollars and receives $40 in benefits/day, he is a profitable worker to have. If his benefits package for the extra wives and children rises to $60/day then he isn’t profitable. Either that cost is passed on to the rest of us or the worker is laid off. The same would be true for tax benefits. In other words, we would have to cover the costs for legalizing these completely voluntary social arrangements.
If people want to do this outside the marital system and there aren’t children involved, fine with me. But that isn’t what is before the courts.
psa – Great story. I knew of a couple of communal situations like that back in the 70s, nothing that I was an actual part of other than a friend, but it was interesting to observe how well it worked. I didn’t think then (and nor do I think now) that I could ever stand to be part of such a setup, but like you say, for the right people it seemed to work as well as any of the monogamous marriages I knew of.
But then, why shouldn’t it. The extended family is our oldest form of family relationship — nuclear families are a relatively new development that we’ve only had the luxury of being able to indulge in since the industrial revolution. Now that the economy is about to take its second major dump in 100 years, it’ll be interesting to see if people respond by returning to something closer to the extended family model.
Annette – Good points. Again, the issues around polygamy in Bountiful seem to be more about the abuse and coercion that accompany it.
Polygamy seems almost by definition to be overbearing, patriarchal, abusive and/or coercive, especially where polygamous sects are concerned. One guy with several wives automatically places him at a higher level than the women in the group. That’s the kind of thing I dislike about it — it’s like a harem, not a partnership.
However, not everyone’s the same. Outside of the religious cult situations, it’s possible that people have these arrangements for their own reasons, and nobody’s being abused. This is probably pretty rare, but should people getting along in such situations be subjected to state censure? I don’t think so.
Re Bountiful – I’m surprised that they haven’t found a way to address the real problem there, which is abuse and what amounts to human trafficking. There are laws against these things — so I wonder if going after them for polygamy is the right thing to do.
Phatbiker – “It looks like the higher ups in the church have their pick of the cute 14 year olds while the young men are shit out of luck.”
In Bountiful, they give all the young guys the boot when they’re really young, and with no skills to get them by out in the real world. It’s another way they’ve manipulated the concept of polygamy to suit their own purposes. And also, another form of abuse, since a lot of these guys are just kids when they get kicked out.
It’s a fucked up place, no doubt about it.
Cliff – “To throw the political hot potato to parliament when it does.”
Oooph! Steve won’t be pleased if this thing ends up knocking at his door.
toujoursdan – “n a perfect world consensual polyandry could exist without any negative consequences for the parties involved. But I don’t think we live in a perfect world and I think the children of such unions would suffer most.”
Yeah. The vision of polygamy/polyamory I’m thinking of is definitely a “perfect world” scenario — nobody’s getting abused, everyone has a choice in the relationship. And you’re right, the world isn’t perfect and most polygamous relationships are at least somewhat coercive — also many of the women that get involved in them have vulnerabilities like mental problems, self esteem issues, etc. that can be exploited. In that context, such relationships wouldn’t be healthy for kids.
You make a logical and salient point about the economic aspects of it, too. In the scenario I’m visualizing as “acceptable polygamy”, there’s a husband and 3 wives, all adults, all of them working. But what happens when the 3 wives start getting pregnant? Somewhere along the line, it has to end up being a drain on the system. (Especially when you think about a situation like Bountiful, where the 3 wives would be multiplied by 4 or 5.)
“If people want to do this outside the marital system and there aren’t children involved, fine with me. But that isn’t what is before the courts.”
That’s pretty much where I am on it. What’s before the courts is way more involved than any scenario that would be acceptable to me. It should be interesting to see how it shakes out, though.
FF – “making the appearance of having done something, and with trials dates so far into the future, so that it’s not an election campaign issue.”
Really eh? It’s that big of a deal to become an election issue? It’s been going on for a long time and I can’t recall it ever being a big enough issue to affect an election. But maybe people have had enough of the stories coming out of that place.
Just idle speculation, JJ, but it has been a mostly Vancouver media issue for some time now. Comes up on a seemingly semi-regular basis. Bramham has been ‘on the case’ for a few years now.
I also honestly believe Wally O. is sensitive to the criticism that he hasn’t done anything about it. That, too, has been going on for a couple years. Wally’s not a judge anymore, he’s a politician now.
FF – Bountiful has been like white noise around here — always humming in the background, but only getting loud once in awhile. I know Daphne Bramham has been investigating it for awhile.
It’ll be interesting to see how it works out, but hopefully it doesn’t end up in a long court battle. What a waste of taxpayers money.
“What about genetic diseases such as Tay-Sachs or sickle cell
anaemia? If one had several partners, couldn’t the risk
of affecting future generations rise because of polygamous/
polyandrous relationships? And how many generations before
the recessive genes begin to take their toll as they do
on intermarried families/clans? This whole situationof
intermarriage is played out with the royal families of
Europe and they have their attendant genetic problems.”
Well natural selection will take over and polygamous and polyandrous marriage will be selected out.
Or we recognize the fact that for most of human history, polygamy has been the norm and monogamy has been different.
I’m going to side with most people here (no surprise there) and say that as long as we are talking about consenting adults agreeing to the situation without duress and coercion, I fail to see the issue. The real issue is the use of coercion and duress to extract consent or the use of polygamy as a dating service for dirty old men who like their Lolitas. That is an entirely different issue from marriage and should be handled as such.
I personally would never have more than one wife, but I would never tell someone else they couldn’t.
Apparently there are some existing polyandrous situations in Tibetan rural areas. A survival technique.. One woman with 2 men, who are actual brothers to each other.This is to secure life for the children: food and provisions, and if one man dies, the other is still there for support.
Polygamy probably happened during the slave trade times. Women became property with the rise of the patriarchy and hence, a symbol of status and ofcourse a commodity.
Some women like the communal aspect of child rearing.A practical solution;but if there are enough men around, why would one guy get to sow his seed so often? That’s a lot of little Blackmores running around.
We are a strange species.Apparently rape of women is an important tactic in warfare. They leave their imprint .
Women did have some herbs that could help them abort, such as papaya. This was sighted in the book “THE PILL”
.But don’t tell prolifers because we won’t get to have papayas in this country ever again.
“Is it even possible for a woman to survive having 3 or 4 husbands at once?”
Yep. I have a friend who is married to two men. She also has a boyfriend on the side. I swear, I don’t know how she does it.
And she’s got a friend with three husbands.
Our landlords at our last place were a threesome, two women and a man. They seemed quite happy too.
There’s a huge difference between polyamory and polygamy. The situation in Bountiful is horrible. The situation in my friend’s home is quite sweet. Helps that her hubbies are bi…
@JJ – “The vision of polygamy/polyamory I’m thinking of is definitely a “perfect world” scenario — nobody’s getting abused, everyone has a choice in the relationship. And you’re right, the world isn’t perfect and most polygamous relationships are at least somewhat coercive — also many of the women that get involved in them have vulnerabilities like mental problems, self esteem issues, etc. that can be exploited. In that context, such relationships wouldn’t be healthy for kids.”
I think the same could be said for the vision of monogamy – nobody gets abused, everyone has a choice, women don’t have vulberabilities like mental problems, self esteem issues that can be exploited.
re: “the economic aspects of it, too. In the scenario I’m visualizing as “acceptable polygamy”, there’s a husband and 3 wives, all adults, all of them working. But what happens when the 3 wives start getting pregnant?”
I would have to assume that these adults are capable of family planning and budgeting… not popping out kids like rabbits. Again, I think the same could be said for monogamous relationships.
My personal feeling is: as long as all involved parties are consenting, mentally capable HUMAN adults (it’s really frustrating when people start throwing out marriage to animals/inanimate objects as similar arrangements) then it is not anyone elses business. It really is not governments business to regulate marriage.