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Family defends polygamy, calls it a culture of love
Family defends polygamy, calls it a culture of love
by Dennis Wagner - Jun. 1, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
CENTENNIAL PARK - Polly stands outside the Merry Wives Cafe, a prearranged rendezvous point, nervously watching vehicles pull up. She is middle-aged, clear-eyed and maternal, with an easy smile.
She apologizes to a reporter for withholding her last name but says she cannot risk getting arrested. "I have children," she explains later, her eyes moist.
Polly leads the way to a nearby office. Three others are waiting there: her adult kids, each dressed in fashionable business attire. The introductions begin:
• Lorine, 30, is not a birth daughter but insists that Polly is her mom. She has degrees in business management and English literature. She traveled the West on business before entering a polygamous marriage four years ago.
• Bethany, 21, a birth daughter, also is in a plural marriage. She has a community-college degree, works as an administrative assistant and runs a graphic-design business out of her home.
• Joseph, 19, who is Polly's birth son, graduated from high school two years ago and spent a year as a community volunteer before starting college. He is unmarried and not dating.
They decline to divulge details about their families, fearful that specific admissions may be used against them in a future purge of polygamists. But they are eager to challenge the popular notion that polygamous spouses are brainwashed, and they assail the history of anti-bigamy laws.
At a public forum days earlier, Polly says, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff made it clear he would prosecute polygamists if he had enough money, manpower and jail space.
"This is targeted persecution based on a religious belief," Lorine says angrily. "We're fighting for the right to decriminalize our lifestyle and legalize it."
Polly and her children belong to The Work of Jesus Christ, a group that rejects child marriages and embraces the modern world.
At 41, Polly has nine birth children and is a teacher at the local school, with a bachelor's degree in business and a master's degree in education.
She shakes her head at the depictions of her as a dupe or cultist. "I have these beautiful children and this wonderful family, and I try to figure out what I'm doing wrong," she says. "I'm completely baffled that someone would look at me and say, 'You know what? You're ignorant.'
"With the help of my spiritual leaders, I chose the man I was going to marry," she says. "I hate to call myself a women's libber because it has so many negative connotations. But in a lot of aspects the way we live is a woman's dream. . . . It's about being the woman that you know you can be." As an example, she said while working toward her degree and in a career, other mothers in her household helped look after her children and take care of housekeeping.
The dream comes with complications. To maintain secrecy, wives must be careful how they identify themselves. They avoid shopping together or socializing with the husband's business associates. Children learn not to refer to their father as Dad or their step-siblings as brother and sister.
Lorine says she was so fearful of prejudice while attending the University of Southern Utah that she never disclosed her background to friends or classmates, and she turned down all dates.
After graduation, she got into business, traveling throughout the West and continued that career after marriage. This year, she settled into domestic life with birth children and the rest of her family.
"I'm a plural wife. I chose this lifestyle with my eyes open," she says. "And I would fight for the right of my daughter to choose it. . . . I was raised in a culture of love."
While plural marriage is a tenet of her faith, Polly insists it also creates a stable family structure. She waves off questions about what happens to men who cannot find wives and rejects the idea that anti-bigamy laws were adopted for the public good.
Rather, Polly says, legislation outlawing polygamy constitutes an attack on one religious practice by a "moral majority" from other faiths.
The family members complain of bigotry and hypocrisy in a nation that treats adultery and divorce as routine yet is repulsed by plural marriages.
"America is about polygamy," Polly says. "It's just that they want to do it one person at a time - serial polygamists. We see marriage differently . . . something that will last forever."
__________________
Here's to the Army and Navy and the battles they have won; here's to America's colors, the colors that never run. May the wings of liberty never lose a feather. ....
Polygamy is much more widespread around the world than people believe. Islam allows up to three wives. Then there's FLDS and offshoots. Then there's some people who are not religious who practice it.
I'm with Linderbee on this one - if it doesn't involve child marriages, and the adults are all consenting, it's really none of my business - it doesn't affect me.
There was a great program on Islamic Polygamy in the US on NPR last week. Most of the dozen or so women were from African nations, but there was one Palestinian and a couple other Arabs. Islam allows 4 wives if the man can support them equally and love them all equally.
Listening to the women discussing how they were told there was going to be another wife, or that they would be a second or third wife, was really heartbreaking. Woman after woman said they found out when he said something like 'fix something special for dinner, I'm bringing my new wife home," or "make sure my shoes are polished, I'm getting married tomorrow."
Only one woman, whose husband divorced her and left her with three or four kids, was pleased -- as a divorced woman (or as a widow) even well-educated, she was left without any social connections, could be at work and at home, but nowhere else, and was considered something almost untouchable. A wealthy man asked her to be his second wife, gave her a house, splits his time between the two families, and she's ecstatic. His first wife was furious and heartbroken, she said, but frankly, she didn't care.
They were NOT consenting adults; in Islam they had no choice of who they would be married to, or whether it would be monogamous or polygamous, and if he lied or changed his mind about monogamy, they have absolutely no recourse.
Polygamy is based on a totally patriarchal view of social relations. It never allows for polyandry, you notice? When Islam or the FLDS Church or any other ideology gives equal status and encouragement to polyandry, AND disallows obtaining welfare support, which nearly every Polygamous population depends on in the modern world, THEN and only then, it 'won't affect you.'
__________________
oderint dum metuant (Latin for 'let them hate, so long as they fear').
Well, in truth I'm actually not a total hawk, but I'm not a dove either -- I'm more like an angry pigeon flying over the political arena after a really big meal. -Abba Gav
There was a great program on Islamic Polygamy in the US on NPR last week. Most of the dozen or so women were from African nations, but there was one Palestinian and a couple other Arabs. Islam allows 4 wives if the man can support them equally and love them all equally.
Listening to the women discussing how they were told there was going to be another wife, or that they would be a second or third wife, was really heartbreaking. Woman after woman said they found out when he said something like 'fix something special for dinner, I'm bringing my new wife home," or "make sure my shoes are polished, I'm getting married tomorrow."
Only one woman, whose husband divorced her and left her with three or four kids, was pleased -- as a divorced woman (or as a widow) even well-educated, she was left without any social connections, could be at work and at home, but nowhere else, and was considered something almost untouchable. A wealthy man asked her to be his second wife, gave her a house, splits his time between the two families, and she's ecstatic. His first wife was furious and heartbroken, she said, but frankly, she didn't care.
They were NOT consenting adults; in Islam they had no choice of who they would be married to, or whether it would be monogamous or polygamous, and if he lied or changed his mind about monogamy, they have absolutely no recourse.
Polygamy is based on a totally patriarchal view of social relations. It never allows for polyandry, you notice? When Islam or the FLDS Church or any other ideology gives equal status and encouragement to polyandry, AND disallows obtaining welfare support, which nearly every Polygamous population depends on in the modern world, THEN and only then, it 'won't affect you.'
I can't speak for Linda, but I know that what I was talking about was a polygamous relationship between consenting adults, not the polygamus relationships forced on others. And unlike Islam or the FLDS Church, I have no problem with women having more than one husband. Especially if they have big bucks and like older men.
My point is, it never goes both ways. Polygamy is derived from very old patriarchal social structures, and it has never yet existed where that's not true. I don't believe it can, because that attitude is too recent to just decide to shed the cultural subtext successfully.
I have known half a dozen people very well over the past 35 years, male and female, who touted poly-marriage between consenting adults. Whether it was free-love hippies or educated 'open-marriages' types, it always -- every time -- ended up with the females being socially pressured quite heavily (if subtly) to accept what hubby wanted.
They usually tolerated it the same way women stay in bad marriages or abusive marriages -- because they have kids, or they have no good financial or social options, or they feel ashamed or dumb or not enlightened and selfless enough yet (that one's straight 1960's, but I heard it just a couple years ago, too).
Likewise, in the three cases I know where the woman decided it worked both ways and tried to bring new 'husbands' home, well that's like putting two bulls in the same pasture, basically. The instinctive jealousy men feel is no different than what the women feel, but whereas women are likely to be pressured or trapped into depressed silence, the males find some way to do the stick-thumping routine until one or the other (or all) split. The most sophisticated version I saw was the 'first' man on the scene 'mentoring' the newcomer -- best of friends -- until jealousy finally took over when #1 guy discovered he wasn't going to get to say where 'the Mrs.' was spending her time.
It is an absolute set-up for women and children to be oppressed, impoverished, or abandoned. The majority of polygamists (cult or 'not') depend on welfare of some sort. It's just not a victimless situation.
__________________
oderint dum metuant (Latin for 'let them hate, so long as they fear').
Well, in truth I'm actually not a total hawk, but I'm not a dove either -- I'm more like an angry pigeon flying over the political arena after a really big meal. -Abba Gav
My point is, it never goes both ways. Polygamy is derived from very old patriarchal social structures, and it has never yet existed where that's not true. I don't believe it can, because that attitude is too recent to just decide to shed the cultural subtext successfully.
I have known half a dozen people very well over the past 35 years, male and female, who touted poly-marriage between consenting adults. Whether it was free-love hippies or educated 'open-marriages' types, it always -- every time -- ended up with the females being socially pressured quite heavily (if subtly) to accept what hubby wanted.
They usually tolerated it the same way women stay in bad marriages or abusive marriages -- because they have kids, or they have no good financial or social options, or they feel ashamed or dumb or not enlightened and selfless enough yet (that one's straight 1960's, but I heard it just a couple years ago, too).
Likewise, in the three cases I know where the woman decided it worked both ways and tried to bring new 'husbands' home, well that's like putting two bulls in the same pasture, basically. The instinctive jealousy men feel is no different than what the women feel, but whereas women are likely to be pressured or trapped into depressed silence, the males find some way to do the stick-thumping routine until one or the other (or all) split. The most sophisticated version I saw was the 'first' man on the scene 'mentoring' the newcomer -- best of friends -- until jealousy finally took over when #1 guy discovered he wasn't going to get to say where 'the Mrs.' was spending her time.
It is an absolute set-up for women and children to be oppressed, impoverished, or abandoned. The majority of polygamists (cult or 'not') depend on welfare of some sort. It's just not a victimless situation.
I'll take your word for it AZZ. I know very little about polygamy and haven't giving it anywhere near the thought you obviously have. I stand corrected.
Zen, your description is the exact description of a situation I know of among friends in San Francisco. They were poly-amourous disciples until feelings inevitably became involved. Destroyed two marriages.
I would like to add the caveat that I am okay with the whole thing if there are no child marriages, and if there is not welfare fraud involved. Most people can ill afford to raise one family, let alone two or three
dreamcastrocks--My Hero!!
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