Polygamy is a system of marriage that allows people to have more than one spouse at a time (Ferris & Stein, 2016, p.355). Polygamy is often overlooked and a form of taboo. Individuals that have a polygamous arrangement are married to the first spouse and their other spouses are considered to be spiritual partners. People find more than one spouse so that they are able to balance work and life. Having more than one spouse helps ease the stress of overworking to provide for their family and also missing special moments that people want to have with their families (Ludwig, 2011). Such as a baby’s milestone or an anniversary, no parent or adult wants to miss one of those. The illegality of polygamy is what kept these groups from joining mainstream …show more content…
While the husband goes out to work and make money for the family. He could also be a stay at home dad while his wives are the ones working. He could have one wife that works, another that babysits the children and the last one would clean up the house. Everyone has a job and they calculate it so that they each wife gets to spend an equal amount of time with their “husband”. This allows them to spend an equal amount of time with their husband and not get one another jealous. They have to work in harmony to be able to make a polygamous marriage work out. There are many problems with having more than one wife. “The failure of a man to manage and control his wealth effectively could often diminish his economic power, reputation and respect accorded by the society. As a result this could lead to humiliation, frustration and psychological trauma to the man”(Siddiqui, …show more content…
Political science professor Rose McDermott at Brown University stated that, “According to the information I have helped to collect in Womanstats database, women in polygamous communities get married younger, have more children, have higher rates of HIV infection than men, sustain more domestic violence, succumb to more female genital mutilation and sex trafficking, and are more likely to die in childbirth. Their life expectancy is also shorter than that of their monogamous sisters. In addition, their children, both boys and girls, are less likely to receive both primary and secondary education”(2011). Another problem with polygamous marriages is that when people do not apply for official marriage licenses, it is hard to accuse them of being married to more than one person. Thus, the police cannot charge people with a misdemeanor for having a plural marriage. Another challenge that comes to polygamy is when a husband favors one of his wives over the others. This will create tension in the household and it will slowly start to break apart the polygamous marriage (Siddiqui, 2016). Wealth is another decisive factor as well, if the husband does not have enough resources to take care of this wives and children then he should be able to have more than one. He should only be able to have as many children as he could
So what exactly is the justification and reason for polygamy? Mormons believed that when a couple or family is sealed in the temple of the Lord by one holding God’s priesthood keys of sealing, that the bond is not "until death do us part," but rather for all eternity. If this is true, then when a man is widowed and he marries a second wife, he then has two wives. The Mormons believe that if a man can have multiple wives in heaven, then the same should be true on Earth. "According to the Lord’s law of marriage, it is lawful that a man have only one wife at a time unless by revelation the Lord commands plurality of wives in the new and everlasting covenant" (McConkie5770). If a woman who is sealed in the temple is widowed, she not allowed to be resealed: only a man is allowed a plurality of spouses.
I believe this was surprising for me because I have never encountered families like these. I have never met anyone who had more than one spouse. I attribute this mostly to my religion. I am Catholic and in the Catholic Church we believe that is one man and one woman form a marriage. Another factor that I believe contributes to my astonishment of these types of communities is my culture. My culture and religion are linked and therefore both suggest that a man should not have more than one wife and that a marriage is made of only two people not multiple people.
One custom of Umuofia that would be very different from Western culture is Polygamy, the practice of having many wives. This custom is practiced in the connected nine villages of Umuofia. In fact, a man's wealth is partially measured by the number of wives he has. A wealthy man described in Things Fall Apart, had nine wives and thirty children. Okonkwo had three wives and eight children.
Fletcher-Stack, Peggy. “Polygamy: Not as Rare as You May Think.” Beliefnet. Beliefnet, Inc., 2011. Web. 19 Dec. 2011. .
In reality, it is advantageous for the man because the more wives he has, the more work he can spread out to them and less responsibility for himself. For example, Harjo explains the duties of ‘Liza “help me make this little farm” and Jennie for the possibility of “maybe… [we] have children here then” (Oskison 238). There were no obligations tying him to Jennie. Harjo should allow Jennie to marry another man. It is unfortunate especially for the second wife that has never had the sole attention of that husband. It is also unfortunate for the first wife that goes from being the sole women to being one of two options. It is also wrong for a woman to voluntarily choose to be a second wife and for her to choose to have two husbands at one time. Women should be able to do what they want as well as the men to do as they want; taking on two spouses is illegitimate. It needs to be one man and one woman per household. The wives in the situation need to be given the attention from a sole man and have the advantage to run their own
Polygamy: “A marriage form in which one individual has multiple spouses at the same time; from the Greek words' poly (“ many”) and Gamos (“marriage”)”. Examples of this would the whole history of Africa like no other continent in the world. African societies have managed to see children being a structure of prosperity and a family that has more children were considered to be more powerful.
There are different ways around the world that people celebrate marriage, but what does marriage actually mean? How did it all start? To many, marriage is the joining of a man and a woman who want to be together for the rest of their lives. It is the legally or formally recognized union of a couple or in some jurisdictions, two people of the same sex. Marriage is when you find your soulmate and unite as one at a wedding ceremony.
Then the article connects to how fraternal polyandry is similar to nineteenth century marriage in England. Even though they are similar, Tibetan “believe that in this way fraternal polyandry reduces risk of fission, monogamous marriage among brother need to necessarily precipitate the division of family estate” (“When Brothers Share a Wife”). Then the article goes into how the author of this article, Melvyn C. Goldstein, asked the Tibetan people on why they marry this way. Some said it makes the family more stable and other said that is keeps conflict from affecting
The Western Religious leaders and moralists believe only one spouse for life is the highest form of marriage. Some of the most "primitive" peoples are strictly monogamous in their ideals, while some "highly advanced" cultures have moved away from the stri...
Mention the concept of polygamy in any “civilized” gathering, and you just may be able to see the shiver of repulsion that ripples through the crowd. By substituting the word “polyamory” in, you will be able to circumvent this reaction – but only because everyone is staring at you in baffled silence instead. So we begin, as always, with definitions.
Many people would happily accept an opportunity to have their daily stress reduced by employing help with not only their children but also with daily household responsibilities of cooking and cleaning. Especially in this fragile economic state the average family living in America cannot afford the luxury of hiring a house cleaner, cook or nanny. However, there are polygamists families in America have the abilities of multiple adults contributing to the same household because of the lifestyle choice of having multiple spouses. The extra help comes at a price for woman, by having to share her husband with other woman and raising her children in the difficult and uncommon lifestyle. Polygamy takes a total acceptance and understanding of it by the mothers, in order for polygamy not to have a negative psychological impact on her children. Children are the innocent victims of polygamy; consequently, they grow up witnessing a tense environment filled with their mother’s insecurities and rivalries with the other wives, which sequentially end up harming the child in the end. Furthermore, polygamy can be psychologically damaging to children because of the increased rates of not only welfare fraud, domestic violence, and underage marriages but also child abuse and neglect.
As Utah polygamist Tom Green recently learned, laws against multiple spouses are still liable to be enforced. Green, who boasted five wives and an estimated twenty-five to thirty children, was convicted of four counts of bigamy (and one count of nonsupport). He was not a particularly sympathetic defendant: one of his wives was only fourteen when he married her, and he could not support all the children he promiscuously fathered. So, it’s probably not fair to say he was prosecuted because of his religious beliefs, but he was prosecuted in spite of them. He is not a particularly virtuous man, but he is, after all, a religious one.
In today’s society the assumption asserts that there must be only two adults integrated in a relationship, however in polygamous environments, having more than one spouse is traditional. Some may argue that Polygamy is simply just an alternate lifestyle. This, however, ceases to be true. Young girls are being forced to marry older men and sometimes relatives. Little boys are often abandoned because it appears to be competition for older men. Children are victims of sexual and physical abuse. Whereas, for women, they generally become stripped of their money and experience competition against the multiple wives a husband. Although Polygamy is viewed as immoral by society, the main focus point should be saving young children and women because
One of the most controversial type of marriage to modern day society is polygamy. Polygamy is the practice of simultaneously having multiple spouses. Polygamy is often depicted in this nature due to the fact it contrasts with the socially acceptable conventional marriage. This view however, is not shared amongst cultures who practice it through the justification of religion or ideals all around the world.
(Bâ, 2008, p. 38). This speech reveals that both wife and husband have the obligation of supporting the polygamy. Modou’s obligation is to God as he intentionally wanted Modou to marry again while according to Tamsir, Ramatoulaye’s obligation is to allow the marriage to occur and accept the situation as it is her duty to support her husband’s decisions. Furthermore, Mawdo also married again. His and Nabou’s marriage is to some extent similar to Modou’s.