Opponents of same-sex marriage sometimes say, using the
slippery slope argument, that recognition of such marriage would lead to
approval of polygamy also. I have argued, correctly I think, that those are two
completely separate issues and the slippery slope argument is not valid.
But recently I have thought more about the subject of
polygamy and have, surprisingly, come to the conclusion that perhaps it should
be legal in this pluralistic country. (Please note: neither I nor any man I
know is wanting a second wife!)
There has been no legal polygamy (or even practice of
polygamy with only a few exceptions) in the Western world for centuries. Perhaps
to a large degree this been because of Christianity. But maybe there should be
some provision for polygamy in the U.S. now.
As we know, there was widespread polygamy in the Old
Testament, and because of that there have some instances of polygamy in Western
history. For example, in the 1530s polygamy was practiced in Münster, (in what
is now) Germany.
Under reforms made by Jan van Leiden, the self-proclaimed
King of Münster, polygamy became mandatory
because it was the practice of the Old Testament and thus sanctioned by God. (Also
on a practical level the woman/man ratio was something like 3 or 4 to 1, so
there was an overabundance of women in the city). Leiden would take 16 wives
for himself.
There was also
approval, in 1540, of the bigamous marriage of Philip of Hesse, one of the most
important in 16th century German political leaders. His taking of a
second wife had the approval of some of the leading Protestant theologians of
the day, including Martin Luther’s reluctant consent.
But still, in most “Christian” nations, bigamy/polygamy has
overwhelmingly been recognized as being opposed to the teachings of
Christianity and made illegal. And for good reason.
But there are other ways to look at the issue. I first
glimpsed a benefit of polygamy when reading about Afghani women in A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) by Khaled Hosseini (b. 1965),
the Afghan-American novelist whose first book The Kite Runner (2003) was an overwhelming success.
In Hosseini’s
second novel, also a bestseller, Rasheed is an Afghani man who takes a second
wife, much to the dismay of Mariam, his first wife. But Rasheed was an increasingly
abusive husband, and the two wives became close friends and mutually supportive
in their resistance to their common “enemy.”
Then, I happened to come across a most interesting online article titled “Islam’s Position on Polygamy.” (This is on the
website called www.IslamsWomen.com.) The article gives many reasons why the practice of
polygamy is superior to monogamy. Let me share just one:
Polygamy protects the interests of women and children in society. Men, in Western society make the laws. They prefer to keep polygamy illegal because it absolves them of responsibility. Legalized polygamy would require them to spend on their additional wives and their offspring. Monogamy allows them to enjoy extra-marital affairs without economic consequence.
(The same article also makes the following highly
questionable assertion: “In the West today, most married men have extramarital
relations with mistresses, girlfriends and prostitutes.”)
This posting is partly a response to comments toward the end
of my 1/20/14 blog article, especially the one calling outlawing polygamy a “religious
bias.” So, perhaps making some legal provision for polygamy is needed for the
religious freedom of Muslims (and fundamentalist Mormons).
But are there sufficient benefits of polygamy that such
should be legalized? I’m not convinced that there are. And is polygamy
generally beneficial for women? Most probably not.
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