Negative Liberty

n. — the practice or custom of having more than one husband or wife

Although polygamy has faded into the background of American culture since the LDS state of Utah/Deseret was incorporated into the Union in the late 1800s, it nevertheless remains a factor in Mormon culture, a black spot swept under the rug by the Elders as much as possible (chiefly by excommunication of those discovered to be practicing the now-forbidden tradition). Most Americans have a strong negative reaction to the idea of polygamy. It is seen as dirty, anti-Christian, and anti-American. Part of this is the deep importance of the idea of marriage to American society (astronomically high divorce rates aside), and part of it is Protestant distrust and outright hostility to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. An example of American hosility toward polgyamy was recently seen in a protest held in Salt Lake City by children of polygamist families to defend their way of life. A brave move, to be sure, as their existence is technically illegal.

Polygamists feel persecuted, their way of life threatened in defiance of America’s supposedly tolerant social atmosphere. I’m not going to sit here and go through the legal, social, and religious reasons behind the Union’s insistence on the abolition of polygamy as a condition for admittance. If you want a history lesson, ask me, open a book, or (if you’re desperate) look it up in Wikipedia.

I am here to discuss why I think polygamy—in this case, it should more technically and realistically be called polygyny—is such a terrible practice.

I will not claim to dislike the theoretical practice of polygamy. Just as I think it is not only silly but repressive to define marriage solely in terms of a man and a woman, I think it is equally silly and repressive to constrain marriage to one man and one woman. All such attitudes are close-minded and inherently limiting. Marriage, as defined as both a contract and as an act of love, should not be so constrained. In light of this, I should be all for polygamy.

I’ll start with the very act of marriage. Marriage as it is defined in our society essentially makes a woman subordinate to the man. I know that, since the 1970s and the Women’s Liberation Movement, our society has been less openly misogynist, just as we have been less openly racist since the Equal Rights Movement. However, forty years is a short span of time in the face of human societies, no matter the acceleration in our daily lives thanks to technology. Cliché time: Old habits die hard. Marriage as a contract and as a religious act transforms the woman into an extension of the man: she takes on his name, his debt becomes hers, etc. It is much less so than it has been in the past, to be sure, but the limitations and definitions are still there. Even in multiple marriages the property aspect rears its ugly head; all the wives are married to one man, but not to each other. It’s all about possession, not mutual sharing. Why do you think so many people fight so hard to keep marriage as man-and-woman only? To preserve what has been one of the most useful and profitable hierarchies in human history. As soon as you open up marriage to other orientations, you fatally weaken the primary vehicle for male control of females.

As marriage is not an equal contract, expanding this to include many partners (read: wives) only amplifies the problems. Polygamy as it has been practiced in most societies, and most especially Christian and Muslim societies, is strictly male-oriented. It has been, at one point or another, just fine for a man to take several wives, but it has never been permitted for a woman to take several husbands. This is a side-effect of male-oriented and male-dominated religions which both reflect and help define social mores.

The combination of a focus on multiple wives and an attitude of (religiously ordained) male superiority has made polygamy into what polygamy.org terms “sexual slavery.” Women in such situations exist solely to provide men with sexual pleasure and children, and as women often have few rights (at best) in societies that permit polygamy, there is usually no escape. I am not denying that many men in such families truly love their wives. However, this does not lessen the fact that the women in these families exist almost exclusively to provide and raise children. This has been true in monogamous societies as well, up until very recently, but polygamy amplifies this effect: they are effectively creating baby farms. There are in many cases religious reasons for the creation of baby farms (the Mormons, for example, are planning to repopulate the Earth after the apocalypse), and there have been social reasons for this in the past (a readily available workforce for a large family farm).

Complications and abuse also arise because of the way that these marriages occur. Women as young as fourteen enter the marriage market on behalf of their fathers, married off to chosen mates with no say in the matter. This is by no means unique to polygamist societies—in fact, it’s a norm in most societies throughout history. Choice for a woman is a very rare thing in history. Arranged marriages are just another manifestation of woman-as-property in human societies. Back on track: the youth aspect of modern polygamy is a social remnant, preserved from the days when women began childbearing much earlier and lifespans were much shorter. Another aspect, that of borderline-incest, is more of a circumstantial aspect than anything else. This is far more common in the outlaw polygamist colonies in the United States than it is in Muslim countries, chiefly because it is illegal in the United States. As the “stock” of people available for marriage within a polygamist community is necessarily limited, it is almost inevitable that a fifteen-year-old girl will be forced to marry her half-brother. The very underground nature of polygamy in the United States encourages depraved behavior; as a number of testimonies from women escaped from such communities will tell, they are home to slave-like conditions for women, a desperate attempt to keep control of the vehicle for the communities’ continued existence, free from the prying eyes of “normal” society that might otherwise deem them abusive and pedophilic.

My problems with polygamy boil down to misogyny. In an ideal world, where marriage was defined not in terms of gender and number, it would be no different from any other form of social organization. Religion, however, has passed down to us the holy hierarchy: as man is subservient to God, so shall woman be subservient to man (Sticking just to the Bible for the moment: “Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” Eph. 5:22, and “Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.” 1 Pet. 3:1). To me, polygamy just feels like a meat market.

And no, polyandry would be no better!