“If the people of Utah shall peacefully form a State Constitution tolerating polygamy, will the Democracy admit them into the Union?” Abraham Lincoln. In this quote Lincoln shows that even 161 years ago there were problems with the subject of polygamy. Polygamy is the marriage of more than two people into one union. Polygamy has always or at least nearly always caused a lot of controversy on whether or not it should be legal. Polygamy itself is highly harmful and capable of hiding many dastardly deeds, which is why it needs to be illegal.
Negative and Positive Side of Polygamy
Polygamy has many negative side effects’ one of them being the sexual pressure placed on the men in the relationships. For example, Stephanie Pappas, author of a 2011 article titled, “Polygamy Good for Men, Bad for Women” explains a study done on the shift of the mormon religion from polygamy to monogamy in the 1800’s which showed a reduction in sexual pressure placed on the males. The polygamous way of their culture put much more pressure on the man to perform more often and try to father more offspring (Pappas). The sexual pressure felt by the men is more than likely due to having to keep multiple wives satisfied all the time. This, of course, causes stress and anxiety within the male. It is also generally known that the more a male feels stressed, the less likely that his sperm is able to form a viable embryo. Therefore, this would cause even more stress on the male since one of the main reasons for polygamy is to create more offspring. This causes polygamy to be oppressing mentally to males and increasing in pressure that is unnecessary if the male was in a monogamous relationship.
Polygamy can actually create less offspring and offspring gaps. According to Stephanie Pappas polygamy is a cause of reduced offspring in women. Studies showed that for every additional wife a man had each wife produced one fewer offspring (Pappas). In a polygamous relationship, the male needs to spread his time and sperm between each of his wives, creating fewer chances for every wife due to having to share her husband. It actually could very well be harming the males chances of more offspring depending on how many wives he tries to take on. Additionally, Mark Goldfeder, in his 2013 article titled “The Story of Jewish Polygamy,”breached the subject of an offspring gap. This gap was not only present between men in polygamous relationships and men in monogamous relationships or even unmarried men, but also the women in the polygamous relationships with the men (Goldfeder). This gap is definitely produced between all of them by the fact that depending on the number of wives a male has, he could have anywhere from three to five times as many children as a single one of his wives, any unmarried male, or a male in a monogamous relationship. This gap is not beneficial to society as a whole as more than the average percent of a population would then be from one lineage. All of this creates an unnatural and harmful balance when it comes to offspring from polygamous relationships. This makes polygamy cause more harm than good.
The practice of polygamy has even offset the competitive rates to find a spouse. Stephanie Pappas attempts to explain the competitive rates that are affected due to polygamy. Pappas briefly touches on how the competitive rates for the males and females to find a partner is highly uneven when it comes to polygamy. For every additional wife a man has there is roughly one additional unmarried man out there in the world. This causes unequal competition in trying to find a spouse as the men now have more difficult odds (Pappas). The unbalancing of this competition creates problems for people not even in polygamous relationships. For men who are unmarried, they now have to compete even harder to find a wife because of the new rate. This causes uneven competition as women do not have to really compete at all if they enter into a polygamous relationship. There is barely any competition for the women as each male takes multiple wives making the competitive ratio be pretty much obsolete in their cases. The competitive rates are just one unnatural balance that is caused by polygamy that could be stopped if polygamy was outlawed.
Why Polygamy Should be Banned
One of the biggest reasons that polygamy needs to be banned is the harm it can cause to the children made from the relationships. Jared Rosenberg, author of a 2009 article titled, “Polygynous Marriage Linked to Higher Child Mortality,” explains what he found in a survey done in sub-Saharan Africa. Rosenberg claims that the survey showed a higher death rate before the age of five among the children from polygamous relationships (Rosenberg). If death rates are higher this leads to reasons why polygamy truly is not a good thing and needs to be kept illegal. Also Emily Smith-Greenaway and Jenny Trinitapoli in their 2014 article, “Polygynous Contexts, Family Structure, and Infant Mortality in sub-Saharan Africa” convey that there is more inbreeding in polygamous communities due to lack of outside options (Smith-Greenaway). The lack of options and inbreeding is more than likely due to not many people being open to the life of polygamy. This keeps the people in a very tight knit community of those who share their beliefs and lifestyles. Additionally, Smith-Greenaway and Trinitapoli approach how the domestic situation of polygamy can be harmful to children. Smith-Greenaway and Trinitapoli explain that the more people in the family, the more resources need to be spread. Spreading the resources like money for food and medicine leads to more opening for malnourishment and illness (Smith-Greenaway). Smith-Greenaway and Trinitapoli are making the connection that due to more members in the family the more the income must be divided to fully take care of all the members. This of course causes problems when the money is not enough to go around and therefore, the family runs into problems taking care of each other. Without polygamy these child mortality rates, inbreeding, and overpopulation of families would be severely decreased. Therefore, the children would not have as much chance of harm done to them if polygamy was illegal.
Polygamy has often been used to suppress women’s rights. Polygamous religions as a whole were very unfair when it came to the women’s rights. Martha Ertman, author of a 2010 article titled, “Race Treason: The Untold Story of America’s Ban on Polygamy” examines how in polygamous relationships, women are treated as completely lesser beings. They are not allowed to make decisions in the relationships and tend to be treated horribly. In polygamous communities women’s rights to vote were withheld even longer than the rest of the U.S. In addition, they also are expected to do more work than the male when taking care of the children’s needs (Ertman). The suppression of women’s rights more than likely comes from men being allowed to have multiple wives, but women are only allowed one husband. Furthermore, the women are treated as property of their husband and not as their own person. The men also made most, if not all, decisions for the entire family without any consent or input from his wives. This added to oppressing women’s rights. Oppression of rights is harmful and wrong with any people and now of days is not allowed. The fact that polygamy allows for the oppression of an entire gender’s rights just because they are not the other gender is a reason that polygamy cannot and should not be allowed.
Polygamy has in history been very harmful to the women in the relationships. Mark Goldfeder approaches the topic that polygamy can be emotionally draining on women. The toll of being just one of severally wives can be quite heavy on the woman’s mind and mentally bring them down (Goldfeder). It is quite possible for polygamy to be an emotional roller coaster, especially for the women. In present time, to not be enough for the male can be emotionally taxing and hard on a woman. Even more so, to know she is not enough and is unable to keep his attraction can cause many insecurities. Additionally, Martha Ertman explains the fact that many people feel the ban on polygamy is to protect teenagers. Teenagers were being forced into polygamous relationships and into marriages they did not want. The ban on polygamy is thought to be a way to prevent it (Ertman). To force someone into anything is completely wrong. Furthermore, to force teenagers into unwanted marriages and additionally unwanted sexual relations are completely horrendous. How could the nation cope if it was forcing it’s teens in this, is truly the question. Above all, Mark Goldfeder also examines the topic of abuse towards women under the polygamous religions. Women were constantly abused, but as they did not truly have any freedom they could not report this abuse. This domestic violence was highly common among polygamous communities and was very easily seen as the man just taking charge and demanding obedience from his wives (Goldfeder). Abuse is never okay. Allowing this abuse in the past, puts a black mark on the nation’s and the world’s history. Polygamy was an easy way to hide the abuse, especially if the wives were kept separately. The wives could not rally together to stop the abuse or support each other if they cannot communicate with each other. What makes it worse is, even if they could stop it society and culture around them viewed it as okay. Polygamy did not much care how he kept his wives as long as he kept them in line and obedient. Abuse was perfectly fine in their culture. All these harmful actions directed purely at woman due to the polygamous cultures was down right against the human rights of women. This one reason over all the rest is why polygamy should be illegal.
Some people erroneously believe that polygamy should be allowed due to religious purposes and it being part of their culture. Although some religions previously believed in polygamy, major religions such as the Jews and Mormons have shifted to ban polygamy. The main branch of the Mormon church was previously the biggest religion involved with polygamy, but now have switched to only allowing monogamy. Another argument for polygamy is that polygamist feel it is their duty to produce more children to populate the earth. However, the earth does not need populated anymore. The population of the earth actually needs reduced anymore. Also in polyandry, which is one woman with multiple husbands, the number of offspring produced is reduced majorly.
Conclusion
Polygamy, an opressing and harmful practice to everyone, needs to be made illegal to protect the people trapped in polygamous communities. The nation was once in an uproar about polygamy and how it should not be allowed. Today, the nation almost supports polygamy by putting it on reality tv and making it a drama show. Despite how tv networks play it, there is still harm and will be strong repercussions in the future, but if America will be one of the countries facing the repercussions is up to weather or not we make polygamy illegal.
Works Cited
- Ertman, Martha M. ‘Race Treason: The Untold Story of America’s Ban on Polygamy.’ Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, vol. 19, no. 2, 2010, p. 287+. Opposing Viewpoints in Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A226046793/OVIC?u=coll72001&sid=OVIC&xid=68a74668.
- Goldfeder, Mark. ‘The Story of Jewish Polygamy.’ Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, vol. 26, no. 2, 2013, p. 234+. Opposing Viewpoints in Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A369128750/OVIC?u=coll72001&sid=OVIC&xid=0f215fa5.
- Pappas, Stephanie. “Polygamy Good for Men, Bad for Women.” LiveScience, Purch, 28 Feb. 2011, www.livescience.com/13010-polygamy-good-men-bad-women.html.
- Rosenberg, Jared. ‘Polygynous Marriage Linked to Higher Child Mortality.’ International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, vol. 35, no. 2, 2009, p. 56+. Opposing Viewpoints in Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A205052144/OVIC?u=coll72001&sid=OVIC&xid=a11fad80.
- Smith-Greenaway, Emily and Trinitapoli, Jenny. “Polygynous Contexts, Family Structure, and Infant Mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports., U.S. National Library of Medicine, Apr. 2014, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3974908/.
