Is Polygamy for Today?
Ideally, each wife lives in a separate household. His father took a second wife when his first wife became ill, and the man says the two women formed a strong friendship. Polygamy in Islamic culture has its roots in an historic gender imbalance caused by the deaths of large numbers of men in war. Plural marriage helped protect the welfare of widows and reduce the number of unwed — and thus unprovided-for-women.
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The supporter of polygamy I spoke to sees it as the natural solution to a surplus of women he says still exists today though not according to Census data , which found a surplus of year-old single men and equal numbers of single men and women in their 30s. He also considers it a better alternative to the adultery that is so common in Western society. A woman wilfully and knowingly walks into this relationship because in her mind, this is an ideal relationship for her.
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In the unlikely event polygamy is legalised, it is hard to imagine large numbers of single women in Australian society signing up to be second wives. The Muslim community member I spoke to concedes that the practice is extremely rare in Australia. The lack of consensus in the Muslim community about polygamy could explain the lack of a coordinated campaign to decriminalise the practice.
Another possible explanation is Islamophobia. Recent news reports of polygamists claiming Centrelink payments preceded a wave of abuse directed at the Muslim community. It was the abusive phone calls and threats of physical violence made to my unnamed source, his family, and the Muslim community more broadly that convinced him to avoid putting his name to pro-polygamy views in the future. Their life in the hardscrabble region, where unpaved roads predominate, has always been half a century behind the rest of the US.
But now the modern world is intruding. Poverty and homelessness are the result: One of those women in trouble is Esther Barlow, 38, a single mother of 11 children, who grew up with 16 siblings. Now her only income is from a year-old son working in construction. Her home is decrepit and has no furniture. A local therapist, Stacy Heaps, provides counseling for residents and worries about how they will achieve self-sufficiency in the 21st century US.
In this isolated rural backwater, where the vermillion cliffs provide a majestic backdrop to the red-sand townships, chickens inhabit front yards, and boys in jeans and heavy shirts and girls in long dresses roam free.
Faith and polygamy: which religions permit plural marriage?
Pale young women in pastel dresses sweep leaves outside a church-run municipal office, while ruddy-faced men drive pickups or farm equipment down dusty lanes. In its prime, 6, members of the sect lived in Hildale, Utah, and its neighboring Colorado City, Arizona , both of which locals know by the name Short Creek. After the Mormon church banned polygamy in in exchange for the recognition of Utah as a state, polygamists went underground, some moving to Mexico, others settling in Short Creek. Following decades of leadership by a priesthood council, a member named Rulon Jeffs, his son Warren and their supporters fashioned a system of one-man rule.
Polygamy among these groups persists today in Utah , Arizona , Colorado , Canada , and some neighboring states, as well as up to 15, isolated individuals with no organized church affiliation. Mormon fundamentalists often use an ambiguous September 27, revelation to John Taylor as the basis for continuing the practice of plural marriage. The Salt Lake Tribune estimates there may be as many as 37, Mormon fundamentalists, with less than half living in polygamous households.
In , about 40, people living in Utah were part of a polygamist family, or about 1. Thereafter, secondary wives attempt to be seen in public as single women with children. Some polygamous families use a system of multiple divorce and legal marriage as a loophole in order to avoid committing a criminal act. In such cases the husband marries the first wife, she takes his last name, he divorces her and then marries the next wife, who takes his name.
As a polygamist community crumbles, 'sister wives' are forced from homes | Society | The Guardian
This is repeated until he has married and divorced all his wives, except possibly the last one. This way the wives feel justified in calling themselves Mrs [husband's last name] and, while legally they are divorced from the husband, they still act as if married to him and expect those around them to acknowledge and respect this. Since only one wife is officially married to the husband at any one time, no law is being broken and so this type of polygamous family unit can be overt about their relationship.
The conviction of Thomas Arthur Green in may have made the legal status of such relationships more precarious in Utah, although Green's bigamy convictions were made possible only by his own public statements. Mormon fundamentalist sects tend to aggregate in individual communities of their own specific sect and basis for polygamy. These small groups range from a few hundred up to 10,, and are located across Western North America, [28] including:.
The practice of informal polygamy among fundamentalist groups presents interesting legal issues. It has been considered difficult to prosecute polygamists for bigamy , in large part because they are rarely formally married under state laws. Without evidence that suspected offenders have multiple formal or common-law marriages , these groups are merely subject to the laws against adultery or unlawful cohabitation — laws which are not commonly enforced because they also criminalize other behavior that is otherwise socially sanctioned.
However, some "Fundamentalist" polygamists marry women prior to the age of consent , or commit fraud to obtain welfare and other public assistance. In , the state of Arizona investigated and raided a group of people in the polygamist-practicing colony of Hildale and Colorado City, straddling the Utah-Arizona border. All the men were arrested and the children were placed with foster families.
As a polygamist community crumbles, 'sister wives' are forced from homes
A judge eventually ruled this action illegal, and everyone returned to the community, which now contains about 10, people. Leavitt successfully prosecuted Thomas Green , who was convicted of criminal non-support and four counts of bigamy for having five serially monogamous marriages, while living with previous legally divorced wives. His cohabitation was considered evidence of a common-law marriage to the wives he had divorced while still living with them.
That premise was subsequently affirmed by the Utah Supreme Court in State v.
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Green, as applicable only in the State of Utah. Green was also convicted of child rape and criminal non-support. In , the state attorneys-general of Utah and Arizona issued a primer on helping victims of domestic violence and child abuse in polygamous communities. The priorities of local prosecutors are not covered by this statement. In , starting on April 4, Texas State officials took women and children into temporary legal custody after Rozita Swinton, a year-old woman living in Colorado Springs, Colorado, called both Texas Social Services and a local shelter claiming to be a year-old girl.
She made a series of phone calls to authorities in late March, claiming she had been beaten and forced to become a "spiritual" wife to an adult man. Acting on her calls, authorities raided the ranch in Eldorado, about 40 miles south of San Angelo.
- Préquelle (French Edition).
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Two men were arrested for obstructing the raid but were later released. Several men were found guilty and convicted of sexual assault, rape, and bigamy involving underage girls. The stars of the TLC show Sister Wives challenged the state of Utah's bigamy laws, [38] though also acknowledging that the state's constitutional ban of plural marriage licenses would remain regardless of the lawsuit's outcome. Buhman [39] that the portions of Utah's anti-polygamy laws which prohibit multiple cohabitation were unconstitutional, but also allowed Utah to maintain its ban on multiple marriage licenses.
In Canada, polygamy is a criminal offence under section of the Criminal Code , which provides for a penalty of up to five years imprisonment, [46] but prosecutions are rare. As of January , no person had been prosecuted for polygamy in Canada in over sixty years. Edith Barlow, a mother of five in the polygamous community of Bountiful , B.