What Exactly is Wrong With Polygamy?
posted by Solangel Maldonado
Thanks to Concurring Opinions for inviting me back to blog this month. I look forward to your comments.
I have been thinking a lot about polygamy lately. As I prepare to teach Family Law once again, I am confronted with polygamy everywhere I turn. First, the third season of Big Love, the HBO series about a Utah entrepreneur struggling to support and “satisfy” his three wives and eight children, begins next week. Second, last April, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services removed 468 children from their homes in a polygamous ranch. Although the Texas Supreme Court ordered the children’s return to their parents after finding no immediate danger warranting emergency removal, child protective services has continued its investigation in a handful of cases. Third, I have been following Professor Angela Campbell’s research on the polygamous community of Bountiful in British Columbia, which has challenged some of my assumptions about polygamous wives. Finally, I recently learned that polygamy is practiced in the U.S., not only by members of a fundamentalist Mormon sect in Utah, Arizona, and Texas, but also by Black Muslims and African immigrants in New York and Philadelphia. This brings me to the question I would like to raise: What exactly is wrong with polygamy? I will discuss some frequently made arguments and look forward to reading yours.
Polygamy is illegal in all 50 states. Yet, it is estimated that 50,000 to 100,000 men, women, and children live in polygamous households in the U.S. Most polygamists do not enter into plural marriages for purely personal reasons, but rather are guided by religious beliefs. Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (which broke with the Mormon church in 1890 when the latter disavowed polygamy) believe that only men who have at least three wives will enter the highest level of heaven and that women can only get to heaven if their husbands take them there. The United States Supreme Court, in Reynolds v. United States , rejected claims of religious freedom under the First Amendment to practice polygamy.
Many Americans believe that polygamy is morally wrong, but this view is not universal. Polygamy is legal and widely practiced in many countries in Africa and the Middle East and Islamic law allows a man to have up to four wives so long as he treats them equally. So why are most Americans vehemently opposed to polygamy?
Some people oppose polygamy because they are concerned about the potential for sexual abuse of young girls. Admittedly, some girls entering polygamous unions are too young for marriage (or sexual relationships). Some of the girls who lived in the polygamous ranch in the Texas case discussed above had become pregnant in their early teens. The husbands are often much older, men in their 50s and 60s, or older. Undeniably, many of these “spiritual marriages” are not consensual unions, but sexual abuse (rape) of a minor.
However, polygamy and sexual abuse of young girls do not necessarily go hand in hand. Every state has laws protecting minors from sexual abuse. States can prosecute child predators while allowing consenting adults to enter into polygamous relationships without fear of criminal prosecution. For example, law enforcement agencies in Utah and Arizona have chosen to focus on crimes within polygamous communities such as child abuse and domestic violence rather than polygamy itself.
Sexual abuse is clearly a problem in at least some polygamous communities. However, some adult women freely choose plural marriage. For example, Anne Wilde, a graduate of Brigham Young University and co-author of Voices in Harmony: Contemporary Women Celebrate Plural Marriage, freely chose plural marriage for 33 years until her husband’s death. Should women like Anne Wilde be able to enter into a polygamous marriage without fear of prosecution?
This question raises a second concern. Even if some adult women freely choose plural marriage, does polygamy harm all women? Arguably, polygamy violates the principle of gender equality. Although the term “polygamy” includes marriage to more than one man, such marriages are very rare; almost all polygamous societies practice only polygyny—marriage to more than one woman. Further, most plural wives have no legal protection during or after the marriage. The reason is that most polygamist men have one legal wife and the subsequent wives are “spiritual wives” – they are not legally married. When a spiritual marriage ends before the husband’s death, a spiritual wife has no claim to spousal support or equitable distribution of marital property. Spiritual wives are also not entitled to an intestate or elective share of the husband’s estate, or any of the legal benefits of marriage, including Social Security survivor benefits. While legal recognition of polygamous marriages might remedy these inequities, under current law, polygamist men who are unjustly enriched by their wives’ contributions to the marriage have no legal duty to provide anything in return.
Opponents of plural marriage argue that exposure to polygamy is harmful to children. Texas officials believed that the “culture of polygamy” in the compound was such a threat to the children’s health that immediate removal was necessary. Although the Texas Supreme Court found no evidence to warrant removal, in 1955, the Utah Supreme Court upheld a similar raid on a polygamous community, finding that a polygamous home was an “immoral environment for the rearing of children.” However, some adults raised in polygamous households recall their childhood fondly. One woman who grew up with seven mothers and 60 siblings told the Salt Lake Tribune: “I’ve always considered that I had a fairy-tale childhood . . . I had more close friends and family than most people have acquaintances. It was warm and supportive. You knew you were loved.” Few adults recall their childhood, whether polygamous or not, quite so fondly. However, according to the ABA Journal , many of the attorneys who represented the children in the Texas case thought that the children’s mothers “seemed like great parents . . . Their children were noticeably well-behaved . . . and quite playful.” It is worth noting that the children repeatedly asked to go back home to the polygamous ranch.
We cannot assume that children reared in polygamous households are necessarily worse off than children reared in one or two parent homes. In fact, in recent years, the Utah Supreme Court seems to have changed its opinion that a polygamous home is an “immoral environment for the rearing of children,” and has held that the practice of polygamy does not make a person unfit to serve as a custodial or adoptive parent. In other words, in a custody dispute between a parent who practices polygamy and one that does not, it might be in a child’s best interest to reside with the polygamist parent.
Finally, I would like to return to the argument that polygamy is immoral. Although many Americans hold this view, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the majority’s belief that certain conduct is immoral does not mean that it “may use the power of the State to enforce these views on the whole society through operations of criminal law” and Massachusetts and Connecticut allow same-sex marriage despite many individuals’ beliefs that such marriages are immoral. This brings me back to my original question: If there is no evidence that polygamy per se harms children, why shouldn’t consenting adults be allowed to enter into polygamous relationships?
January 6, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Posted in: Family Law, Feminism and Gender, Religion
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Responses (28)
Michael Risch - January 6, 2009 at 10:49 pm
I’ve always thought that the key economic/fairness issue is the flip side of your concerns about husbands not having to pay back their spouses in the absence of legal marriage. That is, much of our societal benefits, both governmental and private, are set up for two spouses – tax deductions, child support and custody, employee benefits, etc. Denial of these benefits to those willing to take on the social constraints of marriage is one of the strongest arguments in favor of gay marriage, I think.
If this were now expanded to polygamy, things would be turned on their head. Not that mechanisms couldn’t be developed otherwise, but the default is so engrained it would take a lot of doing to change things. Consider headaches with verifying that a domestic partner is really a domestic partner for those types of benefits. Now, multiply that to 3 spouses – how do we know it is not a multiple marriage just to get benefits? For that matter, do we now expand domestic partner benefits to multi-non-spouse households?
I don’t know that this is a strong argument, but it certainly passes rational basis analysis and stops the slippery slope of gay marriage = polygamy.
On a side note, Taleb makes the argument in The Black Swan that polygamy is a device for concentration of wealth at the top – those with more money can support more wives, and at the same time deprive men with less wealth from the opportunity to procreate – or at least procreate with the “most desirable” mate – which ties in the natural selection angle. From that standpoint, barring polygamy is a social justice measure.
Brett Bellmore - January 7, 2009 at 6:36 am
The chief problem with polygamy is social: Men and women come in roughly equal numbers, and if any significant number of men are marrying more than one woman, then you have a significant number of men who have no hope of finding mates. And we have extensive evidence that having large numbers of men around who can’t find mates is really, seriously bad for social stability.
It would be another matter if we were a species with a lot more women than men.
A.J. Sutter - January 7, 2009 at 12:01 pm
You say, “Many Americans believe that polygamy is morally wrong, but this view is not universal.” That’s true of many customs, such as eating dogs. Should Americans therefore not be able to have laws that reflect the values of American, Minnesotan, Californian, etc. society? Should American laws strive to be universal? It’s not clear where one is to draw the line — or whether one is ever to draw a line at all — if one accepts your line of reasoning.
The reference to criminal law in the Supreme Court decisions you mention may be helpful with this puzzle. Even if one is disposed to be undecided or agnostic about whether there is anything per se wrong with polygamy (or even personally believes there isn’t anything wrong with it), the fact that most Americans find it immoral could be a sufficient reason not to grant polygamous marriages civil recognition, at least.
In this context, when you say that “polygamist men who are unjustly enriched by their wives’ contributions to the marriage have no legal duty to provide anything in return,” the solution might not necessarily be to grant plural wives legal remedies. The word “unjust” has implicit in it some assumptions about the women’s responsibility for their situation, even though in this case it takes two (or rather, three or more) to tango. I’m sympathetic to your point that women may be exploited in these relationships, but if the plural wives are indeed “consenting adults” as you posit, they’re entering into this unconventional (and illegal) relationship with their eyes open. So maybe the policy here should be to inform women in communities where polygamy is tolerated that they won’t have the full legal rights of wives if they try to marry someone who’s already married.
Anonymous Frustrated Lawyer - January 7, 2009 at 12:09 pm
The Lost Boys Problem
http://www.childbrides.org/boys.html
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/07/lost.boys/index.html
The leaders @ the top allocate all of the women, leaving many boys out of the loop. Idle and angry men are a bad idea for every society, and polygamy is a sure fire way to make that happen.
Matt - January 7, 2009 at 12:14 pm
I don’t think that polygamy is _necessarily_ immoral or that it should _necessarily_ but illegal. But there are some decent arguments against it that don’t depend, it seems, on mere cultural chauvinism or the like. T.H. Green spelled out many of these quite nicely in his terrific book _Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation_ in the late 19th century. It’s well worth looking at Green in general but he’s particularly interesting on the family, I thought.
Mike Zimmer - January 7, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Polygamy cannot be fair and equal. Mention of the males not able to marry above doesn’t hit the worst aspect of that: young boys get kicked out of the so-called loving communities and are left to fend for themselves.
Allowing men to marry more than one woman and women to marry more than one man might be harder to attack than just half of that equation. Still the traditions and the economic asymetry might not lead to much change in fact in the way relations occur.
Nate Oman - January 7, 2009 at 8:40 pm
For what it is worth, the chief argument against polygamy in the nineteenth century was not that it was immoral per se, although to be sure the anti-polygamy rhetoric of the period is saturated with moral condemnation. Rather the main argument was that polygamy rendered polygamous men unfit for democracy by accustoming them to habits of command and obedience. The polygamous male was conceptualized as a kind of petty tyrannt who lacked the cultural prerequisites for democratic self-government. This is why anti-polygamy legislation was also tied up with the refusal to admitt Utah as a state, the disenfranchisement of polygamists (and in some jurisdictions all Mormons, monogamous or other wise), etc.
You can find this argument in Reynolds, particularlly the Court’s discussion of Francis Lieber’s work. In addition, Sally Gordon provides a very good intellectual history and portrait of nineteenth-century anti-polygamy in her book _The Mormon Question_ (UNC Press 2002). Finally, if you are interested, I am writing an article on the rejected but undiscussed arguments of the defendant’s lawyers in Reynolds that touches on some of these questions. If you are interested, I can send you a copy.
Kaimi - January 7, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Good points, Solangel. I’ve spoken with Anne Wilde myself, and she’s an intelligent, articulate woman.
I personally think that consenting-adults polygamy should at the very least be decriminalized. (I’m less sure about granting recognition, but could probably be convinced.) (As you note, as a practical matter, consenting-adults polygamy has been de facto decriminalized in Utah and Arizona because the AGs have agreed not to prosecute those people.)
Brett, AFL,
That’s a commonly voiced objection, but I don’t think it’s particularly convincing.
For one thing, there’s no reason why polygamy has to be male-only. There have been some instances of female polygamy (technically known as polyandry) in different cultures.
And second, there are already relationship imbalances out there. A person can monopolize a large number of women in a perfectly legal way if they’re a rich playboy; they simply need to call these women girlfriends rather than wives. Should this be criminalized as well?
Does the existence of Hugh Hefner and his dozen (?) girlfriends (and the existence of other multi-dating men) really destabilize the dating pool for everyone else, sufficient to criminalize his actions?
Why criminalize Anne but not Hugh?
Matt - January 7, 2009 at 9:43 pm
For what it’s worth I don’t think the arguments of Green, mentioned above by me, are “moralized” in any objectionable way. They are arguments based in Green’s moral philosophy, a sort of Kantian view, but not “moralized” in the way we often find objectionable. I don’t feel that I can do them justice by merely putting the briefly. I don’t agree with all of them, either, but I found them in general quite interesting and often powerful. They are also later 19th century arguments. So, the idea that arguments against polygamy are either chauvinism (either anti-Mormon or anti-Muslim or anti-non-wester) or mere “moralizing” can’t be fully convincing, even if many arguments against it do fit those patterns.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 8, 2009 at 1:27 am
“Islamic law allows a man to have up to four wives so long as he treats them equally.” A bit misleading if only for what it doesn’t state:
“Polygamy for Muslims, in practice and law, differs greatly throughout the Islamic world, where polygamous marriages constitute only 1–3% of all marriages.”
That all wives can receive a fair and equitable share of space, property, and attention from their husbands seem unlikely, hence Q. 4.129 which states that even with the best of intentions men will not be able to do this.
Patrick S. O'Donnell - January 8, 2009 at 1:53 am
Let me elaborate a bit on the above. The Quranic verse (4.3) allowing for up to four wives was “said to have been revealed after the death of numerous Muslims in the Battle of Uhud,” and thus is made in direct reference to the situation of fatherless children: “There is difference of opinion as to whether it suggests marriage to the orphaned females themselves or to widows with children to support.” The context of this revelation, as in most if not all Quranic revelations, has not a little bearing on how we understand the meaning of the passage and thus its implications for an Islamic understanding of polygamy. This is the only verse to explicitly declare its permissibility although other verses assume its practice (which of course was pre-Islamic and without any limit as to the number of wives). It is true that classical and legal jurists accepted its practice, but the practice itself, interestingly, was typically the prerogative of the wealthy few.
The renowned Pakistani Islamic scholar Fazlur Rahman “argued that polygamy, like slavery, was an entrenched practice when Islam arrived, and could not have been immediately eradicated. However, according to him, the ultimate intent of the divine revelation [as a minority of scholars today also argue] was to abolish these institutions and polygamy should therefore be prohibited today.” The Egyptian modernist reformer Mudhammad ‘Abduh similarly argued that while polygamy may have had an earlier historically derived rationale, in modern Egypt at least, its practice led to discord and violence within the family. He thus argued, “in keeping with longstanding legal principle, that something otherwise [technically] lawful could be forbidden if it led to social ills; this was the case for polygamy.” Perhaps needless to say, contemporary Muslim feminists focus on the limited and exceptional nature of Quranic polygamy and highlight the sacred text’s invocation of monogamous exemplars.
A Voice of Sanity - January 8, 2009 at 2:28 am
Polygamy can mean multiple wives or multiple husbands. This is also sometimes called polyamoury (which also includes group marriage).
Polygyny means specifically multiple wives.
Polyadry means specifically multiple husbands.
BTW, let us never forget that Biblical marriage means one husband, one or more wives, zero or more concubines, zero or more sex slaves which can be male or female and with little restriction as to age. We probably don’t want that!
But if everyone is of age, understands what they are doing and is fully willing I say live and let live. However I remember the Muslim man who, when asked about multiple wives, explained the Islamic rules and then, when asked if he planned to add a second wife, responded, “Heck no. My wife would kill me!”
Sean M. - January 8, 2009 at 9:42 am
A quick response to “A Voice” –
I do not understand polyamory as equivalent to polygamy. While some might use it to describe “group marriage,” it has a more generic meaning for “open relationship” or “loving many.” Many polyamorous people will consider themselves only married to one person.
temple - January 10, 2009 at 4:17 pm
What is the source of estimated “50,000 to 100,000 men, women, and children”? Does that include the teenage boys who were kicked out to prevent them from getting together with teenage girls whom the 60-year-old men wanted for themselves, or did the estimate assume that those boys are no longer members of polygamous households after they are kicked out? It would be helpful to have an estimate of the number of polygamous *households* in addition to persons within households, as this would clarify how common the practise is. Including the number of children rather distorts the picture, as those who are choosing to live in this kind of relationship are: one male plus some indeterminate number of women (indeterminate not only because it could be “2 or more” but also because some of them haven’t chosen it but have been coerced into it).
Dan Markel - January 12, 2009 at 11:44 pm
Solangel,
as you may know, my co-authors and I call for decriminalization of bigamy laws (ie., laws prohibiting polygamy) in our recent article, Punishing Family Status, available at:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1120877
That discussion also appears in the forthcoming book I’ve linked to as well. We’d love your thoughts!
Ana - May 18, 2009 at 11:41 pm
A major problem is that not all women in polygamous marriages are consenting. That is why many countries are passing legislation, requiring men to receive permission from their first wives before they could marry second wives.
It’s extremely difficult for anyone to even imagine the emotional, psychological, physical pain and suffering the first wives experience and endure, resulting from living polygamy. I know the agony it causes firsthand, as I live polygamy today in America.
It’s painful for a woman to know her husband is routinely, on a schedule, having sex with another woman, giving her his money and declaring his love for her-especially when she has grown up in a monogamous society in America where she been taught that there is a “Prince Charming” out there somewhere for her.
Many women are traumatized by the practice of polygamy. It causes irreparable damage. It changes a woman forever. It scars her.
The more I think about it, the more I believe many men enter polygamous relationships to dominate and control women-perhaps to even hurt them intentionally.
ADF Alliance Alert » “What Exactly is Wrong With Polygamy?” - June 26, 2009 at 9:17 am
[...] Maldonado writes on Concurring Opinions: Finally, I would like to return to the argument that polygamy is immoral. Although many Americans [...]
Randall Burns - August 19, 2010 at 7:35 pm
Some things that need discussion here:
there is overt polygamy-and de facto polygamy.
The US has seen a huge move towards de facto polygamy with a growing population of men that are never married-and a few men that have multiple marriages with children in each one.
Societies that have concentration of wealth can become unstable overtime. I would suggest the same thing happens if polygamy becomes too widespread. Men that have children have a stake in the future-and something to live for. If too many men don’t have children, that creates a fertile ground for movements that might opt to restructure society.
joe - October 13, 2010 at 10:52 am
I think polygamy should not be allowed in our society. I understand the live and let live view of many. But what Mr. Maldonado does not consider is what seems to happen in these types of communities over time. Those who disagree with it are ostracised and boys are kicked out of these communities so the “men” in the community can have more women to choose from. No matter what anyone tries to convince me of, i will never believe that abuses will not occur and the types of behavior seen by the likes of Warren Jeffs will not become the norm. Big Love may be entertaining, but my hatred of polygamy remains.
dont know about polygamy - January 15, 2011 at 4:47 pm
you say polygamy is illegal in all 50 states. in the next paragraph, you say it is legal and widely practiced. is it illegal or not?
Andy - January 25, 2011 at 6:42 pm
I have been effected by Polygamy personally and all I can say is that it’s wrong because it brainwashes people, the man in the relationship CANNOT love all the women equally and it’s not a very modern religion which makes the believers very irrational and hard to get along with. I really do think it’s very very very very wrong. It took the girl I loved because she thought she wouldn’t get into heaven if she wasn’t married to someone who had five wives and didn’t care about her…
Kaimipono D. Wenger - January 25, 2011 at 10:35 pm
Comment #20, you should probably read the whole sentence before commenting.
“Polygamy is legal and widely practiced in many countries in Africa and the Middle East and Islamic law . . . “
Edward - March 14, 2011 at 11:06 pm
A telling point is that polygamist men have one legal wife and the others are spiritual wives. I may have personal issues with one man having several “wives” or girlfriends (which is legally what the “spiritual wives” must be — if girlfriend is a legal term), but I don’t see that there can be any real legal objection. If a man legally marries two women and claims them on his taxes and expects benefits and marital rights for both his wives, that is illegal. I do not think it is illegal in most states for a man to cheat on his wife. Unless there is a legal marriage (which I might object to), polygamy seems essentially to be a man with mistresses who have their own families.
For the record, I am excluding men who marry underage girls, or lie to the various women in their lives, or who defraud or lie to the government or companies. There are couples who have open marriages — theoretically, that isn’t really all that different from plural marriage.
clint - March 28, 2011 at 12:37 am
whats next gay polygamist would it take children out of the arguement
Bill - March 28, 2011 at 9:19 am
Question, if it is illegal to provide consent for multiple “marriages” including civil marriage and common law marriage..who will charge the legislators in Canada?
Polygamists in Bountiful Canada can argue Charter protected rights re: discrimination based upon their sex and also marital status. Since one province (below) already “recognizes and sanctions” multiple marital relationships and obligations at the same time, but only if civilly married persons cohabitate as spouses with other(s) in common law marriage, then it is discrimination to not allow married persons to be also recognized as civilly or religiously married to more than one person at a time.
“In Saskatchewan it is possible to enter into a spousal relationship without that relationship being solemnized under The Marriage Act, 1995. The Family Property Act provides framework to deal with situations where spousal relationships overlap in time. This most commonly occurs when two people married under The Marriage Act, 1997 separate without going through the formal divorce procedures for a number of years. The separated spouses may enter into new common law spousal relationships prior to the finalization of the divorce of the previous marriage” (Don Morgan, Saskatchewan Justice Minister and Attorney General)
It must surely be discrimination to allow undivorced persons to enter into new “common law marriage” relationship(s) but not Bountiful residents? Since divorce is no longer a requirement to become eligible to have another legal spouse, why prosecute only Bountiful residents? Is it because of their religion? Why can’t a “bishop” sanction multiple spouses too?
This is Canadian polygamy:
Every one who:
(ii) any kind of conjugal union with more than one person at the same time, whether or not it is by law recognized as a binding form of marriage, or
(b) celebrates, assists or is a party to a rite, ceremony, contract or consent that purports to sanction a relationship mentioned in subparagraph (i) or (ii), is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.
L - October 12, 2011 at 10:17 pm
The illegality of polygamous marriage is an unacceptable violation of human rights. Does the Constitution not grant all U.S. citizens the right to freedom of religion, freedom of speech and of the press, and freedom of expression? Does the Declaration of Independence not state that all are created equal with the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? What right does any government have to interfere in the relationships of its citizens?
The argument that polygamy should be illegal to ensure that there are enough partners to go around is completely rediculous. Since when are citizens responsible for making sure that all others have enough people of their own? There are plenty of men who are searching for male partners and have no problem with the fact that another man has four wives. There are plenty of men who are not searching for any partner whatsoever, and are and shall be perfectly content as single men for the rest of their lives. The same goes for women.
It is proposterous to automatically assume that all women in plural marriages are being sexually abused. This vicious stereotype is offensive and indubitably false. Government and law are no place for generalities with their roots in fear, intolerance, and closed-mindedness. Considering most of these men are legally married to only one of their wives, in compliance with the laws, why are these men threatened with punishment, even imprisonment?
But I am confident that these prejudiced restrictions will be overturned. It is high time all humans are granted the human rights they deserve. We did it with the abolishment of racist segregation. We did it with women’s rights. This is the era of many revolutions, and they’re not stopping any time soon. Same-sex marriage is now legal in seven of these “united” states. We’ll keep going until all are treated equally.
Simply because some people find certain relationships immoral is no reason to restrict the relationships of others. It is not up to others to determine whether another’s relationship is morally acceptable.
Paul - November 18, 2011 at 10:54 pm
These people are crazy! Polygamy is illegal. Laws have logical reasons behind them. Whilst the reason is not always self-evident, or not always in favor to the individual, but it is to the community at large. Their behavior does (indirectly) hurt people. Whilst I don’t have the notes presented with the initial bill that made the law, it would seem obvious that some of the reasons would include:
1. the gene pool is weakened by not enough random variability (he has more than 5-times the average number of children)
2. if everyone did it there simply is not enough females (even if it was only two females per male, that would not leave enough as there ratio of male to female per 100 is male 48 female 52 birthrate) so it is extremely greedy (a sin)
Furthermore:
3. the families are more likely to rely on government welfare (food-stamps) as the women don’t generally work and the man’s income is not large enough to satisfy the family’s requirements
4. Immigration to another country could theoretically mean a whole country of women could be married to one man and move with all his wives to another country that recognizes polygamous marriages.
Their claims of this being their religion and so it is allowable (that incidentally was created in more recent times – Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints – than the long-standing religions such as Catholic or Islam) is not acceptable when the law overrides it. I could start a religion today that requires me to steal a car everyday of the year. If I was arrested could I claim religious persecution? No, why? – because it’s crazy.
Joe - November 19, 2011 at 8:46 am
Paul, laws have “logic” behind them, but the “logic” might be wrong. Laws against homosexuals having sex with each other had “logic” behind them to some extent, but they were wrong and unconstitutional.
1. If the guy wanted to, he had have lots of children either way. He can simply not legally marry them or in Utah live together or ‘purport’ to marry them. He can have various separate marriages. Justice Scalia has nine children. So, it’s possible to have lots of children with one wife. And, we are taking a small group of people among 300M. How weak does the gene pool get if even 100K (a fraction of a percent) live a polygamous life?
2. “Everyone” wouldn’t do it. This is underlined by the nations where it was allowed (down to ancient Israel — Jacob with Leah and Rachel etc.) where only a small number do it, in part since only a few are able or willing to. Either way, again, certain guys have more than one girl or are best able to get the elite mate (& vice versa) now.
3. They don’t have to be married legally to have the children. If they are married, it brings forth more moral obligation for each side to care for the family. And, often the women do work — in “Love Times Three,” we are told that on average two wives worked while one staid home. As to food stamps, that amounts to a trivial amount of money as compared to various other things we allow that results in government payments in various respects.
4. That doesn’t actually happen. We know this again since countries do allow polygamy & it doesn’t happen.
Religious freedom does make it reasonable to put the government to a higher test. Religion doesn’t override all law, but it does make it reasonable to make the interest stronger. For instance, blue laws that deprive Jews of two days of work are seen as unfair to most people, or not forcing someone to work on their Sabbath. But, in extreme cases, like in emergencies, they might have to. Are such religious exemptions “crazy” or force allowing stealing?
And, incidentally, older religions also support polygamy. Not that there is some age test here and there are more recent religions than one almost two hundred years old.
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