Well, Dio, in at least one case you are 100% wrong about these women and what they have been supposedly brainwashed into believing: Janelle reports that her family and friends were completely appalled by her decision to enter into a plural marriage.
Can’t imagine people brainwashing you on the one hand and being horrified by your acting on the brainwashing on the other…
And I found some full episodes. Gotta check it out…
[quote]
Do you know that’s true, or are you assuming?[/quo0te]
I know that’s true.
It should not be taught in any household. Why the fuck would you think that I would think otherwise?
Most of them self-report being happy. I have been happily monogomous for over 20 years. It is the primary bonding vehicle for the human race. You are not going to make a case for yourself by sneering at it
Yes you did. You said it’s “unnatural,” and blamed it for all manner of misery and cheating. No paradim will guarantee happiness, but they have a better chance at it when the relationships are mutually equitable (something which cannot be said about your model family of choice).
Watch the show, Stoid, that’s all I can say. These women are treated like dogshit. it’s fine if you want to blieve that they’re “choosing” it, but it’s not an appropriate (much less “excellent”) way to raise children.
How many children have you ever parented, by the way? Where do you get your expertise on how other people should do it?
You are making things up and sticking them where you think they ought to be, not accurately reporting the truth.
I did not “sneer” at monogamy at all. I said it was unnatural, I did not say it made people miserable,. You made that up in your head and now you are attributing it to me, but you are mistaken.
None of the cites provided by Dr. Deth were proof of anything disputed about these people, they were cites about religious fanatics living in closed communities offered as though they were in fact legitimate citations to facts about this family.
And equitable is just as possible in a plural marriage as any other, perhaps even more so, there is nothing inherent in plural marriage itself which precludes it.
Not all plural marriage is what you keep asserting that it absolutely has to be and always is. Plural marriage imposed on people in a closed community who are deprived of education and outside associations… no argument from me. Plural marriage chosen by people who live in the same community with everyone else and choose it as adults? Whole different thing.
If this particular family is doing a bad job at raising kids, fine. It doesn’t mean it’s because they are polygamists.
Having children doesn’t make one an expert, by any stretch of the imagination! Hell, if that were the case the world would be a magical and beautiful place.
I have no children, by choice. My best friend is an expert in early childhood education, and was an educator before she chose to have children, and her kids are terrific. She paid me the best compliment: I’m the only person she’s ever known who had a clear understanding of what’s involved in parenting without actually having to have kids to get that understanding. Which is exactly why I didn’t have them. Done properly, raising human beings is an absolutely enormous job and responsibility that most people go into with varying degrees of cluelessness.
Which is why I think a loving, healthy, freely chosen plural marriage is great for kids.
So you admit you don’t know anything about raising children. Thank you. I do. Raising kids in an environment where women are subservient and unequal to men is not “great” for them.
And stop calling it “plural marriage.” These people aren’t married.
And yet, this is the family you chose to hold out in your OP as an example of folks who got it right. That’s the point of contention for most folks in this thread.
Edit upon seeing what was posted since I started writing this: Oh jeez- there it is. FWIW, Stoid, I don’t think you need kids to discuss whether polygamy, monogamy, homosexual relationships, single parent situations, etc are good or bad for kids. So, please don’t think I’m in agreement with that idea. I think most reasonable folks in this thread are just a bit miffed that you chose this family as an example of polygamy done right, when their show seems to lead most of us to a different conclusion.
Well, I’ve now watched all five episodes, back to back, without a break.
It’s not perfect. It’s not flawless. They are not 100% free of any negative feelings. And Kody is a dork with a lame sense of humor.
And so what? This is EXACTLY the family I saw on Oprah. EXACTLY. And they are, in the main, more loving, more emotionally available, more kind, more balanced, more honest than any other family or couple that I’ve ever seen on any reality show. By miles. The only thing that was completely different, and may be only a recent change, was the description of what school the kids go to. On Oprah they said it was public, on the show they said it was private. Everything else was completely consistent, across the board, including the kids, who seemed very happy and well-adjusted.
You who say that the show depicts this miserable existence are imagining things. You are locking on to the parts where the wives talk about their difficulties with Kody’s absence and the adjustment to a new wife, and that’s all you hear. You are treating the fact that they have issues to adjust to like it’s incredibly bizarre… as though monogamous relationships are smooth and perfect and free of any need for adjustment or compromise.
You are, in this thread at least, rejecting all the numerous statements and demonstrations of happiness, excitement, peace, and choices that worked in the past and continue to work and they expect will go on working. You are either selectively deaf or concluding that it must be false. Which you have no basis whatsoever for, other than your personal bias.
“See! Those women are miserable! It’s hell!”
In your head, maybe.
And perhaps some of you are just very uncomfortable with tears and assume that all crying is indicative of deep emotional distress. It’s not, and it wasn’t in this show. A good amount of the weepiness was the sort of weepiness I experience almost daily, which is the weepiness that comes from happiness and just generally intense emotion that isn’t misery at all. Crying is just an emotionally release, the emotions being released run the gamut for everyone and ran the gamut for the women in this show.
AS you know, I actually “admitted” exactly the opposite.
And as I just posted, the women in this marriage are not subservient and unequal. They are strong and passionate and they are exactly where they want to be, warts and all.
Free of social stigma and the inequality of non-secular traditions and habits that evolved beneath the stigma that has has existed and still exists today…I see no reason why any number of familial arrangements can’t be successful.
My only concern is in regards to number of children and stems from my opinion that there are already too many people on this planet, so if a mega-family is going to grow into a mega-brood, I’d like to see some sort of sponsorship from other families who either cannot have biological offspring or choose not to have biological offspring.
Come to think of it, that could be a catalyzing force for building harmony between the estranged Mormons and polygamists and homosexuals. You want a family with 6 wives, 3 husbands and 16 children? You’ll have to find 6 gay or infertile people to join your family. Everyone can help out with the kids and enjoy the experience of having kids intimately in their lives. It would be a win-win-win-win-win situation.
Humans have incredibly larges penises, especially considering that we don’t have a baculum.
Stoid, the rates of extrapair copulations mean nothing on the social structure. Most species of birds are socially monogamous, yet still seek extra pair copulations. Gibbons are also socially monogamous, yet still have a rate of infidelity that’s similar to some human levels. This doesn’t mean that social monogamy (what humans also practice) is unnatural in gibbons or birds. A small level of infidelity is natural in most socially monogamous species. I could see an argument made that humans were meant to be socially serial monogamous and that long term pair bonding is a rare system for humans, but I certainly wouldn’t call it unnatural, since many human cultures practice it.
Furthermore, I have some friends who have polyamorous lifestyles and plenty of cheating goes on there as well.
Well, to be fair, you’re comparing them to people like the Guidices, the Manzos, the Salahis, and MTV’s Teen Mom.
This whole argument seems circular. If they were really happy, you could say that, “See, it works.” But they’re crying and you’re still saying that. Is there anything this family could do to prove they are miserable?
I think you need to look at your sample. i.e. you’ve taken reality television - which specializes in entertaining us by showing us how fucked up other people are, as your “normal.” Then you take the one poly family on reality television - a family who admits they have self selected themselves for the show to illustrate that a poly family can be functional. And you are running the comparison. The reason these folks got a reality show is because poly will draw some viewers. The reason monogamous couples get on reality shows is because their fucked up-ness draws viewers.
I don’t watch reality television, but my understanding is the the Duggars (whatever you think of their breeding habits or faith) are pretty normal and supportive - if you don’t mind the traditional ‘older kids help raise younger kids’ model, and that before Jon and Kate let “I’m famous!” get the better of their personalities and their marriage, that they were a pretty normal couple raising eight kids.
You might want to read “Escape” by Caroline Jessup, if you haven’t - for the alternative view of a poly relationship.
Now, I will say - I have said - that I’ve seen these work in a secular sense. But it isn’t a “rainbows and unicorns” solution to raising kids. I didn’t read the threads about your breakup, but caught enough to know you had a drag out battle over who owns what and felt betrayed by someone you thought you could trust. Imagine that with six people involved…six people who can betray your trust and go insane and start fighting over assets. Then get kids involved. :eek:
Maybe we have different definitions of happiness, I don’t know. I do know that I personally don’t weep daily. I don’t weep weekly or monthly, for that matter. And I have a pretty open, emotionally available relationship with my husband and my kids and my friends and my family. I’m just not a crier. I think it seems unlikely that ALL of these women are by nature criers, and tend to just get weepy at every little thing, which makes me think that maybe there’s a little bit too much raw emotion in the house to make it a truely comfortable, happy place to be.
There are a few other things that bother me about it (by no means an exhaustive list):
The conversation the first wife (Meri) had with her husband on the occasion of their 20th anniversary dinner. I touched on this earlier, in terms of his “too bad, women can’t have more than one husband” attitude. But more than that, it bothers me that she seems to live in a state of semi-permanent jealousy and insecurity that needs to constantly be worked through and dealt with. This does not seem healthy to me at all. Look at it this way, if a friend came to me and said that she feels jealous and insecure in her relationship, I would probably ask her if she thinks her husband gives her reason to feel that way. If she said no, I would probably advise therapy for her to try to resolve her issues. If she said yes, I would tell her to maybe try for couples counseling to see why he does stuff that he knows makes her feel that way yet still continues to do it (cause quite frankly it seems kind of abusive that a husband would do so). If she said yes, but it was ok because in the context of the relationship they had, it was acceptable and expected for him to do so, and her job to cope with it as best she can, I would think she had deep, deep emotional problems that absolutely required counseling, and probably couples counseling as well. Tell me that in the context of a monogamous relationship, you would not have the same thoughts.
Another problem I have with this is that they seem to have varying ideas of what his proper moral conduct should be. At least one of them thought it wasn’t appropriate for him to kiss his girlfriend, and yet he repeatedly did so despite her feelings, even while she was in labor delivering their child. He also showed a lack of respect for her by discussing fertility issues another wife was having with the doctor, right in front of her. If you’re going to live this lifestyle, at the very least I think you need to have a level of consideration for each party that goes far, far beyond what I have seen from him.
I think it is problematic to model this lifestyle to children. Not the moral aspect of the polyamory, but the idea that women have one role in life, and men have another. I used to think differently about this, much more along the lines that it’s a parental right to teach their children whatever their personal values are. And, well actually, I still think it’s their right to do so, but I think it’s morally wrong to do so.
Ultimately, I do not like that it’s a situation in which one party can make changes and have power in negotiations that another party doesn’t have. I’m actually not of the opinion that these women are miserable, not at all. But all the adjustments and compromising is on their side, not his, and though you keep comparing that to the adjustments and compromise people make in monogamous relationships, I don’t believe it’s indicative of a healthy relationship of any kind when one side gives in all the time, and the other one doesn’t have to.
The whole point is that once you give up your power to a patriarchal asshat, you ain’t getting it back. Is that so hard to understand? You can’t get it back. Your kids are hostages, especially if you’re in a Fundamentalist Mormon community. Carolyn Jessop had to escape in the middle of the night. Guess what? The police are FLDS polygamists too; they’ll send you straight back to your “husband” and you’ll lose the kids. What great power! What a wonderful environment to raise your kids! Amazingly, after escaping with all her kids at night from the polygamist community, one of Carolyn Jessop’s daughters returned to the community and got married off to some old guy with a bunch of other wives.
I’m willing to kick in $10 towards the “Let’s Send Stoid to Hilldale, UT” fund. Or better yet, let’s see if Kody’s ready for #5.
I’m sure they’ll be cool with your internet porno business.
Well, in fairness, these folks don’t live in some kind of cult compound. But emotionally, they’re stuck, that’s for sure. It’s not like they can negotiate any kind of change to the relationship without breaking it up, but he can. As I said, ultimately that’s my major issue with it. There’s something fundamentally fucked up, in my opinion, for an adult to let another person have that kind of power over them.
They are crying AND laughing AND being perfectly normal. I watched the show, waiting to see evidence of how awful their lives were…and nuthin’. And the only thing anyone had specifically cited was “the crying”, so I addressed that. Because if it hadn’t been pointed out I would never have seen it as evidence of their misery… at least, not in combination with everything else I was seeing and hearing, which was all very positive.
The show shot them during a very intense period of their lives, when they were taking on a new wife after sixteen years of just the three, as well as two of the wives being pregnant. I think weepiness is completely normal and understandable.
As I just noted, this was shot during a very emotionally intense period of their lives, including two pregnancies.
That’s how you look at it, and there’s nothing right or wrong with it.
But these women were very clear about their point of view regarding this, in many different ways. They desire to be part of this kind of family structure to begin with. They don’t tolerate it after it’s been forced on them. They want it. And they don’t want monogamy. But there’s a downside and a sacrafice: they will experience feelings of jealousy. They specifically do not want to feel those things, they consider such feelings something they want to overcome. Not by having the trigger removed, but by their own growth. That is an entirely valid choice, and an entirely valid point of view.
It isn’t for YOU, because YOU believe that monogamy is best, and take those feelings as evidence that you’re “right”.
But THEY don’t agree with you. THEY look upon plural marriage as an opportunity to gain many wonderful things, including an opportunity to improve themselves by overcoming what they view as petty, unproductive emotions of jealousy.
Both points of view are valid for the individuals themselves, who choose their values.
Maybe it’s easier for me to see it because my values include big doses of both…I am fundamentally monogamous, but I’m pretty free of sexual jealousy the way most people seem to experience it, and I can even do a bit of sharing.
“Far, far beyond”?? Really? I disagree. I think he’s about average in the “clueless husband” category, he just happens to have four wives to be clueless about.
Here’s where I think you have your blinders on bigtime. This is NOT what that family is teaching those children, not at all!! His daughter wants to go to Annapolis, for god’s sake!! (And he’s thrilled and proud and happy!) And the kids very clearly say multiple times that they are going to live their lives differently, and the mothers and Dad very clearly state multiple times that they support and encourage their children making their own choices about everything, even religion itself, even having none!:eek: and that all they want for them is to be happy!!! They sound like every normal, reasonable parent I’ve ever heard in my life.
AND…most importantly, as I’ve pointed out before, “Man Rules, Woman Obeys” is taught in monogamous families by the millions. ** Polygamy has nothing to do with it.**
And I didn’t see that at all. NOT AT ALL. And if you did you’ll have to tell me where. The only area of conflict of any kind was the new wife, and while the current wives were grappling with various issues, none of them gave the slightest indication that they really didn’t want it and were just giving in because they had no choice, not even close. They all wanted it, very much so! Most of their unhappiness seemed to be about the time he was spending courting her, not the fact of his bringing her in to the family, because it took him away from them for days at a time.
