Should Polygamy Be Legal In USA - Coursework Example

Running Head: SHOULD POLYGAMY BE LEGAL IN USA? Should Polygamy Be Legal In USA? s Should Polygamy Be Legal In USA? Introduction I have no issues what so ever regarding with polygamy, with permitting men to be married to more then one woman at the same time exactly like most people have accepted gay couples getting married. I have a great deal of questions regarding children of polygamous couples as that type of parenting is an endeavor into something positive. My intention in this paper is not to give judgments about polygamy, but to inquire why does a strong opposition against the legalization of polygamy continue. Although polygamy encompasses both polygamy, where a man has several wives, and polyandry, where a woman has several husbands, polygamy has been far more common in human (and other) societies. This explains why I concentrate on polygamy, although my arguments apply also to polyandry. Background Polygamy is a practice that dates back to biblical times. Many of the ancient Israelites were polygamous. Some were known to have hundreds of wives at a time. It was written that King Solomon had seven hundred wives and at least three hundred concubines. In addition King David wedded 99 women and Jacob wedded 4. Suggestion given by a number of Jewish wise men claim that no man must wed more than four women however the limitation of only one wife was never made. In this time period society never put a restriction on how many of wives were permitted for each man or even how to treat them. Jesus said nothing in opposition to polygamy. In the seventeenth century, it was accepted via the Christian Church. The Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), who believe in the earlier practice of the religion, even continue to allow and practice polygamy in the U.S. today even though the current church renounced the practice over a century ago and excommunicates anyone who practices it today. Polygamy was present in the past but over time was condemned by many religions and society. Monogamy was introduced into Christianity at the time of Paul when many revisions took place in Christianity. This was done in order for the church to conform to the Greco-Roman culture where men were monogamous but owned many slaves who were free for them to use: In other words, unrestricted polygamy. Early Christians invented ideas that women were "full of sin" and man was better off to "never marry." Since this would be the end of mankind these same people compromised and said "marry only one"(http://www.jannah.org/sisters/polygamy.html). Monogamy eventually took over the U.S. and was finally, even by the Mormon religion, banned by the Church following a revelation to church President Wilford Woodruff in 1890. Those already in plural marriages were not forced to end them. Analysis and Arguments The most frequently encountered argument against polygamy is the claim that it exploits women, and is a continuation of the traditional subjection of women to men. Women were without a doubt oppressed in a lot of monogamous as well as polygynist traditional societies, as they were often forced to get married to men that they did not fancy. That barely explains the circumstances currents in the United States and the rest of the world. Women select their partners, as well as reject to men who they do not wish to wed, in spite of their parent’s feelings or the interest of the men. Keeping this in mind a woman would not in any way get married into as a polygamist household unless it was her desire to do so. Men who wanted to be Polygamist would have to convince women to be their second or third wives by their wealth, excellent looks, kindheartedness, ect. If she is ready to be a wife, why must laws put a stop to that? The claim that polygamy is unfair to women is strange since polygamy increases the demand for women as spouses in the same way that polyandry would increase the demand for men. If men were to take multiple wives, that increases the overall competition for women compared to a situation where each man can have at most one wife. This argument against polygamy is like arguing that a way to increase the economic prospects of minorities is to place an upper bound on how many members of these groups a company can employ. Of course, actual laws that try to improve the economic circumstances of minorities often in effect take the opposite form by placing lower, not upper, bounds on their employment in different companies. That too is not sensible but I save that for another day. Even though women as a group would gain from allowing polygamy, and men as a group would be hurt, not all members of each group would be affected in the same way. Men who do not have much to offer women would be more likely than under monogamy to remain unmarried, at least until they become older and wealthier, or more matured. Similarly, educated and otherwise attractive women who have a lot to offer might suffer if they have to face competition from several women who individually have less to offer, but collectively can offer as much or more. Perhaps opposition from such groups that would be hurt by polygamy is the political economy explanation of why that form of marriage has been outlawed in most of the world. Our culture emphasizes the importance of monogamy as it is illegal for a person to be married to more than one husband or wife at the same time. However, not all cultures practice monogamy; in some cultures, it is absolutely acceptable and normal to have more than one spouse at a time. This type of marriage practice is called "polygamy," and there are two main forms: Polygamy is practiced when a man has more than one wife at a time. Polyandry, on the other hand, occurs when a women is married to more than one husband at the same time. The fact that polygamy is successfully practiced in diverse religious and cultural settings suggests that, although not generally an accepted marital form in the west, it is an effective social arrangement. The USAs current society lasting marriages are on the decline. The United States has the leading divorce rate and the number is not waning but slowly increasing. Currently 4.95 per one thousand people will get a divorce this year. Is this problem due to society or how we as individuals are psychologically set up? Or is this just something that, as a society, weve decided to stop working on and have taken the easy way out? Is monogamy flawed? Was the practice of polygamy in history the answer to todays monogamy problems? Those are all tough questions that may never really receive an accurate, agreeable answer and with many religions will now always be condemned. Polygamy holds many interesting insights to how ancestors handled marriage, it is something that some believe to be the answer to todays monogamy problems, and continues to be an issue fought by churches, individuals, and the law alike. Today there are said to be over 30,000 people practicing polygamy in Utah, Idaho, Montana and Arizona, who either believe they are preserving the ways of the original Mormon religion or have nothing to do with the religion but enjoy and believe they have the right practice polygamy (cjencyclopedia.com/index.php?title=Poligamy). Many of these people and others believe that this could or currently does solve the problems of monogamy. They believe that polygamy in America could actually lead to happiness being restored to marriage. That there is or would be less pressure on young adults to find the perfect spouse because they could openly date more than one person during courtship. Adultery is not an issue and wants of being with another while still maintaining a previous relationship are fulfilled. They also believe that the spouses today seem to enter into long-term monogamous relationships early in life and end up getting married without knowing what else is out there for them and that this may be the cause of such high divorce rates in America (Mann 1998). When you can have more than one "wife" the need to get rid of the others seems insufficient. One polygamist believes that the surplus of women is one reason for polygamism: In an allegedly monogamous society, men do not have to marry to get sex, or even female companionship. They can have prostitutes from the excess of women. They can have casual sex with the competing single women, and if they do get married they neednt be faithful because they still remain the target of that 4.08 per cent (or higher) of the female population who are forced to be single. Therefore, if a man does not need marriage for sex he is less inclined to get married - so the fact of an insistence on monogamy works against itself. Men dont need to get married - they can carry on being single - and this means that less men are in fact available for marriage. This in turn means that an even greater section of the female population cannot get married, and therefore faces the choice between fornication, adultery or prostitution, and so the vicious circle continues.( www.btinternet.com/~familyman/ppractic.htm) People who believe in the polygamist lifestyle also believe that children who grow up in polygamous family would most probably grow up with extra supervision and even the parents in these families can give quality time to assist them with school work as well as other activities as there are more adults residing in one house. This leads to kids being better students in school and better behaved. A big problem in America has been dealing with children who have to grow up in single parent households or without fathers. This would be a non-factor in households where polygamy is practiced because if one parent would leave the other, the child could stay in custody of the parent with multiple spouses meaning there would always be a mother or father figure present. Since a long time practice of polygamy has been found interesting by a lot of people, and have thought as to why resistance to this type of marriage is so strong in America? Many people have starting thinking over fact regarding legalizing Polygamy again due to the arrest which was done a few years back of a Mormon leader in the state of Utah he was arrested for practicing polygamy, along with other crimes as well . The Mormon Church since the 1890s had suspended the practice of polygamy under pressure from the United States Government. Wedding more than one woman at a time is currently a crime in Utah, liable to be punished by up to five years imprisonment in jail, even though authorities do not waste time investigating polygamists. While the ferocious opposition to polygamy seemed strange even in the 1970s, it is much stranger now in light of developments during the past couple of decades. These developments comprise of a flourishing movement to legalize contracts among gays that permit them to reside together as married couples, although there is constant emotional debate regarding whether couples like this can lawfully be regarded as being married. Gay couples can also adopt children. They can lawfully give birth to babies by utilizing male sperm so that one partner of a lesbian couple can get pregnant, or by paying women to be pregnant via the sperm of the male partner of the homosexual relation. Men as well as women are capable of being serial polygamists by marrying numerous times in their life after giving divorce to their pervious spouses. Women and men who are married can have extra marital affairs without legal issues, as well as have kids with partners who are not their spouses. Polygamist supporters believe that monogamy is too hard to follow and that that it is time to be realistic about relationships. They believe that affairs and infidelity are the reality of monogamy and until we realize that polygamy makes sense this will continue and get worse as time goes on. At the moment monogamous marriage is illustrated as the objective and end of all courtship as well as love. Thats all right, but it was unthinkable, for people to have conversation regarding sexual intercourse; at present taboo to face the reality that monogamy is extremely hard. If anything, we are hoping to make monogamy easier by taking infidelity out of the closet. Today polygamy is still condemned by both the law and the majority of society. The Utah government has taken recent action against polygamy by rising the age of sexual and marital consent and hiring an investigator to probe "secret societies. however polygamists are at the present fighting for their right to perform plural marriage as part of their rights in the First Amendment. Those that practice polygamy believe that the government should have no say in whom or how many they marry. They, along with homosexuals, believe that, the Government has no right to force any religious beliefs on anyone. One of the most recent instances where a polygamist has attempted to speak out about polygamy was the case of Tom Green. In August 2001, even though he argued that because of his religion, he was permitted to do so Mr. Green was sentenced to five years in prison for bigamy in Utah (Eagle 2005). Very public about his relationships he appeared on such talk shows as Jerry Springer and introduced the world to his lifestyle and multiple wives. The main fault that the courts tried to portray was that he "married" a 13-year old girl which questions the ways in which polygamists are luring younger women into the practice. The fact that a 13-year old girl was involved and more than likely involved in sex with Mr. Green breaks the law in that aspect along with his polygamist lifestyle. Because of Mr. Greens polygamist lifestyle he was excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1980. Even after this the instance of Tom Green and his fight to legalize polygamy was rejected others still work to make it just another way to marry. Some unofficially keep wives or when they have found a new mate, divorce the first in the eyes of the law and marry the next. Polygamists have and continue to work to outsmart the government while keeping their "wives". Yet they are still fighting to make their marriages legal. Most recently The Coalition for Religious Freedom and Tolerance went to the state Capitol in January 2002 to demand a constitutional amendment that would legalize polygamy. This of course was rejected once again but the fight is not over. Websites, books, and even tapes promoting polygamy can be found today. Individuals quoting the Bible and other sources of religious material try to justify polygamy and show proof from these texts that polygamy was not condemned centuries ago and therefore should not be today. The law forbids it, though, and all sorts of religions also quote texts trying to prove that yes polygamy is a sin and is not to be practiced today. It is an ongoing battle that will continue throughout the course of time. Obviously polygamy is not a perfect scenario just as monogamy is not either. There are many problems that could occur with polygamy in America, and there is no getting around that. As imperfect as polygamy is it could not be any less successful than monogamy is right now. Monogamy has an almost fifty percent rate of failure and this figure does not include the infidelity shown by monogamous couples. Others state that polygamy is a religious practice and is protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution (Thompson& Prusher 2000). They say that laws against polygamous marriage are an invasion of personal privacy because the government has no right to decide something as intimate as citizen marital orientation. It is true that the government can not interfere with religious beliefs solely on the basis of morality, but it can stop practices that it deems dangerous to its people. The Government has essentially outlawed polygamy by making bigamy illegal but is this something the Government should take part in? If consenting adults wish to marry one another in legal matrimony then should anyone be able to stop them? Marriage is a personal and spiritual choice and whatever choice a person decides needs to be allowed or should it? Religion, no matter how hard we try to take it out of the Government will always be present. The Constitution was based on it and is the driving force for many of their decisions. Religion is a part of the law and no matter how hard individuals try to completely separate it from the law, there will always be a group of people fighting to keep them intertwined. Conclusion Polygamy, the practice of having multiple wives, is continuously fighting for a lawful voice in the government. When viewing the history, the attempts to justify its existence and how the law, religion, and people currently view it today can polygamy be resurrected as legal? It is a decision made for the courts. Polygamists are looked down upon and condemned by society but is their wish to be accepted as married individuals up to us? Should the government have the right to say who or what you are allowed to engage in "holy" matrimony with? Once again the Constitution is under attack and this will not be the last time. Slowly marriage is being more closely examined and the rights are being revised. Homosexuals are slowly earning the right. In a matter of time will polygamists get their say? References cjencyclopedia.com/index.php?title=Poligamy retrieved on July 10, 2008 Eagle, Jeremy (2005). Polygamy. Issues and Controversies. Facts on File News Service. http://www.jannah.org/sisters/polygamy.html retrieved on July 10, 2008 Mann, Judy (1998); the Brutal Truth about Polygamy, Washington Post Thompson, Carmen, Prusher Ilene R (2000); Two Homes, Two families, Two Wives? Christian Science Monitor Vol. 92. Issue 182 p12. www.btinternet.com/~familyman/ppractic.htm retrieved on July 10, 2008 Read More