What is this, bait-and-switch? Bigamy has everything to do with the 'words of wisdom' you quoted from Orson Scott Card: "Lower than manhood are these: To rut with a woman when he already has a wife, and to abandon the children of his body." As a Mormon, that quote seems rather hypocritical. His religion is steeped in adulterous relations with women, though whitewashed with 15 marriage certificates, only the first woman the Mormon men married was their real wife. And how many time a week did these Mormon men visit the homes of their many wives and children and give true support to them in the form of love and personal attention? Talk about abandment and no support, yikes!.
My question to you is what does money, filthy lucre, have to do with real, honest-to-goodness child support? Can a man who sends a weekly check to his ex wife truly be considered as supportive to his children? Or is he just obeying the oppressive law that supports women and violates the child's right to have a father in his/her life? Does the child care about more about money or having a dad in his life? True "child support" will be when the oppressive system begins to allow divorced fathers to have as much time with their children as it gives the mothers. Way too much focus on money in America, and a severe lack of understanding that a father is equally important to a child, in all respects, as is the mother. Money does not replace fatherhood, and it's high time women started to really care about their children and not just thier pocketbooks.
I didn't quote them.
Bigamy as practiced by the Mormons, did not involve abandoment of their children. As far as only their first wife being their "real" wife, I guess you'd have to take that up with the other wives. I'm no scholar of the Bible, Old or New Testament, let alone the Book of Mormon, so I don't know were is it is written in the former that men can only have one wife, or women one husband for that matter, nor how the Mormons determined that in their religion it was OK. The practice is certainly not unheard of many cultures. The important thing is that their marriages, like monogamous ones, were fundamentally geared towards having and raising children. My understanding was that the most common arrangement was for all the wives and their children to live in the same house, perhaps with separate "wings" if they could afford such an arrangement. Perhaps you are thinking of the modern "renegade" Mormons who still practice mulitiple marriage? Some of those do utilize multiple households, if for no other reason than to keep the Sherrif at bay. Some of them, like some of most any group, are real slimeballs, but you shouldn't judge the pre-Utah statehood practices of mainstream Mormans by those of the modern group.
If you have a problem with that, well so be it.
My question to you is what does money, filthy lucre, have to do with real, honest-to-goodness child support?
Actually I agree with your sentiments about divorce, child support and "filthy lucre", I just don't see them applying to a pre-statehood Mormon style marriage with multiple wives. I don't know any Mormons with mulitiple wives, but the now more conventional monagmous Mormons I do know have very stable families. Their Church helps those who for one reason or another have financial problems, preventing fathers from having to work mulitiple jobs to support their families, so that they can actually be with their kids, rather than merely being nearly absent breadwinners. Divorce and adultry are highly frowned on.