Posted on 05/18/2008 12:35:02 AM PDT by ansel12
What is wrong with polygamy?
Nineteenth-century Americans coupled it with slavery, calling both "the twin relics of barbarism." Today, it is used as a scare image to deter people from approving same-sex marriage, lest it lead down a slippery slope to that horror of horrors.
But what, exactly, is bad about it? Looking at the Texas sect at the Yearning for Zion ranch, so much in the news, will not tell us, because that sect allegedly forced underage girls into marriage. The case then becomes one of child sexual abuse, a crime hardly unknown in the monogamous family, although it gets less splashy publicity when it occurs there. Disturbing things are fun to contemplate when they can be pinned on distant "deviants," but threatening when they occur in families like one's own.
Mormon polygamy of the 19th century was not child abuse. Adult women married by consent, and typically lived in separate dwellings, each visited by the husband in turn. In addition to their theological rationale, Mormons defended the practice with social arguments - in particular that polygamous men would abandon wives or visit prostitutes less frequently. Instead of answering these arguments, however, Americans hastened to vilify Mormon society, publishing semi-pornographic novels that depicted polygamy as a hotbed of incest and child abuse.
Self-righteous Americans hastened to stigmatize Mormon marriage as "patriarchal," while participating contentedly and uncritically in an institution (monogamy) so patriarchal that, for many years, women lost all property rights upon marriage and could not even get a divorce on grounds of cruelty. In one respect, Mormon women were miles ahead of their sisters living in monogamy: They got the vote in the territory of Utah in 1871, 49 years before the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment gave the vote to women all over the nation.
The hypocrisy of the monogamist majority reached its height in the denial (often heard in Congress) that there could be a serious religious argument for polygamy: hypocrisy, because the monogamists were denying their own heritage. Joseph Smith did not pull polygamy out of the air. He found it in the Old Testament, where many patriarchs are represented as polygamous. The very wording of the Ten Commandments, a chief pillar of American public morality then as now, presupposes polygamy. In Deuteronomy, the commandment not to "covet" is divided into two parts. The command not to covet the neighbor's spouse is addressed only to men, and the command not to covet the neighbor's house, field, etc., is addressed to all of the people of Israel. A standard Torah commentary used in my temple puts it this way: "Because men could have more than one wife, an unmarried woman could covet another's husband and even end up married to him."
Yet in 1878, the U.S. Supreme Court would uphold an anti-polygamy statute with these words, extraordinary from justices who were supposedly Bible readers: "Polygamy has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people." (The Jews were in fact an Asiatic people, but mainstream Christians usually forgot that, thinking of Jesus as a blond, blue-eyed child. So the justices did not see themselves as repudiating their biblical heritage, although this is precisely what they were doing.)
All this shows us a deplorable, if ubiquitous, human tendency: People who feel threatened by a new group demonize the group by imputing to it allegedly nefarious practices in the areas of gender and sexuality. Think of anti-Semitism in European history, Islamophobia, and - perhaps above all - fear and loathing of gays and lesbians.
But what should we say about polygamy itself, in our own time? What, if anything, is really wrong with it?
First, as traditionally practiced, polygamy is one-sided. Men have rights that women do not. Sex equality could, then, give the state a strong interest in disallowing religious claims to practice polygamy, as long as the one-sidedness is maintained.
What about, though, a practice of plural contractual marriages, by mutual consent, among adult, informed parties, all of whom have equal legal rights to contract such plural marriages? What interest might the state have that would justify refusing recognition of such marriages?
Well, children would have to be protected, so the law would have to make sure that issues such as maternity/paternity and child support were well articulated. Beyond this, a regime of polygamous unions would, no doubt, be difficult to administer - but not impossible, with good will and effort. It is already difficult to deal with sequential marriages and the responsibilities they entail.
The history of Mormon polygamy shows us that the state and public opinion are very bad judges of what adult men and women may reasonably do. When people are insecure, they cling to the "normal" and vilify those who choose to live differently. Someday down the road, we may recognize that adults are entitled, as John Stuart Mill saw long ago, to conduct such "experiments in living" as suit their own plans and projects, as long as they inflict no harm on nonconsenting parties. The state must protect vulnerable dependents: children and the elderly. It must also protect adult men and women against fraud and force. Beyond that, it should leave the field of intimate sexual choice to a regime of private contractual arrangement. If polygamy turns out to be a bad idea, it won't survive the test of free choice over time.
Pretty much anything that comes out of the Philly media is garbage, no matter what this woman has to say, the BSA will be ejected from their HQ of 70 years because the Philly City council welched on their lease due to their desire and indeed Constitutional Right to exclude Gay Scoutmasters from holding positions in the Organization.
For Me, Philly is CA East, I have just about everything that comes out of that town on a “pay no mind list”
“So it wasn’t cheating. It was prophecy....oo yeah baby...WTF?”
I have to know what that means before I can respond to it.
They love their booty call.
True, but on the other hand, if my wife had a few more husbands, maybe I’d get more sleep at night and only have to mow the lawn every 3rd time etc. I do see an upside.
I read a lot of your short posting history.
How about speaking English? What do you mean?
I strongly recommend you visit the Utah Attorney General's web page on polygamy HERE to learn some of the reasons. You will find the AG's Primer on polygamy (there is a link to the pdf document at the bottom of the first paragraph) with the understanding it is emotionally disturbing.
There is an excellent video (approximately 90 minutes long) on polygamy HERE. It is well worth the watch in my opinion. (Incidentally, the sponsor provides copies of the DVD without charge to LDS members)
Who loves their booty calls?
Yep.
Polygamy is essentially slavery. The early Hebrews did all sorts of things that we wouldn’t do now, and in fact God educated them away from these things as He gradually built His Chosen People. The Old Testament is essentially the story of this, and it is clear that polygamy was one of the things that God led the Jews away from.
Few people understand how much Christianity has done for women. Coming into cultures where women were part of a herd owned by the more powerful men (because polygamy also means that there are some less powerful men who will never have a chance to marry), Christianity freed them essentially by treating them as individuals who had free will, an independent existence, and who deserved to love and be loved individually, as one woman by one man, bringing the beautiful imagery of the Old Testament into these brutal cultures.
This has completely transformed the lives of women, who because they are physically weaker and also bound to their children do not have the power in a primitive culture to resist polygamy/slavery without the support of the different world-view that is embodied in the Gospels. It’s interesting that all rejections of Christianity immediately go back to a primitive tribal culture. This includes Islam and Mormonism, the private “revelations” of individual wackos who essentially dumped Christianity and Judaism to legitimize their personal desires - for women, wealth, or conquest - in a faux version of the Old Testament. This means that the power of the group’s leader is all-controlling, decisions are made by a select few as the result of secret visions, slavery is practiced, including the enslavement of women in polygamy, blood fueds resume, and essentially the culture is a complete rejection of the individual-based, natural law infused culture brought by Christianity as it extended God’s message to the Jews to include the Gentiles as well.
Many of the things that the Jews were weaned away from would fall nowadays under the catchall expression, "values of the marketplace". Sometimes the markets are not your friend.
John Bunyan referred to worldly values frequently in his Pilgrim's Progress as impediments to the pilgrim. Worldliness was a particular concern of Reformation-era English Protestants.
No
problem is twofold - they werent marrying adults - Joseph Smith himself married 14 yr old Helen Marr Kimball, and she only accepted after he tied her affirmation to the claim by Smith that her immediate family would gain entrance to Heaven if she did so.
He's loosely saying that polygamy is a lesser evil than what the liberal socialist are doing to de-masculate modern man in liberal society. The critical point being in the liberal's world men are no longer men and women are no longer women. In a polygamist view, the women are chattle, but still play the role of women. The men are men (except for the poor fellows who will never know wedded bliss due to the shortage of women. Another evil unto itself, IMHO. Think China...)
Personally, I'd have to disagree with the concept of polygamy because it corrupts the vision I have of the American Christian Family.
That being said, in a situation where polygamy is permitted, I love my wife and care for her feelings too much to throw away the years of devotion to take another woman to bed as wife. It's something sacred and a responsibility before God to me. I didn't just meet my wife, I asked God for her and she was delivered.
At some point the concept of "don't tug on Superman's cape" overwhelms the thoughtful man. ; )
Not a flame, folks, just an opposing opinion. : ) Cheers, guys!
That’s a good way of putting it - these are “values of the marketplace” in the sense that they are the “values” of a world where material power is all-important and the person who happens to hold it can do whatever he wants. Perhaps we could say that worldliness is the rejection of the world as planned by God (which was revealed to the Jews and then to the Gentiles) and its replacement by a world that is subject to the whims of the powerful (a tribe, its leader, men in the tribe, etc.), or of the powerful individual who seeks to assert his domination rather than living as God calls him to live.
You are saying that Joseph Smith had sex with a kid. BFD a cult is a cult, of course some one did something with someone or else it would not ve a cult.
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