When I heard about the raid on a fundamentalist Texas compound called Yearning for Zion, I got to thinking about polygamy (well, my initial thought was more along the lines of “wow, I really want to hurl my coffee cup at the wall,” but that should probably go without saying).
Although the raid was part of an ongoing child abuse probe (hence my desire to destroy a perfectly innocent coffee cup), the issue of polygamy once again took center stage as Americans and everyone else who watched the news coming out of Texas began a new round of debating the subject.
Let me put this as succinctly as possible: If you advocate for the legalization of polygamy in the States, I will only take you seriously if you advocate polyandry as well. Now for the caveat:
You don’t have to advocate polyandry within your own sect. All you have to do is be able to say that, “I’m from group X, and we do it like this, but if someone from group Y does the opposite, well, I’m not going to fire-bomb/harass/defame them.”
I live in a Muslim country at the moment, and to me, polygamy is nothing shocking. It’s just there, like the weather. I don’t judge people who engage in it, although I understand that coercion and disparate power dynamics can play a big role in polygamous families.
Regardless of religion, people have different reasons for engaging in polygamy. It’s always interesting and important to read female accounts on the subject: whether they liked it, hated it, or both, or whether they merely say “eh” about it.
Some women do not agree with me on the subject of polyandry. Many will defend the practice of marrying multiple partners as strictly a man’s right. The arguments in regards to that can be quite unexpected.
“Think about all those men and that one poor woman!” One lady told me. “She’ll be forced to have sex every day! What if she doesn’t want that?”
“Well,” I’d say, “if she doesn’t want it, it’s rape, and I’m not pushing to legalize rape.”
“But she will feel obligated!”
Perhaps some women would feel obligated, in that sort of situation. A relationship which involves only two people is tricky enough to navigate, and I can’t presume to be well-educated on the subject of relationship where more people are involved. All I can say is that the state should at least try to stay out of adult people’s bedrooms. To a reasonable degree, that is.
Yearning for Zion presents a very specific and yet chillingly familiar situation. Scandal and speculation drive television ratings, I can only wish that Texas law enforcement will be allowed to do its job, and do it well. If thirteen-year-old girls are getting impregnated, freedom of religion is no longer an issue.
Many people argue that fundamentalist communities are the ideal breeding ground for rape and abuse. Although I strive to be tolerant of individual spiritual beliefs, I tend to agree. For all its emphasis on purity, fundamentalist interpretation of religious texts tends to achieve the opposite in its adherents.
Isolating people (especially women and children) “for their own good” has always struck me as just a tad disingenuous.
Fundamentalism and polygamy, meanwhile, often seem to go hand-in-hand with one another. This isn’t always the case, but it happens frequently enough. While I wouldn’t want to extrapolate all this to something like “polygamists are prone to child abuse! Egads!” – it can, and should, be useful to examine the different kinds of polygamists out there, and whether or not the basic tenets of their personal beliefs can create an atmosphere where the impregnation of thirteen-year-old girls is considered just fine and dandy.
If you, as a polygamist, strive to “own” as many women as possible, if you enjoy the idea of controlling your own little “corral” of passive females, well, buddy, you are suspicious in my book. If you believe that wives are there merely for your pleasure and consumption, if that’s all that they are to you, I don’t doubt that your position will enable you to commit crimes against the helpless. After all, you are entitled, aren’t you? You’re the center of the universe, and women orbit you as lesser satellites!
If you’re a woman who believes the above about herself, there is a pretty good chance that you will stand idly by as God-knows-what is done to your daughter. If you do not value yourself, why should you expect anything different for your child, especially if she is female?
Think about it.
Once again, it’s not my intention to generalize about all polygamists. Neither do I believe that we know everything there is to know about Yearning for Zion. So far, it’s just a media spectacle to those of us who are lucky enough to be mere observers. The lived reality of the vast majority of community members cannot be transmuted in a soundbite, or even a Larry King segment.
Are things as bad inside that compound as the media has made it seem so far? I hope the answer is “no,” but my own experiences have taught me to expect a “yes.”
Perhaps the best we can hope for at this point is a more open and productive national dialogue on the subject of marriage, family, abuse, and the possibilities of prevention. A family that exists strictly behind a closed door is a family where abuse can thrive like pond-scum, undetected, and unchecked.
Fundamentalism and polygamy, meanwhile, often seem to go hand-in-hand with one another
Perhaps because of the “social economy” necessary to maintain polygamy (in the absence of counterbalancing instances of polyandry).
Viz, the systematic expulsion from the community for trumped up reasons (usually having to do with one or another form of “insubordination”) of male children as they transit adolescence.
Fundamentalism… “social economy” .. systematic expulsion
That was a little too cryptic.
You need the authoritarian outcome of a fundamentalist worldview to empower a regime that requires mothers and sisters to acquiesce in the banishment of their sons and brothers as they become sexual competitors to the “Eldars”
I don’t want to sound mean, but you really don’t sound like a feminist to me. I’ve seen your writing elsewhere, and you seem to be very forgiving and uncritical of patriarchal institutions, which is true of your latest article. You are essentially giving polygamy a free pass, completely ignoring the suffering of women who are in polygamy.
The fact that you also jump all over Amanda Marcotte (I googled you and found your blog) is also making me suspicious.
You seem to have a “divide and conquer” approach to feminism.
Read the post again. She’s not giving polygamy a free pass.
Also, this site isn’t “Amanda Comment.” There’s plenty of places where Amanda’s on-topic, including a post at Natalia’s blog.
Your ad hominem is kind of awkward.
Hi Sandi, and welcome to GC.
I hope you’re not implying that unequivocal support for everything Amanda Marcotte says/does is the mark of a “true” feminist. A variety of feminists have taken issue with some of Amanda’s writing, are you also suspicious of them?
“Divide and conquer” is not the intention here. If we can’t look critically at the movement and its problems, you are ensuring that many, many people continue to be marginalized within it.
As for polygamy, I don’t believe you read my column very closely. If you had, you would have noticed that I am far from a cheerleader for this practice. However, neither will I issue a blanket condemnation of all the people who are engaged in it – doing so is unproductive and insensitive.
Different women are/have been involved in polygamous relationships, and not just within the framework of Islam or Christianity. Automatically assuming that all of their cases are exactly the same is patronizing. It goes back to what I was saying about marginalization.
Hi. OK. I see “polygamy is sometimes fine” and I see “Amanda Marcotte is a horrible human being” and start to get uncomfortable.
It was not my intention to be mean or offensive. But you have to admit: a lot of sexist women use feminism as a cover.
I’m not implying that you’re sexist. But that’s how you are coming off here. Add to that your defense of porn on your personal blog, and you end up with a strange concoction, at a glance.
I know that other people have criticized Amanda Marcotte, I saw those criticisms when I followed the links on your blog. I haven’t read Pandagon in ages, but I am unsurprised that she is under fire again. It comes with the territory.
On the other hand, I do not believe that Marcotte is the image of perfection. Maybe she really did mess up. I thought she already admitted as much, however.
*sigh*
Sandi, I kind of HATE it how even this discussion is being derailed by The Amanda Marcotte Show. If you care for Amanda, perhaps you shouldn’t single her out. Talking about the larger issues is much more helpful and productive at this point.
Now, I do not presume to know Amanda’s feelings on the matter, but she has not “admitted” anything at this point. In fact, all she has done is talk about her career, and how everyone who says anything that isn’t 100% supportive is just trying to derail it. I am sure that this situation has hurt her tremendously, and I have sympathy, but she is in a hole and digging all the way to China.
Maybe, when she wants to stop, she can engage in productive dialogue. I have my fingers crossed.
Also, in regards to polygamy – yes, sometimes it’s perfectly fine. If you don’t wish to think of me as a feminist for saying that, that’s your prerogative.
But honestly, this is the sort of thinking that has crippled the feminist movement, and caused many allies to simply disengage.
What would you tell a woman who is in a polygamous relationship and staying in it out of choice? “Sorry, honey, you can’t be in our club”…?
Fair enough. I’ll stop talking about Amanda.
Per the woman in polygamy: I would be there for her if she ever wanted to get out. I can’t make that decision for someone, but I hope that they would eventually be able to do it. Being part of some man’s harem harms not only individual but women on the whole, because it reduces every single one of us to accessories that men collect.
You want to be “culturally sensitive,” and that’s fine. It’s what’s hip, I get it.
wooo, look, more of ‘what’s for women’s own good’.
Natalia- this was a very good piece, you clearly drew a line between the choice of people to engage in polygamy and a disrust/dislike of the idea of any woman being forced into it or thinking it was her only option. I agree that people need to stay out of the bedrooms of consenting adults, but in cases where children or women with no other options or pressure is involved…that is not a real choice.
Thanks, Ren.
Sandi – ICK. First of all, not every polygamous family functions as some sort of “harem.” And your dig at my “hip cultural sensitivity” is simply tone-deaf.
I am trying to engage you in good faith, but you do not seem to value that.
You should check out the blogger Muslim Hedonist:
hedonist.progressiveislam.org
She writes from the perspective of a polygamy survivor, and has few good things to say about the experience (in fact, she has NO good things to say about it, as far as I can see). However, I cannot imagine her being this patronizing.
When thinking about polygamy at the FLDS compound, it’s useless to generalize about polygamy as an abstraction. The polygamy practiced by FLDS was established precisely in order to enforce an unequal power relationship between a single husband and multiple wives. Psychologically normal adults, if they really do have a feasible choice, don’t usually accept an exceptionally vulnerable role in any relationship, whether it be in marriage, employment, or anything else.
In cultures where polygamy is at least one of the religious or cultural options, it might be hard to determine whether a woman who claims that she “freely” accepts polygamy is actually psychologically normal. In the comments in response to Ali Eteraz’s 2007 blog post on Muslim polygamy, as I recall, nearly all the self-identified Muslim women bitterly objected to polygamy. But of the women who did not object to it, who can determine if they’re psychologically normal? What if, in a given culture, a woman since childhood has been trained to internalize a doctrine that gives men and women grossly unequal shares of power in a marital relationship, even to the point that such a woman would “freely” endorse polygamy? What of a (female) American convert to Islam who joyfully embraces polygamy as part of her new religion? Is such a woman a psychological cripple who is embracing an authoritarian religion in order to avoid the risks involved in making her own marital decisions at least to the point of rejecting polygamy? In the deep South, where I live, some men and women do in fact convert to fundamentalist religion precisely because they cannot bear the burden of “too much” free choice. I assume that such people are indeed psychological cripples. But, if a psychological cripple freely (without pressure) prefers what he/she thinks is the safety of obedience (as in polygamy) rather than the supposed risks of freedom, and also has the feasible option of rejecting the role of obedience at any time for the remainder of his/her life, can society claim that such a cripple must be protected from his/her own “free” choice, if a role of obedience (as in polygamy) is the most freedom that a cripple can tolerate?
I make the above comments not in order to defend polygamy (I don’t), but because, in the online news, at least one of the multiple FLDS wives fiercely claimed in an interview that, in closing the FLDS polygamous, Texas law enforcement was in fact robbing her of her right to make her own choices. I’ll assume that that interviewee really was a psychological cripple who really didn’t know any better. But if it can be shown that that woman, even if psychologically crippled, really was not pressured into joining the compound and that, as far as she understood her own motives, she really did consciously prefer a polygamous relationship, does society have a duty to stand between her and her own “free choices,” assuming that she always has the right to leave at any time and that children are not in fact abused?
I assume this is the point that Sandi is implying, namely, that patriarchal cultures deliberately indocrinate women to accept a grossly reduced share of power in polygamous relationships, and that therefore any talk about such women’s “free” choices is disingenuous.
But in the U.S., where monogamous marriages are the cultural norm, if women, even if they happen to be psychological cripples, do “freely” accept polygamy, with the feasible option to leave at any time, etc., what authority does society have to prevent them from choosing the most freedom that such cripples can tolerate?
This is not an argument in favor of polygamy. I realize that in real life, women who supposedly “freely” choose polygamy find themselves trapped in conditions in which they have almost no power at all, and in real life no society should allow that.
But again, I am reminded of that single interviewee at the FLDS compound who complained bitterly that, in ending the polygamous marriage, law enforcement was preventing her from making her own free choice.
So my question is, to what degree to psychological cripples have the right to make a “free” choice, provided that under no circumstances will they be legally or financially trapped or children abused? I’m not certain how to answer that question, except to note that, in a monogamous culture, psychologically healthy women do not freely accept the grossly reduced share of power available to them in polygamy.
Correction to above post, last paragraph, 1st line:
Phrase reading: “… to what degree TO … cripples …”
Should instead read:
“… to what degree DO … cripples …”
I hope that clarifies it.
My cousin sent me a link to this piece. She said it was one of the few good essays on polygamy she has seen recently.
Natalia, you could say that I am in a polygamous relationship:
I have been married for many years. We are in love with each other, but our needs do not always match up. I am one of those people who needs her space. I am not often able or willing to give him the attention he craves. You can imagine that this ended up putting a strain on our marriage. We separated for six months once, and in that time he met someone new. He was honest about being married, and she did not mind. We were initially going to divorce, but then we asked ourselves “why?” Why demolish a marriage if it still means something to both of us? We both realized that having another person in our lives was helping us instead of hurting us. It made sense.
The three of us do not live together, but I recognize Jenny (not her real name, of course) as a person who is part of our lives and she does the same for me. For almost five years we have enjoyed an organically peaceful and happy arrangement. None of us are religious, and we’re far too old to consider having kids. This means that our situation is not nearly as complicated as it might appear.
Although a few members of my family know about our arrangement, I choose to keep my parents in the dark. This would not be something they could process or understand. We are not the norm, but the exception. But we are real, and we know that there are others who choose a similar lifestyle. This is all that I wanted to say. Thanks for recognizing that not all families can possibly be the same.
Very unique? What about my relationship? I’m not the only poly person I know, and we’re all in happy, stable relationships where all partners are aware of the dynamics and like each other, even if not everyone is romantically involved with everyone else. One of us is married. One pair is expecting a child. All of us at least cohabitate, and it works for us.
There are tons of polyamory resources online, and many many
many groups of us. While every group has its assholes, breakups, and bad matches, we’re no more likely to do or be these things than monogamous people.
To insist that the hierarchical FLDS model is the most common version is simply incorrect, not to mention insulting.
Whoa.
Captain Janeway, I don’t know you and you don’t know me. I want to respect what you’re going through, but I am reading your message, and am confused.
You talk about a “peaceful” and “happy” arrangement, but does “Jenny” see it that way? Does your husband have any legal responsibilities towards her? What if she’s in financial trouble?
It seems like this “peaceful” arrangement could be unequal. I am also assuming that “Jenny” is much younger. Forgive me, but I fear for her, and maybe you should too.
She does not “mind” the fact that your husband is already married to you? This doesn’t sound healthy to me.
Natalia, I checked out the blog. Seems that the owner is clear and articulate in her anti-polygamy arguments. I think that instead of just recommending her, you could actually listen to her.
Sandi, what’s up with your insistence to paint me as a cheerleader for polygamy? The reality of it is usually quite unpleasant, hence my promotion of a blogger like Muslim Hedonist, who doesn’t mince her words.
I can’t speak for Captain Janeway, but if she’s interested in sharing her experience further. I’d like to listen.
Natalia – great, nuanced, thoughtful post. Thank you! In my graduate program in Women’s Studies, I knew a few Muslim women who were in polygamous marriages, and they had a very different experience from what some feminists would say their experiences were. Thanks for making this the complicated issue that it is (as is feminism) – and thanks, too, for not playing the “you’re not feminist IF” game. There are far too many people in the movement who presume to judge other people’s politics (and, reading the above comments, other people’s lives, as well).
I also forgot to ask:
Why not tell your parents, Janeway? Maybe you really do feel that the situation is wrong after all.
Natalia I am not “painting” you as anything. You have made your views clear. Nothing short of a strong condemnation of polygamy seems feminist to me, but what do I know.
Sandi, you want me to make blanket statements in this instance, and I’m not interested in doing that. I *do* make blanket statements against abuse. I think you and I both can agree on that.
I’ve got a question for you too,
What about a woman who is married to/in committed relationships with several men? What do we make of that? I know there is no legal basis for that in most cultures, but it does happen, whether the law permits it or not.
Sandi:
I have not, as yet, chosen to tell my mother that I am bisexual. Does that mean that I am ashamed of being bisexual? No. Does it mean that the fear of extreme emotional pain that could come with that revelation is keeping me quiet? Yes. Is it something I struggle with frequently? Yes.
In an ideal world, my mother would not care about my orientation or what I do with my sex life. In reality, we *know* this is not always the case. Captain Janeway has, I imagine, *very good* reasons not to tell her parents – from social repercussions (they might turn a cold shoulder to her husband and/or her), to legal ones, to purely emotional ones.
To tell her that she must feel the situation is wrong is, I think, blind to the realities of the world.
What Alex said. There are many reasons as to why you’d want to keep something like that private. Perhaps we could just respect that…?
I think anyone should be allowed to marry anyone else, in whatever combination makes them happy. I’m polyamorous, I’m in a poly relationship right now; I have a primary partner (my boyfriend) whom I live with, and a girlfriend who lives with her primary partner (her boyfriend). The guys are friends but not romantically involved with each other, and neither guy is romantically involved with the woman who is not their primary partner, lthough we are all more physically comfortable with each other than people usually are who are not romantically involved. I would love to one day form a legally protected unit involving the four of us (and soon enough, their child), and I think it would work perfectly well if we
all got out the details in the beginning.
So yeah, in my Blue Sky vision, anyone can form marriage-equivalent legal bonds with any other person of legal age, in any combination agreed upon by all parties. I say “marriage-equivalent” and not “marriage” because I believe people should also be able to form these legal bonds in the absence of romantic ties. If, for instance, a brother and a sister wanted to form a legally protected marriage-like unit to raise a child (say you were a single mother living with your
brother, and you wanted your brother to have the legal rights of a father for your child), I think that should be okay.
The equivalence part is super important. Specifically, I want the ability to form legally recognized bonds that cover the full spectrum of rights and responsibilities (those 1000+ rights that are conferred) entailed in a marriage; covering children, power of attorney, shared property, etc. In the case of non-dyadic bonds, all of that would need to be worked out in the marriage contract before it would be legally binding. (In my perfect Blue Sky vision, everyone who wants to get married gets access to a competent lawyer when they go to draw up a contract, and access
to relationship counselors if they so desire. I’m big on access to social services.) And once it was done, it had the full power of the law (and ideally, society) behind it. You could show up to the hospital, say “I’m his secondary partner and I have power of attorney,” and no one would bat an eye.
That’s my perfect vision. In reality, I realize that polygamy as often practiced shares bubkis with this kind of thing. I think that’s wrong, and I think that concentrating on that to the exclusion of the many and varied working polyamorous relationships out there gives an unbalanced picture of what multiple partnerships actually mean. There are probably at least as many perfectly normal and happy poly people out there as
there are FLDS jerks… but because polyamory is poorly understood and stigmatized, and we don’t tend to form compounds in the middle of nowhere (that is, the concentration in any given place is likely to be low), the perception is that when people are in multiple partnerships, it looks like that (ugly, hierarchical, incredibly violent and
wrongheaded) rather than like this (loving, ‘normal,’ well-negotiated).
It’s kind of like the BDSM/abuse thing. People see one thing and think it’s another, even though if you looked at it closely, you’d see that there is no necessary link between the two. Being an abusive, hierarchical, misogynist git has nothing to do with how many partners
you want/need and everything to do with being an abusive, hierarchical, misogynist git in a situation where you can get away with it.
Natalia – very balanced, nuanced post.
I agree with you that legalization would need to be irrespective of gender. And situations like Captain Janeways that are not part of a groupthink or patriarchal culture should be nobody’s business but theirs.
I’m not as nonjudgmental as you are w/r/t/polygamy in harem form, though. While I’d never project any definite verdict, my views are colored by the statistical likelihood that there is indeed a fundamentalist aspect and an “ownership” aspect, both of which you mention. Nobody knows whether this is the case in any one situation, but it’s difficult to look at things clean-slate where the background is anything but.
There is value in the words of the women involved, but to my mind they need to be taken in context. I would not put much stock in a slave’s written gratitude to her/his master or a woman without the vote explaining why she didn’t want it. There are historical and cultural overlays to people’s views which contradict my, and hopefully most of our, sense of equality across gender, race, (dis)ability, income, etc.
So while I would look at any individual circumstance that works for the people involved as being choice-driven unless proven otherwise, I would look at a sect or group with a uniform cultural mandate as being the opposite.
I am not a fan of a “harem” mentality either, actually. I just think it’s wrong of Sandi to use that word interchangeably.
“Why not tell your parents, Janeway? Maybe you really do feel that the situation is wrong after all. ”
wait…let me read that again…okay, that’s what it actually says…
Sandi- there are a ton of reasons various people do not tell their parents what occurs in their lives; be that being gay, or smoking weed, or being poly, or yep, even being sexually active. Most of them don’t actually revolve around feeling that the activity is wrong. Often times peoples parents come from a less socially progressive era or mind set, or hold different religious or political beliefs, or – yes- in some cases the activity might be criminalized- and confessing all of ones private life activities could cause their parents undue pain, or worry, or stress, even shame. That doesn’t mean the activity in question is wrong, it’s just not that simple. Yet, as adults, people are not required to do what their parents tell them anymore, especially, if for them, it feels right.
Heck, even less controversial things don’t always make it to the parental table. You might not want to discuss your preference for the presidential candidate with your parents, even if you think you’ve got the absolute right answer, if you think they might not agree. Or you might not want to tell your parents that you don’t like their cooking, or that you’re planning to dye your hair orange, or that really, you don’t feel like getting married and popping out a baby right now despite their desire for grandkids.
None of that means that you think you’re doing something wrong… all it means is that you don’t want to have that particular conversation with that particular person.
Sandi, you seem to be spoiling for a fight and I wasn’t planning on responding to you. However I am all too happy to tell you that you have it all backwards:
Jenny is older than both of us. She has a big estate and doesn’t “need” anything from my husband (people assume that it’s women who need material support from men and that isn’t always true) or me. Yes, she really doesn’t mind our marriage. Is that hard to grasp? She was married several times before, it didn’t work out for her, she tried a different approach. If laws were different we would secure our partnership officially. We strive to be fair to one another. I am not going to sit here and go over the details of our lives, but I hope that you can get the picture.
My elderly parents are very set in their ways. If I told them now it would only confuse and upset them. It has been pointed out that nobody tells their parents everything, I’m sure you don’t. I’m sure you have a private life and your parents are not informed about every single detail. Our arrangement is not a “dirty secret” but we are aware of the possibilities of being judged.
Natalia, I appreciate that you gave me the benefit of the doubt. I will forward this column to my friends.
You talk about a “peaceful” and “happy” arrangement, but does “Jenny” see it that way? Does your husband have any legal responsibilities towards her? What if she’s in financial trouble?
See, for some people that’s a reason why polygamy could do with a bit less social stigma and a bit more legal recognition. I guess it depends on your biases.
I also forgot to ask:
Why not tell your parents, Janeway?
This is a disingenuous formula, intended to trump the autonomy of an adult through the invocation of bad childhood juju
Sandi did not deserve the several well-reasoned rebuttals deconstructing the simple principle that action which needs no permitting agency requires no report to any such agency.
That is to say, Janeway’s refusal to be ashamed of her lifestyle is not compromised by a refusal to subject her parents to gratuitous pain–gratuitous because, as above, their consent to the behavior is not needed.
Withal, Sandi made us of a cheap debaters’ trick; perhaps she learned it at chastity camp, or some other convention where the techniques of lifetsyle oppression are honed.
“Do you kiss your mother with those lips???”
Whoa again.
Now I’m a horrible biased person? Because I don’t think we should be helping women to stay in polygamy but helping them get out… Interesting.
Captain Janeway’s situation is obviously very unique but I am glad she shared it. I don’t think the exception disproves the general rule. I do not mean this as a personal attack on you, Janeway.
Natalia, polyandry is simply not a solution to polygamy. It would do nothing to cut down on abuse.
Lifestyle oppression? How about a lifestyle that actually is oppressing someone?
Once again, I am going to have to argue that you do not represent the norm.
I’m going to have to step in here and say that no one is defending the conservative and oppressive system that many women have suffered under, and continue to suffer under.
But poly relationships are not all the same. And yes, it is insulting to suggest otherwise. How would you like to hear that all monogamous people are the same? Oh, that’s right, you probably never hear that, considering the fact that monogamy is dominant in the States (and I assume you’re in the States) to begin with.
Though I can tell you right now that it doesn’t work for everyone. Some people come to realize this and actually do something about it. Should they change their entire lives because someone else is uncomfortable?
Sandi, how are you coming to this idea of “the norm”? How would you ever be able to tell? First of all, getting an honest *sample* would be ridiculously hard – even anonymously, admitting to that sort of thing is *scary* because there can be *very real legal repercussions* for doing so, that both FLDS polygynists and other polyamorists have to worry about.
I think you’ve got a bit of representational bias going on here – we hear more often about Waco, the FLDS, compounds, that sort of thing, because *presenting polyamory as a valid lifestyle* is not something the state or society wants to promote. (See also: laws about bigamy, taking away children, the above-noted ostracism, etc. etc.)
I think the problem is, we can target the sexism and abuse of the FLDS without wholeheartedly condemning polyamory. (Where have I seen this argument before, eh Ren?…) For some reason, you don’t seem willing to acknowledge that it can be practiced in a non-abusive way.
It comes back around to consents and controls, doesn’t it? Like always.
The problems with the FLDS and the like are not reducable to polygamy — they’re not even reducable to polygyny, though that comes closer. The problem pretty much boils down to patriarchy in the simplest sense — not simply the male dominance of it, but the rule by a particular generation to the detriment of the younger ones, female and male both.
And every time something blows up with some group of FLDS or a similar group, someone comes running to the nearest polyamorous person and says “This is why you people will never be acceptable.” It gets tiresome to have one’s adult relationships between consenting equals equated with coercive situations of underage rape and various child abuse, y’know?
The norm is still fundamentalism, unfortunately. Fundamenalist polygamy is just as secret as the liberal version. Even more so, I think.
Once again, it wasn’t my intention to attack.
Not really determinable from the evidence.
I’ve met a couple hundred non-fundamentalists involved in multiple relationships in the United States.
I’ve met no fundamentalists at all.
When I’ve been on TV or in the newspaper about it (not for about a decade, but the pattern, from my observation since I stopped doing that level of activism, holds), it’s been in niche markets, small newspapers, once a women’s magazine; my quiet having-husband-and-fiance just isn’t exciting like child abuse, so I don’t make CNN. “Family lives in small town, has cat, planted beans in the garden this year” just doesn’t thrill, even if that family has more adults than the norm.
I’m damned certain that my subcultural contacts are related to the proportions I know; I’m equally certain that the “if it bleeds, it leads” means that boring people like me aren’t going to be high up in popular consciousness, even if we do something so titillating as marrying more than one person in a non-legal ceremony.
The perceived norm is obviously religious patriarchal polygyny, because that’s what makes the news. Whether that actually manages the majority by the numbers? Seems implausible to me.
I believe any relationship…regardless of the dynamics involved or numbers etc…should be seen as legal or illegal based only on whether all parties concerned are being treated fairly and equally.
Polygamous marriages may not sit well with a large part of the population but if all involved are sharing equal and fair positions within the marriage dynamics then why should we condemn it? A man cheating on his wife with another woman gets less condemnation then a man in a polygamous marriage…btw the women in both of those arrangements(wife of cheating husband, mistress, and second third wives etc) are rarely seen as the victims…but as the perpetrators that destroyed a marriage(by “causing” a husband to cheat or by not accepting her husband getting more wives…or as a second wife that maybe unwittingly got into a marriage that was already had a resident wife)…not the man who cheated or obtained multiple wives usually secretly or illegally etc. Go figure.
i think any combination of consenting adult relationship would work with the proper legal protections and safeguards for all parties.