BellaOnline Forums Relationships Marriage your thoughts on polygamy?

The topic of polygamy is very much in the news now and I would like to know your thoughts on a polygamous union.

For me personally, I could not share my husband with anyone else. I believe that marriage is one man, one woman-that is me. Bear in mind that most of us have not been raised in polygamous households so we do feel differently than those women who were.

Give your opinions on the plus and minus of such unions.

I've been watching all the news on this with much interest, even my daughter has been interested in it because I seriously think that these woman are conditioned from a young age to accept this as normal. Watching the news footage, all it reminded me of was a commune.
Women all dressed the same, hairstyle the same, even the children. Please.....
If you notice men are always involved in stuff like this. I have never to this day heard of a woman brainwashing a bunch of men and sleeping with all of them and marrying off the offspring to older women, etc etc.
I think it's extremely sick. I feel sorry for these women and I feel sorry for the children that were brought into this mess innocently.
Nothing personal guys present on the forum, but this needs to be said. Men have been undermining women for generations and it's getting old real quick.

The things that bother me about this kind of cult is that the people aren't there of their own free will, and that underage girls are forced into marriage and raped by much older men. But, those are really separate issues from just straight polygamy.

If it was a question of consenting adults who are there because they choose to be there, I don't see what is so wrong about polygamy.

Personally, I'm sure the sexual side of things would be very difficult for me. I would have trouble dealing with sharing my husband's affections and love. It would be hard not to succumb to jealousy or competition, especially if you're in a regular marriage and suddenly your husband wanted to get another wife. I would have a problem with that!

But, maybe there are situations where the women are bisexual, or the sexuality issues weren't a problem...perhaps everyone entered the relationship at the same time, or it's the man and woman's choice to marry a 3rd person...then, that should be their right.

I have to admit, sometimes it seems like it would be fun to have another woman in the house if you had a great relationship like a friendship, and could have more people to help with housework and childrearing. So, if the sexual tensions weren't there, it wouldn't seem so bad.

I can completely see why the men would be happy to do it.. they get to have sex with more than one woman.. and the women aren't supposed to get annoyed about this.

I wonder how they would cope it the wives did exactly the same and slept with / married more than one man...

'But that's not God's will' I can hear all the men who believe in polygamy cry...

Odd, isn't it, how so many of 'God's will' seem to demean women and reduce them to second best compared to men?

I wouldn't say that polygamy is necessarily a bad thing as I think 'open' relationships can work as long as both parties are completely honest with each other... however I would argue that polygamy is bad if it's only open to one partner - that's not equal and just an excuse to sleep with other women.

Personally, I just do not see where the women could really be happy with the arrangement. Nor do I like the fact that a lot of wives aren't even 18.

I have heard that "it takes a village to raise a child" and in this case, it appears so.

It should be up to the men and women of the religion if it were equally balanced to benefit the women as well as the men.

I was watching some segment on GMA the other day. They were explaining what the difference in height of their hair means and also the color of their dress has a reference as well.

This one person was saying that their hair is this way because it is so far removed from what we have in society that they would not fit in and this would keep them isolated.

I dont really understand where the kids are in the foster system? are they all in homes already? Anyone in that state?

The two major problems I have with it is marrying children and having the government support your children. Most claim they do not know the father of their children so they can steal from the system. So they are breaking law in both of these instances, and harming children. There is polygamy going on outside of their church which does not do this.

As far as the adult women who choose to do it, that is fine if they are truly happy. And many have stated, like Freida aluded to, that it is great to have support in the home, and they do make friendships, but I'm thinking that is not the norm.

I'd rather be alone than with a man that wanted to be shared with another woman.

HI,
Wow, there are some really powerful posts here. I feel sorry for the children in these situations. I loved what Bahrain had to say. It is so true, you never hear of a woman with several men in her life. The children are the victims. The women who decide to do this, just make their children victims of some male pervert. I will hear of some older man with a 15 yr. old girl that they force into this life style.

I would not like it. If a adult woman wants to do this, it is up to her. But when she decides to have children, this is not good for them. The women always seem brainwashed to me. Maybe they were victims of different kinds of abuse too. Some of these women & young girls could be runaways also. I think that some of the men who are in charge of these groups look for women to recruit for this life style. It's not for me, that's for sure!
Judy K. Chicago.

Religion or not - the men that were with people underage should be arrested.

Hey, they used to say keeping slaves was in the bible, and that is against the law; so yes I agree gypsyinpurple! They should be arrested regardless of religion.

Bahrain, I so agree with your statement. It is true that men have been subjugating women for centuries. And LinuxLady, yes, it seems that men use the "God's Will" statement to keep women under control.

I am disgusted that, under the guise of religion, young girls are raped and forced to bear children time and again.

I also heard on GMA, (from a former FLDS woman who escaped after years of abuse and now helps young girls who have also managed to escape), that any woman or girl who doesn't do what she is "told" will be physically punished and she described the punishments. It was sick.

I am glad that the government has taken steps to deal with this. The shock fact is that this is happening in the USA.

As a pracicing Mormon, I find this practice appalling & I'm glad the children were taken. I'm used to being teased about how many wives my husband has, and I can say with confidence that this practice is something totally rejected in our faith. These sects that break away from the church are usually excommunicated members (men) who, to put it bluntly, are bad people who don't want to answer to anyone. The women in these sects are taught from infancy that their salvation depends on their submissive conduct. In many cases the girls who leave immediatly return, in fear that they are going to go to hell. On the subject of polygamy, I just finished reading "The Red Tent", which is an excellent book, with some good insight as to the dynamics of sharing a husband in biblical times.

Lady4...I don't really know that much about the Mormon faith, but Joseph Smith the founder of your faith was a polygamist, wasn't he?

Here is a good website with some stats and info on polygamy:

BellaOnline ALERT: Raw URLs are not allowed in these forums for security reasons. Please use UBB code. If you don't know how to do UBB code just post here for help - we will help out!

I don't think relationships should be dictated by government or religion as long as they are between consenting adults.

I really haven't kept up reading the news on this case, so I can't comment on that sect in particular.

There are plenty of groups that aren't mainstream however that may be seen as weird because of their hair or style of dress but are perfectly nice people. When there is child abuse involved it's easy to classify their whole way of life as completely wrong instead of looking at each aspect of their lives separately.

I've known people in polyamorous relationships but the women had just as much freedom as the men. It was a relationship negotiated between equals. I don't think I could do it. I'm just too jealous.

I think my husband would have to hunt for his manhood a long time after he even made a sugestion about having another wife! with that said. I would rather be in a open marrage where I can step out and have my fun too or a reveruse Poligomist marrage where I can have lots and lots of husbands at my beck and call and they all have to be submissive to me ....oh wait may one and only husband has 2 sisters and a mom.....I would have in laws with every new husband.... in laws? they could have more then two sisters and .... AHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Run RUN RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOW that would be aweful!!! no more please!!! I cant take it!!! The HORROR the INHUMANITY OF IT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!

wow I am glad I thought that through before I started looking for my 2nd husband! that was close!!!

lmao ould anyone what that many inlaws?

Just solely talking about the idea of having an 'open relationship' or "nonexclusive relationship" where the person you are partnered with is able to be with other people - that is REALLY rough for me. When I was dating, it was hard emotionally to care about someone and to know they were off seeing other people. I would not survive well long term in that type of situation. I would be too jealous.

If it was a casual situation, where we were just friends, then that would be different.

From people I know in relationships like that, the danger is that you are in essence letting your partner "try out other partners" who then might end up being a much better match than you are. So then they spend more time with the other partner than with you - which then means they grow more close together, and it snowballs from there.

This then leads into the discussion of "well should you always move to be with the person best matched for you at a given moment, rather than forcing yourself to stay with someone who you are not well matched for, just because you were once well matched 10 or 20 years ago?" Most people would rather have long term stability and sacrifice moment-by-moment perfection. But there are certainly people out there who would much rather relationship-hop so that every year they were with someone who was great for them for their current life stage. The problem is that it tends to leave a lot of heart-broken people in your wake if you do that, never mind the trauma of moving / divvying up stuff / etc. that happens each time.

I totaly agree with you, Lisa. The idea that someone with whom I was emotionally involved also having an emotional attachment to another woman would cause me no end of misery.

Also, as I see it, commitment is between two people in a relationship where there is intimacy and the inherent emotions. That I couldn't share because it is way too personal.

>This then leads into the discussion of "well should you always move to be with the person best matched for you at a given moment, rather than forcing yourself to stay with someone who you are not well matched for, just because you were once well matched 10 or 20 years ago?" Most people would rather have long term stability and sacrifice moment-by-moment perfection.


There is another factor to consider there, too. Although people do change over the years, it doesn't mean a marriage should be broken because of it. Marriage, contrary to popular romanticized myth, takes some effort. "Two shall be as one" is -- pretty sounding words, but in reality, two are always two individuals. Just because someone says "Now you are married" doesn't change that individuality.

Over the years, you and your spouse will, hopefully, develop your own routines and ways of doing things, often a blend of what you each brought to the relationship.

After 27 years -- and some very rough spots! -- we are still married. Security, yes, but there is more. It is more that we worked to make it work well for us. He can't read my mind. I can't read his. And sometimes, that causes bumps in the road. We work through them.

But I think having more people in the mix would make it harder. I don't know if it is cultural -- after all, I grew up with monogamy considered the norm -- or if it is something inherent in most people.

But the only way I could see a plural marriage working is if there were multiple partners all around. And even then -- they dynamics seem logistically tricky. OTOH, it would be nice to have more people to divvy the workload among! ;-)

The old ways held that women and men were equal, and both could choose, as long it was equal, could support having that choice.

That being said, I couldn't do it, I couldn't handle the one with whom I have an intimate intellectual, emotional and physical connection sharing that with another woman, it would be a kind of betrayal, and I wouldn't do that to my partner, either, shoe's on both sets of feet.

Mrs. A - I definitely agree that long term relationships take a lot of work! They are not easy. But they definitely have rewards. You usually "grow together". So you learn to like the same kinds of foods, to enjoy the same kinds of movies, at least partially. So you rub off on each other and in a way you "become" better suited for each other.

Of course there is the potential to grow apart too - which is why it takes work and nurturing

I do know people who live in a commune which is in essence multiple partners for everyone. Again while it might work well in theory, I see a lot of potential for conflict there. What if you really want to be with Joe every night - but he really wants to be with Mary every night. There's always going to be situations like that.

There is of course an up side too. If you really wanted to cuddle, and Joe was busy working on his latest novel and didn't want to be disturbed, you could always go to Jack as your back-up plan and still get to cuddle. But I would have to guess that the back-up benefits would be outweighed (for me) by the emotional downs of the losses.

>I definitely agree that long term relationships take a lot of work! They are not easy. But they definitely have rewards.


Oh, yes, those rewards are -- subtle but wonderful. Just the common threads of your lives, even, the little inside jokes, the shared history. A new relationship can never offer all of that. Communication is different, often, I think -- because so much is based on history and references that, without that common history of togetherness, would be missing.