Those crazy West Coast hippies did it again. British Columbia had been refusing to prosecute known polygamists for awhile now. Shockingly the culprits are not new age commune dwellers, likely because they do not believe in the institute of marriage at all, but Muslims being sheltered by Imams in the community of Bountiful.
Arguments in favour of prosecution say that BC cannot refuse to prosecute crimes because they believe that the federal law is unconstitutional; they do not have the authority to do such a thing. Conversely, there is a lot to say about the law being unconstitutional. Though the law is often said to be 'protecting' women and children it was originally created to keep the Mormons from moving to Canada. Since the purpose of a law is nontransferable there could be some weight behind the argument.
Is polygamy really that bad? Like most relatively harmless personal social decisions, polygamy would probably be better if it was legalized. The closed Mormon and Muslim communities in North America are a direct result of such prohibitions. They shy away from mainstream society because their lifestyle is considered unacceptable. The cloistered communities then become a breeding ground for sexual misconduct. Small communities with an excess of husbands relative to wives drives down the age with which women are considered marriageable. Add this to the privacy that such couplings require to stay out of the public eye and organizations that check up on suspected abusers in two-person marriages are either unaware of what is occurring or not able to get into the community to stop it.
Though polygamy is not for everyone, would it not be better to have it monitored than to have it done in secrecy where the only candidate for your third wife is your second daughter?
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7 comments:
This is your utopia.
Also, can women be polygamist?
Frankly, I don't think I would want to participate but I think that it is about time we discuss it. Historically it is quite common to many cultures.
If I remember first year anthropology, polygyny is one man and many women; polyandry is one woman and many men. Polyandry (and more specifically serial polyandry) was quite common in food scarce societies- like desert people or those living on the Tibetan Plateau. A women would marry a set of brothers to reduce the fertility rate while having an excess of labour. The women would then have as many boys as possible and only one daughter. Female infanticide was a common practice in these societies
i would be the woman with the most husbands....hahahahaha i think the law should protect the poor children born into these relationships....its like...could you imagine if Jim-Bob Duggar had MORE than ONE wife?? "HI my name is Jane 5 and I have 8938 brothers and sisters, and all our names start with J, and my dad molests us."
hahahahahahaha
But I think said molestation is more likely to occur within polygamous households if there are laws forbidding polygamy.
Perhaps there could be standing for each spouse to be treated equally and financial considerations. Having 500 kids should only be allowed if you can afford it.
I'm on the fence on this one.
I don't think that legalizing it necessarily makes it easier to monitor and protect the children, so I'm not really sure what purpose that serves other than giving the public more rights - with which I tend to agree.
The other thing, is, if you can only be married to one woman, I don't even know how Polygamy is technically a prosecutable crime. You can't get more than one marriage certificate, so technically you can never have more than one wife. I'm not sure exactly what they charge them with other than the rare case of a glitch in the system. In that case, the marriage office clerk should be the criminal.
The other thing is, that realistically, even if you did legalize it, I think that those that pose no risk would live openly, but those that you are attempting to get at (i.e. abusers) would remain in their clusters and away from the public.
Although, this is just an easy signal that something is going on within that group; but, don't we know that already?
I'm just not seeing how legalizing it actually resolves anything other than one less law.
One less law is a good thing, isn't it? Its probably true that those who are up to no good would remain hidden.
I think Marriage certificates are basically mad libs so you order one, write in bride's name here, husband's name here, two witnesses, ministering agent (be that a Justice of the peace or a rabbi or whatever), sign, sign and you are finished.
So hypothetically if you were married in a church you could have more than one certificate issued, filled in and signed but not submitted to the government but rather housed in the church you are a member of? At which point I think the minister should be the one getting in trouble. In this case the one person charged is the bishop so I imagine this is why.
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