Sister Wives

[GiggleOfGirls]

I know someone may bite my head off for this, but I really feel that it should be viewed as a lifestyle choice/freedom of religion issue. I would never dream of telling a homosexual/lesbian couple they should be in jail for wanting to be together. As long as everyone is an adult, no children are endangered, and no fraud is committed, my God, who are they hurting? I know Warren Jeffs tried to use the freedom of religion argument at first when his ass got busted, but if everyone is a consenting adult why shouldn't they be allowed to adhere to this tenant of their faith?

I agree. Really, my main concern is children living with unrelated adults, but that can happen with roommates and stepparents (as well as creepy adoptive families like the fundies who adopted Hana Williams) so it's really not an argument against polygamy.

[Patsy]

^ I agree, and I do see it as a freedom of religion issue when someone can be charged with polygamy for considering themselves married to more than one person, rather than for cohabitation or actual civil bigamy.

That being said, keeping polygamy illegal in this sense does give the authorities a bit of leeway to go after fucked up FLDS situations, and I know I've heard someone else here explain another good reason to keep the laws on the books - perhaps they'll read this post and jump in to remind me what it is?

[wildcatgrrl]

There are concerns about welfare fraud too, as the non-legal wives are technically single parents, IIRC.

[GiggleOfGirls]

If they were legally married then I bet there'd be less welfare fraud related to polygamy.

I'm definitely open to hearing more reasons why polygamy should remain illegal, but from what I understand right now, all the main concerns would either be alleviated (welfare fraud, for one) or remain illegal under other, already existing, laws (child brides, abuse, etc).

[Esther]

I have no real issue with polygamy/polyandry, but I do have a problem with patriarchy, which is why I find the Sister Wives situation iffy. Would Kody be accepting of one of his wives having a second husband? My guess would be no. So I think he's a douche and I think that situation isn't healthy. In general though, though I am not polyamorous myself, I'm all for people doing what they want to do as long as they're all consenting adults. Want to marry two people? I don't much care.

That said, I am WAY Team Brown over Team Duggar. I think Kody's a douchebag but those kids somehow turned out just fine. The Duggar kids... what a tragic situation.

[ILoveJellybeans]

I think polygamy should be legal, I dont think any form of love should be illegal (as long as all parties are consenting human adults). They should also have to work out things between them before, like who will be joining in on this and who can have sex with who (like how Kody's wives are all his wives and dont seem to be in a relationship with eachother, but the threesome that I know all are in a relationship with eachother) and also thought about what would happen if one of the parties should get pregnant and how they are going to deal with it.

Its certainly not for everyone, and requires way more thought than a traditional relationship though.

[GiggleOfGirls]

I have no real issue with polygamy/polyandry, but I do have a problem with patriarchy, which is why I find the Sister Wives situation iffy. Would Kody be accepting of one of his wives having a second husband? My guess would be no. So I think he's a douche and I think that situation isn't healthy. In general though, though I am not polyamorous myself, I'm all for people doing what they want to do as long as they're all consenting adults. Want to marry two people? I don't much care.

That said, I am WAY Team Brown over Team Duggar. I think Kody's a douchebag but those kids somehow turned out just fine. The Duggar kids... what a tragic situation.

I agree with all of this.

Yeah, the Brown children seem to be well-adjusted and capable of surviving in the real world. Time will tell, of course, but I wouldn't be surprised if most of them became successful adults out on their own eventually. I'll be surprised if most of the Duggar children somehow end up being successful adults on their own, which saddens me, because they didn't choose to be raised that way :(

The Duggar children didn't choose to be isolated and to be given a sub-par education and to have umpteen small buddy-siblings to help raise. Maybe the younger ones will be better off with fewer children in the house and more attention, but I'm not holding my breath. They'll still be raised with sub-par education and the girls will still be told that they can't become anything that requires leaving the family to learn. They'll all still be taught that their self-worth comes from how many babies they can either father or bear... It's very depressing, really.

[laura oz]

Just about the only thing I admire Kody and the Krew for is the freedom they have given their children to choose their path for themselves and know they will still be loved. That's no small thing...especially in a patriarchal system. Even with all of their parents dysfunction, they seem pretty well adjusted. Good on 'em :clap:

[SilverBeach]

For polygamy to be sustainable, it must work both ways and allow for multiple husbands and multiple wives. Otherwise, at some point unmarried males will have no one to marry, hence the lost boys of the FLDS. More powerful, older men simply eliminate the competition. Even without that, the married male - female ratio would get skewed pretty fast if male-only polygamy was widespread. That said, what consenting adults do is not the state's business, nor mine. I feel that only the legal marriage counts anyway, and the rest are shack-ups, and people can shack up if they want, no laws are broken until more than one legal marriage has taken place.

[Cassia]

This is an old interview from 2007 or 2008. I always knew that I recognized Christine when I saw her on Sister Wives, and then I also recognized the Darger twin wives when I saw them on My Three Wives. Then it hit me, I had seen them all in an interview together a few years ago - and here it is. Sorry, I don't know how to imbed youtube videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OEaRn3uHsc

This interview is mostly with the Darger wives, but I'm going to put it in this thread because Christine speaks a few times. I'm also going to copy this and put it into the My Three Wives thread.

[greek_chorus]

For polygamy to be sustainable, it must work both ways and allow for multiple husbands and multiple wives. Otherwise, at some point unmarried males will have no one to marry, hence the lost boys of the FLDS. More powerful, older men simply eliminate the competition. Even without that, the married male - female ratio would get skewed pretty fast if male-only polygamy was widespread. That said, what consenting adults do is not the state's business, nor mine. I feel that only the legal marriage counts anyway, and the rest are shack-ups, and people can shack up if they want, no laws are broken until more than one legal marriage has taken place.

There are issues of TANF, SNAP and medicaid fraud though, and that is illegal whether they're consenting adults or not.

[veron1que]

There are concerns about welfare fraud too, as the non-legal wives are technically single parents, IIRC.

How is that fraud though? By law they are no different than a baby momma who may or may not still be involved with her children's father.

They don't get marriage benefits, such as shared insurance, or tax stuff, so why shouldn't they be eligible for welfare?

[SilverBeach]

How is that fraud though? By law they are no different than a baby momma who may or may not still be involved with her children's father.

They don't get marriage benefits, such as shared insurance, or tax stuff, so why shouldn't they be eligible for welfare?

ITA, it is not illegal yo have children by people you are noy married to, and if you qualify for benefits, you qualify.

[greek_chorus]

ITA, it is not illegal yo have children by people you are noy married to, and if you qualify for benefits, you qualify.

I agree that if you qualify benefits you're entitled to them, and I am very glad we have them and wish they were more progressive in their ability to actually help people. That's not the fraud.

The fraud occurs when the sister wives falsify their applications by claiming to not know the whereabouts of the father, not know who he is and the biggest lie I'm willing to bet they all commit "he doesn't live with us." States differ in how they deal with this, some pay the mothers more money if they identify the father and they'll just keep testing man after man. If a woman claims her relationship is abusive and she fears for her safety, some states waive this requirement and will give her the additional funds without pursuing the father for child support. I think this is good and as it should be. I'm just not going to pretend the Browns' are any different than any other polygamous family or group. They may not need welfare and food stamp benefits now, but I doubt very much that they're public assistance applications were entirely truthful.

It's much easier to qualify for welfare benefits as a single mother, even if you're living with other adults (not the father) who are contributing to your financial support, than it is if you are a couple (married or unmarried). Welfare income limits are ridiculously low and the nature of plural marriage allows the non-legal wives to claim they are single mothers and that the father of their children isn't living in the house or supporting them when this in absolutely not true. That's the fraud and it is illegal.

[2xx1xy1JD]

I agree that if you qualify benefits you're entitled to them, and I am very glad we have them and wish they were more progressive in their ability to actually help people. That's not the fraud.

The fraud occurs when the sister wives falsify their applications by claiming to not know the whereabouts of the father, not know who he is and the biggest lie I'm willing to bet they all commit "he doesn't live with us." States differ in how they deal with this, some pay the mothers more money if they identify the father and they'll just keep testing man after man. If a woman claims her relationship is abusive and she fears for her safety, some states waive this requirement and will give her the additional funds without pursuing the father for child support. I think this is good and as it should be. I'm just not going to pretend the Browns' are any different than any other polygamous family or group. They may not need welfare and food stamp benefits now, but I doubt very much that they're public assistance applications were entirely truthful.

It's much easier to qualify for welfare benefits as a single mother, even if you're living with other adults (not the father) who are contributing to your financial support, than it is if you are a couple (married or unmarried). Welfare income limits are ridiculously low and the nature of plural marriage allows the non-legal wives to claim they are single mothers and that the father of their children isn't living in the house or supporting them when this in absolutely not true. That's the fraud and it is illegal.

How does keeping polygamy a crime deal with this issue though?

Fraud is already a crime.

This type of welfare fraud isn't so different from the type that's seen with many single parents, where the identity of the father is falsely said to be unknown, or where the single parent is actually involved in a relationship.

I think that there are some objective reasons for seeing polygamous relationships as less beneficial to society than monogamous ones, but I'm not sure that it makes sense to criminalize it when other potentially harmful forms of relationships (ie. adultery, casual sex) are no longer illegal.

[greek_chorus]

How does keeping polygamy a crime deal with this issue though?

Fraud is already a crime.

This type of welfare fraud isn't so different from the type that's seen with many single parents, where the identity of the father is falsely said to be unknown, or where the single parent is actually involved in a relationship.

I think that there are some objective reasons for seeing polygamous relationships as less beneficial to society than monogamous ones, but I'm not sure that it makes sense to criminalize it when other potentially harmful forms of relationships (ie. adultery, casual sex) are no longer illegal.

I think the fraud issue is more of an option for prosecutors to pursue than anything else. The difference between polygamists and other single parents when it comes to possible welfare fraud is multiplicity. Kody currently has 14 biological children all but one are the offspring of his plural wives and Joe Darger has 20+. Your average average welfare recipient probably doesn't have this many biological children and it's probably safe to say that the parents and grandparents of those children aren't telling those kids to grow up and multiply Duggar style, and begin collecting spouses the way the some families adopt children. The average number of children per welfare recipient is something like 1.5 or 2, not greater than 5, 10, 20 who then encourage future generations to continue on the same path.

I'm of the opinion that polygamy is bad for society and should remain illegal. I can't see me changing my mind in the future, but you never know. The patriarchy of the LDS church forget about the FLDS church and all their other offshoots is very troubling to me. I put Mormonism about one step above Scientology and in my eye they're both pretty cultish and far outside the mainstream. Adultery and casual sex do not have the same history of incest, rape, child abuse, child rape and violence towards women that polygamy does. For every Darger or Brown there are way too many Jessops and Jeffs. I don't see anything good that comes from decriminalizing polygamy. There are still several states where adultery is a crime and some where it's even a felony. What Utah and other states with higher populations of plural marriage have done is to legislate behavior. This isn't very effective, but I'm not sure what other options they have.

[NovemberRain]

I never thought about the fact that the men have ridiculous amounts of children. I mean i realized it, but i never thought how much state assistance would be given to them. That could get really expensive and be taking away from people who really need it.

Most of the people i know who were on assistance went back to school and got jobs when their children were in school full-time.

[greek_chorus]

I never thought about the fact that the men have ridiculous amounts of children. I mean i realized it, but i never thought how much state assistance would be given to them. That could get really expensive and be taking away from people who really need it.

Most of the people i know who were on assistance went back to school and got jobs when their children were in school full-time.

Most of the people I know have done the same. I really didn't want to come across as being anti-assistance, because I'm anything but. I would rather we have people who take advantage of the system if it means the people who need it are able to access it. But when you start thinking about how many babies one man can father with multiple women it's mind boggling and even I can't condone that sort of societal burden.

[wildcatgrrl]

Thanks, Greek Chorus. :)

To be fair, a "regular"/non-polygamist guy could impregnate and leave several women with kids as well. But I think a big difference with the polygamist families who commit welfare fraud is that they have all the benefits of having a father around (even though it's time and money shared with the other subfamilies of wives and kids) and still get the government benefits as well. So they get it all. If Joe Blow fathers 10 babies by 10 different women, he's probably not stuck around with/for any of them, save for maybe the most recent, so those kids and moms may truly need the money.

That said, I don't know that polygamy should be illegal. If only consenting adults are involved and there is no type of abuse or fraud going on, there's really no difference between Dad marrying all the Moms and Dad marrying one Mom and keeping the others around like mistresses, which is totally legal.

[DarkAnts]

For polygamy to be sustainable, it must work both ways and allow for multiple husbands and multiple wives. Otherwise, at some point unmarried males will have no one to marry, hence the lost boys of the FLDS. More powerful, older men simply eliminate the competition. Even without that, the married male - female ratio would get skewed pretty fast if male-only polygamy was widespread. That said, what consenting adults do is not the state's business, nor mine. I feel that only the legal marriage counts anyway, and the rest are shack-ups, and people can shack up if they want, no laws are broken until more than one legal marriage has taken place.

Utah has common law marriage. One part of this law says that a court can say you are married if you have lived together for 24 months or tell everyone that you are married. So, based on this law, the brown were practicing polygamy.

[greek_chorus]

Thanks, Greek Chorus. :)

To be fair, a "regular"/non-polygamist guy could impregnate and leave several women with kids as well. But I think a big difference with the polygamist families who commit welfare fraud is that they have all the benefits of having a father around (even though it's time and money shared with the other subfamilies of wives and kids) and still get the government benefits as well. So they get it all. If Joe Blow fathers 10 babies by 10 different women, he's probably not stuck around with/for any of them, save for maybe the most recent, so those kids and moms may truly need the money.

That said, I don't know that polygamy should be illegal. If only consenting adults are involved and there is no type of abuse or fraud going on, there's really no difference between Dad marrying all the Moms and Dad marrying one Mom and keeping the others around like mistresses, which is totally legal.

A regular guy could, but it's unlikely his offspring are going to be expected and encouraged to do the same thing generation after generation.

If polygamy becomes legal how will divorce work? What happens when one person wants out and the others don't? Whose income is calculated for child support and alimony and how are assets divided? How is maintaining quality of life measured? What about visitation rights? God forbid there's an adoption or surrogacy.

Divorce between two people is difficult enough add in 3 or 20 and it becomes insane. Also, how many spouses could a person have, three, four or unlimited? I think very few people actually have the financial resources to really pull off a polygamist lifestyle without committing some form of fraud. I'm skeptical of the whole thing and it does not benefit women or even men for that matter as a whole. Perhaps individual women don't mind it, but I have to wonder what's going on with them psychologically that they don't think they deserve or want a full relationship with their partner and will accept just a partial relationship.

[veron1que]

A regular guy could, but it's unlikely his offspring are going to be expected and encouraged to do the same thing generation after generation.

If polygamy becomes legal how will divorce work? What happens when one person wants out and the others don't? Whose income is calculated for child support and alimony and how are assets divided? How is maintaining quality of life measured? What about visitation rights? God forbid there's an adoption or surrogacy.

Divorce between two people is difficult enough add in 3 or 20 and it becomes insane. Also, how many spouses could a person have, three, four or unlimited? I think very few people actually have the financial resources to really pull off a polygamist lifestyle without committing some form of fraud. I'm skeptical of the whole thing and it does not benefit women or even men for that matter as a whole. Perhaps individual women don't mind it, but I have to wonder what's going on with them psychologically that they don't think they deserve or want a full relationship with their partner and will accept just a partial relationship.

While I don't think that the "regular guys" having lots of children (such as Desmond Hatchett) encourage their children to model their excessive reproduction, I don't think those kids are immune from taking a similar path generation to generation. Often teen mothers were born when their moms were teens, etc. And in poor urban areas where there is minimal family planning, and kids are sexually active at a young age, lots of them have more kids than desirable generation after generation.

I would like to see polygamy de-criminalized but not recognized. As in it's not illegal to claim to be married to someone or to "practice" polygamy, but marriage rights are only given to the first spouse. Also, to contradict what was stated before you cannot claim the Brown's have committed polygamy by the standard of common law marriages, because you can't be considered to be common law married if one of the pair is already legally married.

In a country where nearly half of all marriages end in divorce, I could see allowing people to have multiple marriages result in people not bothering to divorce. It would be a mess.

[wildcatgrrl]

I would like to see polygamy de-criminalized but not recognized. As in it's not illegal to claim to be married to someone or to "practice" polygamy, but marriage rights are only given to the first spouse.

This exactly. Not illegal, but not legal either.

[gustava]

Polygamy requires patriarchy. We snark at patriarchy on this site when it applies to monogamous Christians, but not when it comes to polygamy. Double standard.

[dairyfreelife]

Polygamy requires patriarchy. We snark at patriarchy on this site when it applies to monogamous Christians, but not when it comes to polygamy. Double standard.

Well, I think polygamy became legal, polyandry should also be legal. As long as all adults are consenting, legal adults, I don't see how it's my business what they do with their life. If no abuse, fraud or other criminal act is being committed, I say do as you wish if it's not hurting anyone.