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.
bttt
Today I could use at least three-— one to go shopping, on to fix lunch and another to drag the 30” TV from upstairs.
Why was the TV upstairs?
Free will-— as long as all parties enter into it via free will and it’s not about geezers getting teenagers handed over by their Mamas.
Well, on the positive side with Jacob...
...he made a vow for God to be his God (Gen. 28:20)
...it was not of his choosing to enter into polygamy. In one sense, he did the honorable thing to wake up & discover having slept with a surprise bride...(that culture wasn't the type where you could throw a non-virgin back into the general pool like a fish too small).
...he overcame the angel of the Lord in a wrestling match & demanded a blessing from him (Gen. 32).
Still, Jacob stole blessings belonging to his brother Esau by way of deception (Gen. 27). [And in God's world, sometimes what comes around goes around]. In fact, Jacob's very name means supplanter, which = usurper, wrongdoer, offender, claimjumper.
You'll note that Jacob's transformative experience with God doesn't happen until after Jacob's baby marathon (Gen. 32 after Gen. 30). And it's usually a name change that's indicative in Scripture of God coming in to transform a person from their old life to new life [Jacob to Israel in Gen. 32; Abram to Abraham in Gen. 17; Sarai to Sarah; Saul to Paul; Simon Peter to Peter the Rock, etc.]
As for Jacob's family...
...the concubine Bilhah slept with one of Jacob's sons, Reuben (Gen. 35:22).
Son Judah thought he was sleeping with a prostitute, but she turned out to be a daughter-in-law (Tamar).
Sons Simeon & Levi took revenge on an entire city over the rape of their sister (Dinah), killing every male in that city (Gen. 34:25), even though only one man was guilty.
Son Dan is Jacob's late-life "blessing" is referenced as a "serpent" and "viper" (Gen. 49:17)--not exactly a prophetic compliment...as it turns out the Danites fail to fully possess their allotted land (Judges 1:34-35)...failed to support Deborah (Judged 5:17)...and are wiped away as a tribe to the point where Dan isn't even mentioned among the tribes in Rev. 7:5-8.
The jealous sons all conspired to rid of the family the baby of the family, Joseph--pondering killing him before selling him off to another land, and like their dad did, deceived him into thinking Joseph was dead (more of what comes around, goes around).
So jealousy (Gen. 30:1; 37) raged in Jacob's household over a generation of time; and deception raged in his households from the time he was young until his empty-nest years.
Compared to homosexual deviants getting married and having access to children, polygamy is a very minor concern to the society of normalcy.
Yes.
It’s very, very old and I had it upstairs to watch. It was taking up too much space and I want to put a smaller one in it’s place.
I got it upstairs by myself a few years back....How, I really don’t know.
Ask me a question.
OK. Why did you post this article? Was Nussbaum a too big of a target just begging to be hit?
(or is that not the right questions?)
Sorry, that came out bas ackwardes.
Where there's a will.......
I always agree with you and when it seems like I’m not, then it is computer thing.
ROTFL! "The DEVIL COMPUTER made me do it!"
I said there were "many"--I qualified that by saying that there weren't "many" as far as the major "patriarchs" went.
Adam was not. Noah was not. In my opinion, sleeping with "the help" one night for surrogacy purposes doesn't make one a "polygamist" (Abraham). Isaac was not. Moses had two wives, but we don't know when the first one died. Aaron was not. Joshua was not. The prophets such as Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel and the later prophets were not.
Second example: Samuel’s parents.
Exceptions don't prove the rule. In fact, if you make a list of Old Testament characters who either were polygamists or had concubines, you basically conclude that they slept with somebody other than their wife...
...(a) in their pre-covenant-with-God-stage (the pre-covenant Abram did it--not Abraham...and the pre-covenant Jacob did this, not the re-named Israel);
...or (b) they were shady characters otherwise.
Of course, there's exceptions to (a) and (b) above...that would include David, Gideon and Caleb.
One modern example: The Jews of Yemen practiced polygamy until they were returned to Israel in the 1950s and 60s.
So what? I could pull out all kinds of Old Testament Jewish examples of Jews clinging to particular idols. Sometimes it was a golden calf. Other times, it was temple prostitution. Sometimes it was embracing the gods of the peoples around them (Baal, Ashtoreth, etc.). And just because idolatry went on generationally for some Jews as some point in their history doesn't mean it was "the standard."
The fact is that revengeful, violent Lamech was the Biblical instigator of polygamy (see Gen. 4). For some reason, people want to start with Abraham as the prototype. He wasn't even a practioner of polygamy. Lamech was the guy. As for the practice of both polygamy and surrogacy in ancient times, that custom cradled among the ancient Mesopotamian pagans.
The Jewish tribes were always struggling with pagan practices, as are Christians today!
Alright what did I do?
Well, based on your #56, #85, & #91 posts, your computer's "mind of its own" is strengthening. I would stay it was a time for a computer exorcism (cleaning), except that biblically, as soon as you did that, your computer would go & get 7 other "spirits" stronger than it...and well, who wants to encourage that?
Oh, i meant #89, not #85...see, contagiousness.
Under these circumstances, and with the state of the law as announced in Lawrence and Goodridge, legalized polygamy is inevitable, and will come sooner than you think.
Read “A Study in Scarlet” online here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/244
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.