Polygamy
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Since the raid on the polygamist compound in Texas last week, there have been a lot of former and current polygamists on TV telling their stories. I saw a woman on Larry King the other night who I'd previously seen on Oprah. She's interesting: She's an attractive, modern-looking woman who lives with her husband and his two other wives (one of whom is her sister) in an affluent neighborhood (not a compound). Her kids attend public school, and she is open to her kids going to college and being in monogamous relationships once they grow up.
So Larry King was asking her why she likes this lifestyle, and she said she likes the camaraderie of the other wives, all living together and raising their kids together. And the more I thought about this, the more sense it made. (Stay with me here.) Here and on Oprah, she never said, "I really fell in love with this particular man and wanted to be with him, and he already had another wife." Or "I'm really attracted to the idea of sharing my husband with other women." In fact, when asked what she likes about polygamy, she doesn't mention the man at all. It's specifically the camaraderie of the other wives.
As someone who has lived as part of a community before (not as a full-fledged member, but I was very involved in the Lamb of God Community and their college outreach when I was in college), and known others in such communities, I understand the attraction to communal living. People weren't really made to live in very separate nuclear families the way most of us do now. We thrive with extended family, in villages, in churches (at least those that are more than one-stop-worship on Sundays), even in groups based on demographics, like tight-knit ethnic societies or groups of gay friends. We long to be a part of something bigger, part of a group of people who are both separate from us but also committed to us.
And these women have that. My mom used to tell us about her grandmother, who lived her entire life next to her sister. They married two brothers, and even after they got married, they would always move together. I'm reminded also of how my two best friends and I used to fantasize in college about buying land together and building houses on it, so that we could live right next door and cook meals together, play games at night, have tea in between loads of laundry. This might sound like an adolescent fantasy, but it reflects an authentic longing in us for that kind of "village life" that has mostly disappeared from our world.
Hey, I'd love to live next door to my sisters or my best friends, even in a house with them if it were big enough. But that will never happen. And why not? Because we are married to different MEN. And our husbands don't want to live together. But what if we had only one man between us, one who in turn was happy to support all of us?
Of course, there's one huge downside to all this: I don't want to be married to any of my sisters' or friends' husbands, nor they to mine. What the attractive, suburban polygamist wife has given up in exchange for community is any possibility of a romantic relationship with a man, the idea of a soul mate. I know that many monogamous women don't have that either. But while you MAY not have that if you're monogamous, you definitely CAN'T have it if you're polygamous---the odds of finding a true soul match from the limited pool of polygamous-friendly candidates, the problems of unequal love, the inability of one man to develop a relationship with three woman and twelve or fourteen children, all make it very unlikely.
Romantic intimacy is not a sacrosanct value. It's a relatively modern one, and even today in lots of places marriages are arranged. A peaceful and warm relationship is considered to be enough, and the attractions of a wide family life compensate. I imagine the girls in this modern polygamist household, and the choice they face in their future. If they choose monogamy, will their existence always feel slightly lonely? Maybe---it's a sad thought, going from all that existential bounty to the modesty of nuclear family life. But for anyone who HAS experienced romantic intimacy, who has found someone who feels like a soul mate, it's impossible to think of giving it up.
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Since the raid on the polygamist compound in Texas last week, there have been a lot of former and current polygamists on TV telling their stories. I saw a woman on Larry King the other night who I'd previously seen on Oprah. She's interesting: She's an attractive, modern-looking woman who lives with her husband and his two other wives (one of whom is her sister) in an affluent neighborhood (not a compound). Her kids attend public school, and she is open to her kids going to college and being in monogamous relationships once they grow up.
So Larry King was asking her why she likes this lifestyle, and she said she likes the camaraderie of the other wives, all living together and raising their kids together. And the more I thought about this, the more sense it made. (Stay with me here.) Here and on Oprah, she never said, "I really fell in love with this particular man and wanted to be with him, and he already had another wife." Or "I'm really attracted to the idea of sharing my husband with other women." In fact, when asked what she likes about polygamy, she doesn't mention the man at all. It's specifically the camaraderie of the other wives.
As someone who has lived as part of a community before (not as a full-fledged member, but I was very involved in the Lamb of God Community and their college outreach when I was in college), and known others in such communities, I understand the attraction to communal living. People weren't really made to live in very separate nuclear families the way most of us do now. We thrive with extended family, in villages, in churches (at least those that are more than one-stop-worship on Sundays), even in groups based on demographics, like tight-knit ethnic societies or groups of gay friends. We long to be a part of something bigger, part of a group of people who are both separate from us but also committed to us.
And these women have that. My mom used to tell us about her grandmother, who lived her entire life next to her sister. They married two brothers, and even after they got married, they would always move together. I'm reminded also of how my two best friends and I used to fantasize in college about buying land together and building houses on it, so that we could live right next door and cook meals together, play games at night, have tea in between loads of laundry. This might sound like an adolescent fantasy, but it reflects an authentic longing in us for that kind of "village life" that has mostly disappeared from our world.
Hey, I'd love to live next door to my sisters or my best friends, even in a house with them if it were big enough. But that will never happen. And why not? Because we are married to different MEN. And our husbands don't want to live together. But what if we had only one man between us, one who in turn was happy to support all of us?
Of course, there's one huge downside to all this: I don't want to be married to any of my sisters' or friends' husbands, nor they to mine. What the attractive, suburban polygamist wife has given up in exchange for community is any possibility of a romantic relationship with a man, the idea of a soul mate. I know that many monogamous women don't have that either. But while you MAY not have that if you're monogamous, you definitely CAN'T have it if you're polygamous---the odds of finding a true soul match from the limited pool of polygamous-friendly candidates, the problems of unequal love, the inability of one man to develop a relationship with three woman and twelve or fourteen children, all make it very unlikely.
Romantic intimacy is not a sacrosanct value. It's a relatively modern one, and even today in lots of places marriages are arranged. A peaceful and warm relationship is considered to be enough, and the attractions of a wide family life compensate. I imagine the girls in this modern polygamist household, and the choice they face in their future. If they choose monogamy, will their existence always feel slightly lonely? Maybe---it's a sad thought, going from all that existential bounty to the modesty of nuclear family life. But for anyone who HAS experienced romantic intimacy, who has found someone who feels like a soul mate, it's impossible to think of giving it up.
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posted by Anonymous at
5:48 PM
4 Comments:
I agree with what you say here. To me the biggest tragedy is that these children grow up with no choices. They're not living within a diverse community, where they can see the choices their parents made and compared them to choices others have made. They are put on such a narrow track that there really is no opportunity to pick a future that is different from the ones modelled in front of them.
Here in West Texas we are getting more coverage than on a national level, and these kids, when asked questions, reply that all they know is what The Prophet says. (the Prophet being Warren Jeffs, who is in federal prison for forcing a 13 year old girl to marry someone.) They are living in virtual slavery - women and children. Sally
I know . . . it's hard to see how brainwashing can be a crime, but somehow it should be. I should reiterate that my original posting does not apply to the "compound" type of polygamy in the news now. It was specific to this other, less insidious polygamy that this one woman was part of. --Lynn
I agree that the *odds* of finding a satisfying romantic *and* polygamous relationship are high, but I don't think it is impossible. I don't think someone who chooses polygamy has to give up the love part. I think our society teaches us a human can only love one person at a time - you know in that "true love" "really love "soul mate" way. I'm not even sure that exists except as a cultural myth, but if one soul mate exists, why not two? or three? polygamous relationships come in all shapes and sizes - they don't have to have kids and for myself (although I wouldn't mind other women in the relationship), I'd like to see the ration be two men for every woman.
I agree that there must be more than one great mate per person. As much as if feels like Jay is the only one for me, I know that statistically that's not likely! But I doubt that those who are polygamous for religious reasons are really out there experimenting with lots of other people, digging the menage a trois . . .
Also, what about the practical side of soul-mate-hood? Not sharing feelings at the end of a day and so forth, but being part of the other person's family, being the one who will be there 24/7, that kind of deep integration into one's life. I wonder how that works in non-religious polyamory relationships. It seems like it would have to be a different level of commitment, but I don't really know . . .
Lynn
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