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.
Yes, a heritage that also includes savagery, cannibalism, butchery of live animals, sexual debauchery and abuse of every description, murder, mass-murder, every conceivable transgression against the Noahide Laws, the Laws of Hammurabi, the law of Moses, and, as Marlon Brando once said, "what have you got?"Well said.If this scribblerette were any gamier, she'd be covered in maggots.
What this scibblerette (good word!) says can be said by any clit-slitting muzzie fanatic.
Whatever it is "you have got" is all fine tradition.
Im not saying anything - HISTORY is
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.Thank you for posting this. The writer of the posted piece is either a moron or a marxist. Why would a marxist praise polygamy? Simple. They are enraged at the end of the Soviet Union and are trying everything they know, including supporting muzzies, to bring down western civilization.
That's why the hags & btches of NOW never say a word about the slaughter, mutilation and slavery of muzzie women around the globe.
And that's why the slimey disgusting skank who wrote this piece cares not a whit about the implications that polygamy has for the freedeom and liberty of women everywhere.
Say What?
Spit it out!
LOL - get some sleep - we arent making sense to each other
This is my thread, what is it that you want to post?
“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.
The deviance and repugnance of “gay marrige” can stand on it’s own as such. It doesn’t require ‘scare images’.
I’m cool with it as long as Revelation 911 is.
Polygamy=Horny men and brainless women.
For years polygamy was practiced by Joseph Smith and his followers (see note above). The Mormon church practiced polygamy until it was outlawed. Had it never been outlawed, they’d still be at it today and Utah would most likely be the most populous state in the nation. Thank God it was outlawed.
Both footnotes appear to not be conservative. So even liberal sources, according to Wikipedia were referencing her testimony as "misleading and even perjurious."
So it'll be interesting to see who, if anyone is this thread, would rally around her historically off-base philosphical ideas.
Huge assumption made by this careless author. While the vast number of 19th century polygamous "unions" were NOT necessarily abusive, quite a bit of evidence points to abuse. As you read below, imagine being...
...12-yo Emma Wheat, "who was being forced into a marriage she detested."
...or imagine being one of the 13 yo teens having to marry an old man "tottering on the brink of the grave" as referenced by Mormon plural 19th century "plural wife" Fanny Stenhouse...
...or imagine being one of the 15 girls of the 153 polygamous men later studied by George D. Smith--these 15 yo girls who were 13 & 14 yo (two were 13)...
...or imagine being the trio of "young girls" aged 12 & 13 who were brought by "Father Alread" [diary entry so I believe the spelling is wrong] to LDS "prophet" Wilford Woodruff for marital sealing [Woodruff said "no"...but imagine what these girls were told...and even if it was "no" at age 12, was it still "no" at age 14?]
The book, Changing World, p. 226: The early Mormon leaders certainly did allow their young people to marry at an early age. Mosiah Hancock was only 11 years old when he was "sealed" to a "young girl." According to his journal, he was "born in Kirtland, Ohio, on April the 9th, 1834." ("The Mosiah Hancock Journal," typed copy, p.1). On pages 20 and 21 of the same journal, he recorded: On about January 10, 1846, I was privileged to go in the temple and receive my washings and annointings. I was sealed to a lovely young girl named Mary, who was about my age, but it was with the understanding that we were not to live together as man and wife until we were 16 years of age. The reason that some were sealed so young was because we knew that we would have to go West and wait many a long time for another temple.
According to Stanley P. Hirshon, who wrote a biography of Brigham Young: "Make haste and get married," Remy heard Young preach. "Let me see no boys above sixteen and girls above fourteen unmarried." ... In 1857 The New York Times, reporting the sealings to old men of two girls aged ten and eleven, estimated that most girls married before they were fourteen.... Troskolawsski knew one bishop who was sealed to four of his nieces, the youngest thirteen years old....On August 1, 1856, he put on the stagecoach for Ohio twelve-year-old Emma Wheat, who was being forced into a marriage she detested." (The Lion of the Lord, pp.126-27).
Changing World, p. 225: The shortage of women was so great that some of the men were marrying girls who were very young. Fanny Stenhouse stated:
"That same year, a bill was brought into the Territorial Legislature, providing that boys of fifteen years of age and girls of twelve might legally contract marriage, with the consent of their parents or guardians!" (Tell It All, 1875, p.607).
According to http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/no91.htm, Stenhouse "at one time had been a firm believer in Mormonism and had even allowed her husband to take another wife." She wrote: "It would be quite impossible, with any regard to propriety, to relate all the horrible results of this disgraceful system....Marriages have been contracted between the nearest of relatives; and old men tottering on the brink of the grave have been united to little girls scarcely in their teens…(Tell It All, 1874, page 468)
Per researcher George D. Smith (Source: "Nauvoo Polygamists", George D. Smith, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Spring 1994, p. ix, as found at http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/no91.htm) discovered that of "a list of 153 men who took plural wives in the early years of the Mormon Church. When we examined this list, we noted that two of the young girls were only thirteen years old when they were lured into polygamy. Thirteen girls were only fourteen years old. Twenty-one were fifteen years old, and fifty-three were sixteen years old when they were secretly enticed into this degrading lifestyle."
"I shall not seal the people as I have done. Old Father Alread brought three young girls 12 & 13 years old. I would not seal them to him. They would not be equally yoked together...Many get their endowments who are not worthy and this is the way that devils are made." (Source: Wilford Woodruff, Wilford Woodruff's Journal, 5:58.)
I don’t care about either groups truthfully, but I am against polygamy more because polygamists seem to enjoy marrying their 12-13 year old girls. Gays at least keep it within adults from what I can see in the media at least. If plygamists would not go for the young then perhaps they could get some respect...maybe.
What!
Posted last night, concerning Islam:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2017569/posts
Go to the source and read the whole thing. Well worthwhile reading about what Islam is all about.
I’m cool with it as long as Revelation 911 is.
Im cool
How paganly ignorant can you get!!!!!!!!!!!! [The very wording of the Ten Commandments presupposed theft, adultery, murder, envy, coveting, idolatry, misuse of the tongue, workaholism, and the like! That doesn't mean any of these practices were great Biblical traditional "heritages" to follow!!!]
This is what happens when liberals try to impose their lifestyles over the Bible & cut & paste only minute portions of it to evaluate.
From the article: 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. Yet in 1878, the U.S. Supreme Court would uphold an anti-polygamy statute...So the justices did not see themselves as repudiating their biblical heritage, although this is precisely what they were doing.)
Many?
(1) Jacob, who was deceived into entering the practice of polygamy.
(2) Many mistake Abraham for a polygamist, but he slept with "the help" for one night for surrogacy purposes, and after doing so, none of the biblical narrators or commentators ever refence Hagar as anything but either a slave or servant (and that lineup is pretty impressive, for it includes Abraham himself, Hagar herself, Sarah herself, Moses as author, the apostle Paul, and even the Angel of the Lord--whom some say was the appearing of the pre-incarnate Son of God!).
(3 & 4) That leaves David & Solomon...Solomon was judged for allowing his heart to be led astray by foreign wives (1 Kings 11:3-4, 9-11), which God warned would happen because of polygamy (Deut. 17:17)...David was judged for his affair with Bathsheba and lost an infant son over it...and with David, it's not clear which wives died when, and some of them were concubines who slept with his adult son, Absalom...so if the behavior of David's concubines was worth emulating, then I'd guess the "biblical heritage" Nussbaum is talking about should = servant help sleeping with family members!!!
(5) (Of course, some others did practice polygamy in OT times, but I wouldn't reference them as the pillar "patriarchs")
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. [Livius]
Well, when this author claims that 19th century monogamists were denying their own heritage, the fact is monogamy was indeed the standard for both old & new testament times:
OLD: Deut. 17:17 & Gen. 2:23-25 + implied by Hebrew laws in Ex. 20:17; 21:5; Lev. 18:8,16-20; 20:10; Num. 5:12; Deut. 5:21.
NEW: Monogamy practiced as "THE" standard: 1 Tim. 3:2,12; Titus 1:5-7; 1 Cor. 7:2; Matt. 19.
Jacob, David and various other Biblical figures had more than one wife at the same time and some had many concubines as well.
If Biblical precedent doesn't work for you than the code of moral law you abide by is yours alone so why subject everyone else to it.
In America a man can impregnate 5 willing women and if he is rich enough, be forced to provide financially for each of his children, as he should. If those 5 women all decided they wanted to live in the same house with the man and all care for the children of the same father, the law is against it.
It seems to me homosexuals want the government to recognize gay marriage to not only be accepted as normal behavior but also to reap government benefits like tax breaks for the married.
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