# Polygamy **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [May 6, 2016, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051 "2016-05-06T09:03:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![waddlingeagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/4da419/32.png) [@waddlingeagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waddlingeagle)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2016, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/41 "2016-05-07T18:07:59Z")
“As you imply, traditional arguments against polygamous marriage in the U.S. have tended to be shallow and alarmist, as much about ostracizing Mormons (who ban the practice institutionally, though it continues unofficially) as anything else.” – Cecil It does not continue unofficially, either. The only “Mormons” are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That Church will excommunicate you for apostasy and turn you over to the cops if you are in a polygamous relationship. No exceptions. There are break-off groups and others who are sometimes called “Mormons” or “Fundamentalist Mormons” but it is incorrect to call them Mormons. They have no affiliation at all with the LDS Church and have been denounced by them. Instead, the LDS Church pushes for prosecution of these groups. Movies and TV portraying polygamy among Mormons are pure Hollywood fiction. They are offensive stereotypes born of Hollywood bigotry that have no foundation in fact. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2016, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/42 "2016-05-07T18:29:06Z")
They have plenty of foundation in fact, given that all groups which call themselves “Mormon” or “LDS” are descended from a group that did in fact practice polygamy, and which in fact held it as a religious tenet. The largest of those groups has since changed their mind, but the original practice was real, not a Hollywood invention. And of course those other groups would say the same thing that you do, that they’re the true LDS Church and that the others, including the one which does ban polygamy, have no affiliation with the true church. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2016, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/43 "2016-05-07T19:43:47Z")
Can you imagine the episcopal chaos if one Protestant church said they were the True Church and the others weren’t real Christians … ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2016, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/44 "2016-05-07T20:35:06Z")
Huh. Used to be I thought I wouldn’t ever want some bitch as a third wheel in my marriage, but as decades have gone by, I think it would be cool to have a housewife doing all the scutwork. (I am assuming a younger more energetic one, of course. I would still be The Queen Bee in the house, sitting on my velvet cushion and issuing orders!) ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2016, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/45 "2016-05-07T20:49:47Z")
Should the plural of “spouse” be “spice”? (With apologies to John Allen Paulos, who suggested it first, in the book _Innumeracy_.) ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2016, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/46 "2016-05-07T20:54:44Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > Huh. Used to be I thought I wouldn’t ever want some bitch as a third wheel in my marriage, but as decades have gone by, I think it would be cool to have a housewife doing all the scutwork. (I am assuming a younger more energetic one, of course. I would still be The Queen Bee in the house, sitting on my velvet cushion and issuing orders!) This hints at one of the poly marriage schemes suggested by Heinlein in _The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress_ which he called a “line marriage”, and was based on seniority. The apparent plan (not described in any great detail) seemed to be that newer younger spouses (spice?) are admitted to the marriage periodically, as older spouses die off. The older spouses appear to have a variety of seniority rights, including the “right of the first night” with a new member. Perhaps the younger spouses get to do the scutwork while the older ones get to be the King and Queen Bees. ---
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2016, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/47 "2016-05-08T00:30:39Z")
> [@](#): > > f we turn to nature we can see the advantages of polygamy. A herd of twenty females will all bear young only needing one male, the other nineteen males can be used to keep the carnivores’ bellies full, thus saving the females and young. I believe this is the reproductive strategy the closest relatives to humans use, that being chimps and gorillas. Um, actually the only beings in nature that benefit from polygamy are those few males that beat out the other males for breeding rights. In most species that are polygamous the males play no role in raising the young, feeding them, or in protecting them; all they do is fight with other males and breed. Which is quite different from humans, where children tend to not survive without a lot of assistance from the father. Species that require both parents to help raise the young, such as birds and wolves, tend to be monogamous. Chimpanzees are highly promiscuous and are neither polygamous nor monogamous. Each female breeds approximately once every 5 years and mates with multiple males in the group and sometimes sneaks off and mates with multiple males in other groups. And those are just the regular chimps. The bonobo chimps are even more promiscuous. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2016, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/48 "2016-05-08T15:53:15Z")
> [@taoman58](#): > > You’d probably have to grant sexual access to yourself by all the other partners, but you’d get to sleep with any of them too. Why would you expect some hypothetical poly marriage to work this way when conventional marriage doesn’t work that way, traditional religious polygamy doesn’t work that way, and polyamorous people today don’t work that way? The idea that marriage constitutes consent to sex has been trashed and seems generally abhorrent to people today, though it’s only in the 1990s that a spouse required consent for sex in the US and Western Europe. I don’t see that changing, especially since the forces that might want to roll that back would also be opposed to polygamy. Traditional religious polygamy isn’t exactly in favor of requiring gay sex for marriage, and modern poly people tend to be opposed to forcing anyone to have sex, so I can’t see it there either. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2016, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/49 "2016-05-08T21:49:47Z")
> [@spamforbrains](#): > > Species that require both parents to help raise the young, such as birds and wolves, tend to be monogamous. That’s what we used to think, but it’s wrong. Birds are typically _socially_ monogamous, not _sexually_. They live in breeding pairs, but both males and females have frequent extra-pair copulations. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2016, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/50 "2016-05-09T00:32:49Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Should the plural of “spouse” be “spice”? > > (With apologies to John Allen Paulos, who suggested it first, in the book _Innumeracy_.) Well, variety is the, you know. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2016, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/51 "2016-05-09T01:34:12Z")
Imagine a world where everyone in a criminal operation can all marry each other. Now imagine how long it would take governments to eradicate spousal communication and testimonial privilege. The reason some benefits are available to married couples is that they can be limited and standardized. Marriage itself is a standardized set of laws and defaults which only works because the number of participants is set and the configurations are legally limited. Now, you could set up something that says “If you have one spouse, you get all of these rights and privileges. If you have more than one, you either get none or only one spouse really counts.” I don’t think that would sell, but either the participants are limited or the benefits are. You can’t get all of the benefits for an infinite number of people. And if adding plural marriage actually impacts the benefits of pair marriage, expect huge pushback. ---
**Author:** ![waddlingeagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/4da419/32.png) [@waddlingeagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waddlingeagle)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2016, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/52 "2016-05-09T14:38:54Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > They have plenty of foundation in fact, given that all groups which call themselves “Mormon” or “LDS” are descended from a group that did in fact practice polygamy, and which in fact held it as a religious tenet. The largest of those groups has since changed their mind, but the original practice was real, not a Hollywood invention. > > And of course those other groups would say the same thing that you do, that they’re the true LDS Church and that the others, including the one which does ban polygamy, have no affiliation with the true church. Your example is would be more relevant to all the protestant groups running around calling themselves Catholic. In any case, the courts have sided with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. BotH the the name of the church and “Mormon” are valid registered trademarks. Granted, the word “Mormon” was an epithet originally used as hate speech, which means the LDS Church is the probably the only group in world that has successfully trademarked its own hate speech. So now the hate speech is about as effective as calling a department store by its name: “You, you, SEARS you!” ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2016, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/53 "2016-05-09T14:57:48Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > The reason some benefits are available to married couples is that they can be limited and standardized. Marriage itself is a standardized set of laws and defaults which only works because the number of participants is set and the configurations are legally limited. Not any more. Non-married couples can now claim many benefits as if they were married, simply because so many aren’t bothering to marry and in an effort to accommodate gays who couldn’t. (Now that they can, some of those benefits for the unmarried are going away though). ---
**Author:** ![Rhodes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhodes/32/273_2.png) [@Rhodes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhodes)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2016, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/54 "2016-05-10T18:12:44Z")
> [@Fielder](#): > > I think it is necessary to understand why polygamy was almost necessary for the survival of Mormonism. … Especially true in the early days of Mormonism when gentiles were extremely suspicious of Mormons, to the extent of religious riots occurring around Mormon settlements. A mixed gentile-Mormon marriage back then was unlikely to produce a peaceful situation compared to for instance an observant Baptist marrying a nominal Catholic today. Except it could also be argued that _polygamy led to the death of Joseph Smith and the destruction of the early LDS church._ (Granted, the most successful of the many LDS offshoots is the one that reinstated polygyny and continued it until 1904.) Joseph Smith had been [marrying](http://wivesofjosephsmith.org/)his wife’s friends, his housemaids, his adoptive daughters, his friends’ daughters, and the wives of the men he sent away on foreign missions. When he [propositioned the wife of William Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Law_(Latter_Day_Saints)) (of the First Presidency), Law published a newspaper called the Nauvoo Expositor. The Expositor revealed Smith’s practices of marrying dozens of women including other men’s wives and girls as young as 14. So Joseph Smith sent his militia, the Nauvoo Legion, to destroy the printing press. So the American public learned that Joseph Smith, mayor of Nauvoo, commander of probably the largest militia in the American West, candidate for President of the United States, had destroyed an American press to cover up a horrendous sex scandal. A [frontier mob execution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Joseph_Smith) was unfortunate, but hardly a surprise. The founder and prophet was dead, the organization of the church was destroyed and split into a dozen factions, and the whole movement’s reputation was forever tarnished. Brigham Young’s faction reinstated polygamy in Utah, which led to an [invasion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_War)by the U.S. Army in 1857, the Republican Party being founded to “prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism — [Polygamy](http://www.ushistory.org/gop/convention_1856republicanplatform.htm) and Slavery”, and very nearly the federal government [disincorporating the church and seizing all its assets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmunds%E2%80%93Tucker_Act) until the LDS _finally_ denounced polygamy. No, I really don’t “understand why polygamy was almost necessary for the survival of Mormonism. … Especially true in the early days of Mormonism when gentiles were extremely suspicious of Mormons”. ---
**Author:** ![Rhodes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhodes/32/273_2.png) [@Rhodes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhodes)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2016, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/55 "2016-05-10T18:33:58Z")
> [@Rhodes](#): > > So Joseph Smith sent his militia, **the Nauvoo Legion** , to destroy the printing press. Too late for an edit, but need a [correction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Joseph_Smith): > [@](#): > > Under the council’s new ordinance, Smith, as Nauvoo’s mayor, in conjunction with the city council, **ordered the city marshal** to destroy the paper and the press on June 10, 1844. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2016, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/56 "2016-05-10T19:34:07Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > I think we have a perfectly cromulent model, in corporate law. When a board member leaves the board, is the corporation still a corporation? Of course, until and unless the remaining members take action to dissolve it. > [@running\_coach](#): > > That’s a horrible model for marriage. What about property? If the original owner of a house decides to end his/her part of the marriage, does everyone else move out? How do you determine how much of _their_ money has gone into the house? > > How about bank accounts? > > If the marriage(?) buys a car and one of them leaves a few years later, is he/she owed a portion of the current value? I’d like to suggest the corporate model is _not_ the one best adapted to polygamy, but rather it is the long-established legal partnership model, in which the partners (rather than shareholders) all hold equity and thus a proportional claim on the collective assets. If a new partner gets added, some arrangement must be made for him or her to “buy in” and if a partner leaves, some provision for them to be “bought out”. If the partnership faces a lawsuit because of the malfeasance of one of the partners, all might be held liable to some extent. The framework already exists for law firms and dental practices and such. Naturally, this necessitates that if Bob wants to legally partner with Sue, he also has to legally partner with Sue’s current partners, which may include Alice, Dave, Steve and Mary. Bob may have no interest in being conjugal with any of them other than Sue, with no need for “non-consummation” concerns (which as I understand have largely faded away in conventional marriage law). I’m okay with limiting a person to membership in one legal partnership at a time. I’m vaguely concerned that such a partnership might be used to mask organized criminal activity if the partners enjoy privileged communication, but that can be dealt with. ---
**Author:** ![txst16](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ed655f/32.png) [@txst16](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/txst16)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2016, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/57 "2016-05-10T22:51:24Z")
No matter the issue one has with this its plain and simple… If it’s legal and consensual. It is nobodies business but the people married. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2016, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/58 "2016-05-10T22:55:54Z")
If you’re just shacking up, sure. But the whole point of marriage is that it makes it everyone’s business. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/59 "2016-05-12T19:37:11Z")
Has anyone here actually met a polygamist? I mean not just people who are in open marriages, but really people who live all under one roof and share all the responsibilities and money and really call themselves a family? ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051/60 "2016-05-12T20:36:09Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Has anyone here actually met a polygamist? I mean not just people who are in open marriages, but really people who live all under one roof and share all the responsibilities and money and really call themselves a family? Yup. I’m good friends with members of two three-person marriages; one has been together for almost a decade, the other is working on their third decade. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy/754051.md?page=4)