Not so simple!  I see a few efforts at considering the guy’s side of it here on this site – good! – I think we can benefit from a more thorough investigation.

I ask you to think of a male polygamist in the familiar gospel context.  For as long as he’s been affiliated the church, sexual morality and fidelity have been drummed into him.  Along with gospel mores, he’s the product of a society that highly values the “one true love” ethos of family.

Now, all of a sudden comes a novel challenge, one which he’s never been prepared for.  He is going to maintain a family arrangement and marital relations with not one but two women – women who have no familiarity with this sort of relationship and its implications.  Be mindful, the injunctions to love and honor and cherish his wife – wives – has not vanished in a puff of patriarchy.  Where I and you have a single person to cherish and make happy, he now has two, three, or more.  His responsibility towards any one wife has not been reduced!  In the last day he will be judged by his success in ALL of them, and getting along reasonably with one will not justify greedy, venal, or uncaring behavior with others.  He can’t slip up, he has to make a place in his heart for all of them, or he fails.

Wow, what a deal!  Twice the mouths to feed, twice the commitment, twice the poems to write and flowers to give.  And if you value your honor you can forget about welfare fraud.

Those that imagine polygamy working solely to the man's advantage should reconsider their positions.  A fellow married to four angry harridans (who will all have their periods at the same time!) is not better off than someone who married just one.  It only seems enticing on the most carnal and superficial level.  The only way anyone could envy such a man is if he had unfettered access to physical intimacy – which would require a great deal of influence (or raw exertion of power) over them.  Some may indeed envy their romantic opportunities - or perhaps the unequal, unthreatening relationships that don't require a person to reach beyond their existing ability to love - but not I: one powerful and intimate relationship is far better than several shallow, one-sided and even adversarial ones.

(Parenthetically, from this standpoint, FLDS behavior is more understandable – an entrenched patriarchy and unquestioned leadership are an absolute necessity for men who are not willing to develop deep relationships with all their many wives.  The man is the Ba’athist, if you will, ruling over an Iraq full of disenfranchised women.  If he weakens his grasp he is finished, and becomes a prisoner in his own family, drowning in a sea of estrogen.)

I think that one of the reasons feminist intellectuals stay in the church is because polygamy gives them something to gnaw over for decades without ever losing interest, so I understand that the few tentative lines on this website can hardly compass all you’ve said and thought on the subject.  I have no bold conclusion to make on this.  I offer no justification or condemnation of the practice here, and plead only for everyone to recognize that every polygamist in history, male or female, has been nothing more than a human being, and more than a few made a success of their lives and blessed the lives of others.

I am rather curious to see how it all works out in The Kingdom.

(WARNING: spoiler alert if you haven't seen Season 1 episodes 1-5)

Someone suggested my hubby and I watch Big Love from Netflix.  So we have 3 disks here waiting to be viewed.  Last night we watched the first disk and couldn't help ourselves from watching the second disk.

The whole mess of the Polygamy issue with the Church has always bugged me.  I did pro-bono work for Tapestry Against Polygamy when Tom Hanks was just putting out feelers about starting this series.  The ladies at TAP were worried it would be glamorized, and seeing it, in a way it is.. BUT...

The whole show has a surface glamour, but deeper is the mess and darker side of polygamy.  The main characters are not FLDS, although one wife is from there, being a 'warren jeffs prophet daughter.  Anyway, the FLDS type characters show off all the issues currently being experienced about little girls and such - but they are side characters.  The main characters are secular, not church going, and modern.  The thing is... I believe this show (so far at least) also shows a universal truth:  One's heart is bonded to ONE person more than any other.

With Polygamy, a wife of Brigham Young said "You can't LOVE your husband, you respect him, be kind to him, but don't be close to him - that is how Polygamy works best."  She counciled sisters struggling with it to "go live their lives and be independent of the husband - to not grow close to him."  And it would seem that if a woman didn't want that pair bonding and simply wanted a man to show up once a week, then it may be the way to go.  Another case for polygamy which is hinted at in Big Love, is is that the women can pair bond with each other instead.  A friend of the main character has 3 wives, two of which were playing secret footsy under a table and giggling.  If ladies who prefer the company of ladies, then polygamy is a great cover!

Lastly, the main character finally realizes in episode 5 that his first wife of 16 years is his equal.  His other two younger wives aren't.  He has an "affair' with his first wife.  Sneaking off on the wrong days, going to motels, leaving her presents, realizing that all along - he is "IN LOVE" with her. 

It shows the harm to the other two women.  It's not fair to them and he just doesn't understand them like a husband should.  This whole series shows to me that Polygamy, even when you remove the funky clothes, hair and pedophilia, does not work for one's heart.  In the end, you always love one person the most and that is the person you long for.  Even when one tries to be 'fair' and equal, well... it just doesn't happen.  Anger is hidden and pain is shown is so many different ways.  The 2nd wife is $60K in debt from shopping - she drowns herself with 'things'.  The 3rd wife is a 'babysitter' and treated as such.  Even though all 4 of the group tries to love eachother, it's just not fulfilling.  Even William struggles with feeling close to all of them.  His heart is with only one, but he tries to hide it.  What kind of emotional schizophrenia must he be going through.  It must be painful, because in a way it's so fake to have sex and profess being 'in love' with ones not your equal.

I think Nikki and Marge (the two younger wives) deserve the kind of kindred spirit bonding that the Barb (the first wife) has with William.  They deserve a kindred to bond to, their very own.  We all do.

There is an absolutely FASCINATING blog currently showing on Times & Seasons of the Bloggernacle regarding "Master Status".  I love any blog that makes me think and might open up new doors of understanding, and Craig's blog does just that!

 Master status refers to the ways in which we define ourselves in life--and more importantly, how we interact with others based on their chosen "master statuses". 

 Please take a look and let me know what you think!

http://www.timesandseasons.org/

Cyn

This was originally posted on my blog on June 8, 2008.

In the last week or so, it has become clear to me that the basic understanding quite a few people have of libertarianism is that of greed and selfishness. This surprises me because I thought most people had us figured for proponents of legalized marijuana and prostitution.

In truth, there are as many factions to libertarianism as there are people who identify as such. Get ten libertarians in a room and you’ll get 11 opinions that span not only a spectrum across an idealogy, but span the spectra of idealogies.

There is one thing that unites us, however, and that is the belief in choice. Sometimes, as in the case of abortion, whose choice is up for debate, but in the end, libertarians want to be able to choose how they live their lives without having their homes raided by overzealous religious bigots in the form of Child Protective Services, without having their businesses regulated to such an extent that they are hamstrung, without having their earnings stolen straight out of their paychecks.

In Abraham 4:1, a plan was presented and a son of God said, “Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.” Then Christ offered his plan and the glory to the Father. The Father goes on to tell Abraham in verse 3, “Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down.”

This concept is our gospel. It’s the fulcrum of what we as Latter-day Saints believe and why. Without this, we’d be just another protestant religion albeit with some seriously weird kinks.

I made the point over at Feminist Mormon Housewives that compulsory taxation for the purpose of giving it to other individuals in our society was antithesis to the gospel, the gospel of agency, which is to say, the ability to choose between good and evil. In return, it was brought to my attention that the actual point was not that Lucifer had proposed this plan, but that he wanted the glory. Yet God makes it very clear that Satan’s greater sin was that he “sought to destroy the agency of man.”

Our Creator’s goal is to bring all of us home again…with caveat: That we actually learn something.

And there’s the sticky wicket. One cannot learn the principle of anything by compulsion. One doesn’t learn generosity by having money taken from his paycheck arbitrarily and given to someone else, no matter how much the someone else needs it. The choice to be generous on our own, to provide for our weakest with that money, has been stripped from us.

Obviously, libertarians wouldn’t have a problem with some measure of taxation because things do need to be paid for: roads, bridges, fire, police, water treatment, a military. Oh, you know, those things that establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. There are better ways to collect those funds than via the IRS, but that’s another six posts. However, I will not deny that they are vital to the successful running of a country and everyone needs to share in that cost.

Of course, I know what most of the first jumping off point of this post will be, because it’s used (either disingenuously or ignorantly) as the first point of dissent in the debate: promoting the general welfare, which has been used to justify enormous charitable Congressional expenditures since the New Deal. So let’s get that out of the way right now.

James Madison put this succinctly enough in the third session of Congress in 1794, when an expedition of French refugees had arrived from the Haitian Revolution, and Congress sought $15,000 for their aid. This is the quote from the annals:

“Mr. Madison wished to relieve the sufferers, but was afraid of establishing a dangerous precedent, which might hereafter be perverted to the countenance of purposes very different from those of charity. He acknowledged, for his own part, that he could not undertake to lay his finger on that article in the Federal Constitution which granted a right of Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

Furthermore, Mr. Madison said, “The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” [Italics mine.]

So, yeah, one of the geniuses behind the Constitution didn’t think it was such a good idea.

Whew. Now, with that addressed, I’ll conclude my original point:

If we believe in a gospel of agency, then having our earnings taken from us to be given to someone else is denial of agency. Thus, the redistribution of wealth via compulsory taxation is, by definition of our gospel, evil.