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Should Polygamy be Illegal?
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Polygamy was made illegal in the USA by the Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862. Bigamy is defined as marrying one person while still legally married to another - male or female. Polygamy is when one man has more than one wife and Polyandry is when one women has more than one husband. Group marriage is when there are both multiple husbands and wives in a family group. All of these marriage arrangements are bigamist and became illegal after the Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862 was made the law of the land. Bigamy was illegal in some states before 1862. Some countries still permit Polygamy.
Before I continue, I am not a bigamist and have no desire to be one. I have been very happily married to the same wonderful women for a long time. I don't think I would want to try to keep more than one wife happy but it should not be illegal if others want to do so. I just have a hang up about stupid and unnecessary laws.
I used to think that bigamy was outlawed in the USA because of prevailing religious beliefs. That may have been part of the motivation but the main reason seems to have been political. In the 1800s only the Mormons practiced widespread Polygamy and a reason cited for making it illegal was that the US government felt that too many multi-wife families with lots of children would end up with Mormons controlling most of the land in Utah. The bigamy Act also included a provision that limited Mormon church ownership of land to a total of $50,000. President Lincoln did not like Brigham Young and the Mormons and apparently he did not want Utah to become a involved in the Civil War. It has been said that President Lincoln gave Brigham Young the unofficial OK to continue the practice of Polygamy as long as the Mormons stayed out of the Civil War.
No money was allocated to enforce the Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862 and polygamy continued to be practiced. It was 28 years later in 1890 before the Mormon church banned the practice of polygamy by church members. Breakaway Mormon groups continued to practice polygamy. Polygamy was, and is, also practiced by a few American Muslims and a some others.
Enforcement of bigamy laws has been uneven. The authorities only seem to be interested when a polygamist family gets in the news for some reason like the recent case of Texas polygamist Warren Jeffs. He was sentenced to life in prison but it was not for polygamy, it was for having underage child brides. Including child brides in a polygamist marriage is certainly a terrible thing and should be illegal but it is not a reason for polygamy being illegal. There are far more cases of non-polygamist child brides then there are cases of child brides in a polygamist marriage. The "Sister Wives" TV reality show is another big reason for the current interest about polygamy. As is the case in most current polygamist marriages, that husband is actually only legally married to one of the wives. That makes it hard to prosecute such a marriage.
So why is bigamy still illegal?
While the Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862 was not primarily motivated by religion, the current opposition to polygamy seems to be mainly a Christian religious issue. While there are over a dozen examples of polygamist relationships in the bible (e.g., King David and King Solomon), most current day Christian religions admit that they existed but that God did not condone them. As biblical direction that Polygamy is a sin they use 1st Corinthians 7:2; "Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband."
The problem is not that polygamy is bad, it is that religions want to force their beliefs on everyone. They sometimes cite examples of men that treated their wives badly or married underage girls. That certainly does happen but it also happens in single partner marriages so that is not a reason to forbid polygamy. In May of 2011 "Lost" actor Doug Hutchison, 51, married his 16-year-old girlfriend and few people seemed to mind. That is just one example of how our society teats such incidents and at the same time many have a problem with polygamy. It doesn't make sense!
As I pointed out in my "Same Sex Marriage" article, marriage should be a legal contract and the government should not be involved. If a person has personal or religious reasons for not doing it that is up to that person but if someone else wants to be a bigamist it should not be illegal!
There would, of course, be issues with things like taxes, social security, and spouse/child medical insurance but those issues could be resolved. If polygamist wife had paid into social security then she would collect based on what she paid in just like any person does. If none of the wives qualify for social security then only one of them should be able to use the 1/2-the-husbands-social security amount rule. Other rules could be made for things like taxes and medical insurance so a bigamist family does not get an unfair advantage.
It is time we progress beyond19th century social rules and laws!
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