FREE ESSAY ON POLYGAMY

POLYGAMY

Polygamy is the practice of a man taking more than one wife at the same time. Polyandry is
when a woman takes more that one husband at the same time. Polyandry is rare compared to
polygamy, because it is only known to be inexistence in two parts of the world. One is
among the Nair people who are inhabitants of India's Malabar Coast. The other is in
Tibet, where a woman can take her husband's brothers as her mates. This paper will be
focused strictly on the debate over polygamy. It does more harm than good and should be
banned and enforced strongly within the United States' borders. 
Being married to more than one person at the same time has been illegal in the U.S. since
1862, but has not been enforced strictly. The Mormon Church is well known for practicing
polygamy, but the church banned it in 1980. Over a period of forty years, the church
endured serious federal efforts to crack down on the practice of polygamy. Dr. Irwin
Altman, a professor of psychology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City say, "Today
there are some twenty thousand to forty thousand people who are practicing polygamy in
the state of Utah." He also states, "Some forty years ago, the numbers were within the
hundreds or low thousands." It has also been estimated that there is an equal amount
scattered around the rest of the United States. This number is said to be as large as a
hundred thousand people, just in America alone. Most of these people reside in the
western states of the United States. 
The patriarch figure in these unions usually does one of two things when it comes to
additional wives. He either marries his first wife legally and then is sealed to the
other wives, in a religious ceremony or he divorces one wife (but stays with her) before
he marries another wife and repeats this process. So these men seek a civil marriage
license only once and the brides to follow are taken in private religious ceremonies. In
other words, since they do not have legal marriage licenses, they have no right under the
government to have these marriages. Also the husband has two choices when it comes to the
living arrangements as well. He can keep the entire family in a single home, whereas
other polygamy husbands may have each of his wives living under different roofs. When it
comes to spending time with each of his wives and his children, there is a schedule that
everyone follows, but it is flexible and can be moved around to fit almost everyone's
needs. Carmen Thompson, a former wife of a Mormon polygamist says, "Depending on the
number of wives a man has he usually spends one night out of the week with each wife and
her children by him." When special events come up everyone does their best to make
accommodations. It is extremely hard for birthdays and anniversaries to fit into the
schedule and so they are pretty much nonexistent. 
Carmen Thompson said that on her honeymoon one of the other wives came to visit. This
other wife wanted to have another child, and her ideal breeding time just happened to
fall right in the middle of the honeymoon. So the new wife had to watch the children
while the other wife spent the night with the husband, in the bedroom. How many women
would want this to happen to them on their honeymoon? Many polygamous groups believe that
a woman should have a baby every year. The idea is that there are spirits in heaven
waiting to get a body to come to earth in, and if they are not born into a Mormon family,
they will be born into a bad family, one that is not Mormon. 
The fathers usually force their teenage daughters to marry once they have started their
menstrual cycle. On an average these younger girls are about fourteen years old. The
number has, however gone as low as the age of nine, when a girl is married off. Keep in
mind that most of these girls have never known things to be any different. Most of them
feel that this is the way the world is, and that everybody leaves like this, or at least,
this is the will of God. 
If someone ever objects to these polygamous standards then they are harshly punished for
disobeying God's wishes. Earlier Mormon scripture states that God came to Joseph Smith in
a vision and told him that in order for anyone to get into the Celestial City, Heaven,
they would have to be married to a polygamist husband. Joseph Smith later became the
founder of the Mormon Church and religion. Carmen Thompson's husband told her that God
gave him the revelation that if any of his wives think that they can leave and make it in
the outside world; He's going to take them off this planet. This meaning that the husband
would kill anyone of his wives that decided to leave him. If they did want to get out of
the relationship, then they were also told that they were just acting irrational. Or they
were told that they were just jealous of the other wives. If a wife had these feelings
she was told that she was disobeying God. To rebel against polygamy was to rebel against
God and there was not anything worse then rebelling against God. Most Mormon doctrines
dictate that a woman must be totally submissive to her husband. So many wives feel that
they have no choice but to do whatever their husband wants. Plus if one wife would not do
what the husband wanted, then he could always ask one of the other wives to do it
instead. 
Some say polygamy is a victimless crime, but that is not true. If a man believes that he
is God in his house, pretty soon he is going to end up treating his wives like children
who have to, according to him, be disciplined. Statistics show that polygamous wives
reported that their husbands started becoming abusive towards them and/or their children
once that wife started questioning the husband's absolute authority. Many women stay in
these bad situations, because of their children. They do not want their children growing
up without a father in their lives. However, once the husband starts abusing the
children, then the wives feel that things have gone too far and they finally decide to
break away, but not at all for the women's sake but for her children instead. The
question is to what extent does freedom of religion go hand in hand with women's freedom
and to what extent the freedom of women is restricted by polygamy. Also many debates are
centered on women's rights and the potential for abuse in a polygamous marriage. 
Tapestry of Polygamy, an anti-polygamy group that is made up of women who used to be
married to polygamists, maintain that polygamy makes victims out of women and puts
children in harm's way. It was founded in 1998 and the group was named for the pattern
their stories create when woven together. The majority of their work is counseling men
and women that want to leave polygamous marriages, and they also push for enforcements of
Utah's laws that ban polygamy. Within the last year, more than three hundred women
followed the example of the former polygamist wives in the Tapestry, and left their
plural marriage. The organization receives over two dozen calls from women and even some
men who need someone to talk to about their polygamist religion. The Tapestry of Polygamy
states that, "polygamy is the biggest con in the world, men are in it for sex, not
religion."
Polygamy also means poverty, because there are so many children in the family, and the
husband often does not hold a job. The husband has no reason to hold a job. This is
because many of these husbands are spending each day of the week with a different wife
and children. They stay the night with the wife so they do not have to pay rent. The wife
provides that day's meals so there is no need for food or utility bills either. So in
other words, the husband lives off his wives. 
There are other countries, besides America, that have polygamy being practiced within
them. In Uganda, Africa polygamy is common. The statistics in this country say that
between forty to fifty percent of unions are polygamous. In the rural areas it has become
an economic necessity, since multiple wives and children provide unpaid farm labor. The
right of a man to take as many wives as he wishes is even protected under law, provided
he could secure their comfort. However there have been studies that show that in many
cases a second wife is put into humiliating roles, pushed aside, and her property is
confiscated. 
In Uganda though there are more and more women who are challenging this practice. The
FIDA, which is the Ugandan Association of Women Lawyers, has drafted a fifty-four page
that defines the rights before, during, and after a marriage. The Law Reform Commission
set out to regulate polygamous unions. It recommends that each man be restricted to two
wives and that the need for a second wife must be justified in front of a Family and
Children Court first. Some say that the argument is not about wives, it is about letting
people marry according to their beliefs. Beliefs should be healthy and not harm others or
society. If it were someone's belief to kill their wife after a year and then remarry and
repeat this ever year, would it be tolerated and allowed.
Islamic laws permit a man to take up to four wives, but there are strict conditions that
this is allowed to take place under. He must go before an Islamic religious court and
prove he will be able to afford it, will be fair and just to all of his wives, and he
will not cause harm to the existing wife and the existing children. Some opposing views
are that Islam's code of law says that men have the right to four wives and that any
limitation of that right would create a huge violation of the freedom of religion.
However the rules and laws of Islam may end up changing a little bit, because the Prime
Minister of Islam, Mahathir Muhammad has been notably outspoken on the subject of
polygamy. Some Parliament members have suggested that polygamy has been justified because
women outnumbered men in the country of Malaysia by fourteen to one. However, the
statistic department reported there were actually more Muslim men than women in the
country. So women outnumbering men is no longer a strong enough opposing statement. 
There are so many things about polygamy that are different and just not right compared to
a conventional marriage. The sexuality behind closed doors is not intimate, because the
wife knows that he is just following his schedule and that yesterday and tomorrow he will
be with a different woman. It is nearly impossible to give yourself one hundred percent
to a man who you know for the next six nights will be sleeping with about six different
women. Some say that in sharing a husband you are not losing anything, but instead you
are gaining salvation and sister-wives. Yes the woman gain sister-wives who can help with
the children and household duties, but is it worth all the negativity that goes hand in
hand with this kind of marriage. Yet to others polygamy represents a tie to an earlier
time when their pioneering forefathers came to the west side of America and began a new
future there. Today's world is not the same as it was for their forefathers. Things do
change and people need to realize this. Also just because a generation before us did a
certain thing, does not make it right, and it certainly does not mean that we have to
follow in those footsteps as well.