POLYGAMY

POLYGAMY is defined as having more than one wife or husband at the same time, usually a man with several wives. Polygamy differs from bigamy in that the wives and children of the polygamist generally form one family. Often in a polygamous marriage, a man marries sisters or the daughter of a wife. The bigamist, on the other hand, keeps his plural marriages a secret and marries the next woman without the other wife's knowledge.

Throughout history many societies have condoned or accepted plural marriages, another term for polygamy. References to its acceptance are in the Bible, the Koran, and other religious texts. Plural marriage is still legal in many Muslim countries, as a practice in accordance with the Koran. However, most modern Muslim families do not practice polygamy, often for financial reasons. Although accepted elsewhere, polygamy has not been a generally accepted practice in the United States. It is illegal in every state and is a federal crime as well.

Nevertheless, the definition and discussion of polygamy is not that simple. Throughout U.S. history, several groups have practiced "free love," which some consider polygamy. In the mid-1800s, during the Second Great Awakening, the Oneida Perfectionists, followers of John Humphrey Noyes, lived together as one family, sharing property, housing, production, and children. They claimed that because there was no marriage in heaven, on earth all men were married to all women. Men and women could have a relationship with whomever they chose. However, Noyes became the arbiter of which men and women could procreate, a situation termed a complex marriage. Although expelled from Putney, Vermont, the Oneida Perfectionists settled peacefully in Oneida, New York. In 1880 the group voted to disband themselves and form a company, Oneida Ltd., which still exists and is famous for its silverware.

Another group, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, popularly known as Mormons, originated in 1830 in Palmyra, New York. The original leader, Joseph Smith, and his followers believed in polygamy. Persecuted for their beliefs, the Mormons fled to Illinois, where Joseph Smith and his brother were lynched in 1844. Seeking refuge, Brigham Young led the majority of Mormons west to the Great Salt Lake to establish the State of Deseret.

Relatively few Mormons, usually church leaders, practiced polygamy. Polygamy was not a federal crime until passage of the Morrill Act in 1862. Mormon leaders unsuccessfully challenged this act, charging that banning polygamy violated First Amendment rights to freedom of religion. To achieve statehood in 1896, the Utah constitution and the Mormon church had to renounce the practice of plural marriage.

Since then even fewer Mormons have practiced polygamy. As of 2002, in Utah, with a population of 2.5 million, somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 people lived in polygamous situations. The financial burden was evident; in the areas where most polygamous families lived, roughly one-third lived on welfare.

Occasionally, a case of polygamy received national attention. In 2000–2001, Tom Green of Utah confessed on two national television shows that he had five wives and some twenty-five children. Consequently, he was tried for bigamy, welfare fraud, nonsupport, and child rape (for allegedly marrying his thirteen-year-old daughter).Green had divorced each wife before marrying another, yet he continued to live with them all; hence, they were common law marriages. The case was the first major prosecution in over fifty years and received a great deal of media coverage. Green was convicted and sentenced to five years in jail.

In keeping with the open cultural mores of the late twentieth century, some groups still advocated polygamy, usually on secular grounds. They argued that plural marriage avoids bigamy and adultery. Other groups stated that the high American divorce rate results in a form of "serial polygamy," as distinguished from "simultaneous polygamy." Still other groups, generally formed by former plural marriage wives, fought against the practice of polygamy on the grounds that it inappropriately and un-duly subjugated women to the power of a particular man.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Altman, Irwin. Polygamous Families in Contemporary Society. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Foster, Lawrence. Religion and Sexuality: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984.

Foster, Lawrence. Women, Family, and Utopia: Communal Experiments of the Shakers, the Oneida Community, and the Mormons. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1991.

Gordon, Sarah Barringer. The Mormon Question: Polygamy and the Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth Century America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

Kilbride, Philip. Plural Marriage for Our Times. Westport, Connecticut: Bergin and Garvey, 1994.

Klaw, Spencer. Without Sin: Life and Death of the Oneida Community. New York: Penguin Books, 1993.

Litchman, Kristin Embry. All is Well. New York: Delacorte Press, 1998.