Polygamy seems like recipe for disaster from 'outsider' point of view
 
By Shanna Sissom
City Editor
Midland Reporter-Telegram - Midland, Texas
 
With polygamist fugitive Warren Jeffs recently making it to the FBI's most wanted list, plural marriage lifestyles have been the focus of numerous TV documentaries on a subject that fascinates most of us.

Jeffs, renegade leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a splinter group not recognized by the mainstream Mormon denomination, is wanted for child sexual abuse charges and allegedly arranging marriages between underage girls and older men. His case has brought the institution of polygamy into the national spotlight, leaving many of us with unanswered questions.

How could a woman like the idea of sharing her husband? But many of them apparently do.

Three or more women in a home, known as "sister wives," share household duties with cooking, cleaning and parenting. This arrangement of three or more wives provides the potential for multiple full-time incomes, which no doubt comes in handy considering the likelihood of these unions producing a high yield of dependents.

But if you research polygamy, you'll find a host of other concocted "benefits."

For your information, below are a few found on polygamy.com.

"Being able to marry the men who attract the most women means they don't have to settle just for what's left over after other women have the best pickings."

And here's one of my favorites:

"Polygamy provides a method where a woman can have a female friend for life as well as a husband."

No thanks. I'd prefer my friends not share a bed with my husband -- in fact, I insist upon it.

Another benefit of polygamy, according to the Web site, is that men are not inclined to leave an aging wife for a younger woman.

"She needn't worry about losing her husband and income as she loses her looks, because if her husband is attracted to a younger woman, he doesn't even have to think about leaving his wife."

In other words, the man can move a 20-year-old bride in with his menopausal wife.

I just can't imagine that going over very well. Regardless of one's religious beliefs, jealousy of this nature is part of the human condition.

In one TV documentary I saw, the wives all had their own bedrooms and the husband kept his closet in the study. The man divided his time between wives by rotating bedrooms throughout the week.

I suppose it's easier for the husband to keep track of what day of the week it is, according to which woman he wakes up with each morning.

Such variety sounds like a good deal for the man, but the husband on TV tried to explain the pressures of trying to please all the wives. When one wife is having "special needs" as I think it was described, her sister wives all understand the husband will be spending more time with her.

Thinking about such households, it's difficult to imagine such an arrangement working out for the women, or the man.

It's challenging enough keeping one relationship between a man and woman harmonious at all times. Factor two more women into the mix and there's a recipe for disaster.

But then again, I'm not a polygamist so I can't possibly understand.
 
MyWestTexas.com
Originally published May 23, 2006
 
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