Becoming Sister Wives Summary

While generations of anthropologists have told their students that polyandry mating counts as anomalous in today’s society, the general truth is just the opposite. According to a recent paper written in 2013 by Katherine Starkweather, a Ph.D. candidate from University of Missouri and Raymond Starks, professor of anthropology at the University of Nebraska, around 53 societies outside of “classic polyandrous” Tibetan region that recognize and allow polyandrous unions. Starkweather also states “Humans appear prone on average to sexual jealousy, and so it would not be unreasonable for many U.S. men and women alike to project an assumption that sexual jealousy would make polyunions untenable.”7 Moore (1991) offers this analysis

Meri Brown, co-author of the book Becoming Sister Wives, writes “It was my mother who urged my father to take his first plural wife. She joined the family when I was only five, but I still have fond memories of her. Unfortunately it was a short marriage with no children and she left two years later.”5 Solidifying the fact that women often orchestrate plural marriages for their sense of happiness. While also showing the fact that plural marriages also have

Although more difficult to resolve should they get ugly, they are cases where spouses of polygamous marriages want to separate as well. In the rare instance that a case should reach the courts a judge has a few different options on resolving the issues. They can treat the separating couple as cohabitants rather than spouses. This would rule out alimony because but palimony, a division of the assets that a couple shared during their non-marriage, would be an option. Being difficult to formulate a fair distribution to the remaining wives who also have a claim on the properties, a judge might refuse to grant palimony to avoid legitimizing the illegal polygamous relationship. The underlining factor is polygamous divorces are a rare case in reflection to monogamous divorce rates in today’s