So a guy fathers—let’s say 35, since we have an example of that—35 kids, with, oh, let’s say 21 wives. Can we talk about quality time with wives OR kids? How much of it can be allotted to each of the 56 people in that guy’s family? How much actual guidance can we expect those kids to receive? How much love and affection can those wives expect—or is it all just for sex? I can hear it now: Sorry, Betsy, no time for cuddling, Marge and Alice are waiting for their turns.
And then, how much joy among the wives, knowing that competition in this “marriage” is everything. One of the wives who left the fLDS told of how that very competition led to child abuse: if they couldn’t slap one of their sisters, they’d take it out on that sister’s kids.
Polygamy is just plain SICK. And that’s my opinion, and I’m entitled to it. If it ever does come up for a vote, I will campaign against it, not to mention vote NO.
This is one reason why you had "spiritual leaders" like Brigham Young who was a nine-time divorcee--all from his polygamous wives. (That was almost 1 in 6 of his wives...and this was in comparatively low-divorce times of 1860s and 1870s...imagine what it would be now!).
A BYU history professor did a study of plural marriages in the Manti, Utah area. She discovered 83 divorces among 465 plural marriages...about 18% of them ended in divorce...35% of the polygamous men were divorced. Now keep in mind that these divorces occurred anyway despite the 19th century being less than a "divorce culture" and despite the fact that these women were told that their very celestial kingdom attainment depended on their marriage.
Even among Young's grandsons the problem was highlighted. Eugene Young wrote a very lengthy 1899 article in the North American Review I would encourage people to read called, "Revival of the Mormon Problem."
Eugene Young, who turned against polygamy & the Mormon church, wrote one of the reasons why Mormon women would so readily accepted polygamy in the 19th century: "Women were informed that the last dispensation--when Jesus Christ Himself should appear--was not far away, and that millions of souls were awaiting in the other world to be given 'tabernacles of flesh' before that glorious tie who entered the order, it was declared, should become gods and rulers and queens in the world to come, while those who held themselves aloof should be only anels and servants to the faithful. In the Mormon theology, it will thus be seen, polygamy is not a question to be decided on grounds of human inclination, but a great vital principle on which is hinging salvation for themselves and for those souls in a previous existence who cannot reach the highest glory without being born into this world. (Eugene Young, "Revival of the Mormon Problem," North American Review, p. 479)