At least polygamy makes biological sense. Gay marriage makes no sense at all.
FYI, I hope polygamy is never legalized. I think it must be extremely hard on the wives.
Having said that, my great-great grandfather, a Mormon pioneer, had four wives. Three of them were from England, and he married them in the same year, 1867. The fact that he married all at roughly the same time suggests that he was asked to do so. Two were in their 40's, like he was at the time. One was 24, and she was the niece of one of the older wives. In those days, she was approaching spinsterhood at the age of 24.
All the plural wives were recent immigrants to the US, with no ties and no means of support. I'm fairly sure the older women were wives in name only. There were no children. He had a large family with the young wife, in addition to a large family -- already grown -- that he had had with his first wife, my great-great grandmother, who had immigrated with him to Utah.
I think A lot of the early Mormon polygamous marriages were arrangements by which women in this isolated place, with no prospects for monogamous marriage and no legitimate way to support themselves, were given a place in society.
It wasn't at all like today, in some of the modern sects, where young teens are pressured into marriage, and the wives live on welfare. In the early days, men with the means to support plural wives were often asked to marry some of the "excess" women who were immigrating into Utah from all over Europe. The percentage of men who actually entered into plural marriages was in the single digits.
But I wouldn't want to see it return. I wouldn't want my sons and daughters to have to deal with it.
Something a lot of men might want to keep in mind....
Fascinating. Thanks for sharing a bit of your family history. I'm 1st generation LDS, no pioneer ancestors at all. To me, the polygamy stories just seem completely foreign--I was in the church nearly a year before I heard anything about polygamy.
It's always interesting to hear real stories about real people who engaged in plural marriage out of real necessity.