Professor
09-11-2007, 07:15 PM
After reading the article today’s banner I've been thinking about polygamy. Is it bad? Good? Is it neither but just a situation that is particularly ripe for abuse to spring from? This is really all the times I seem to hear about polygamy, in the headlines when some poor virginal girl runs from the vicious claws of the ideological monster. Do we just want to hear the bad since we come from a largely monogamous society? Are there positives to polygamy that we don't want to acknowledge, such as having help with the kids and housework? Wouldn’t it be like having a nanny or a merry maid like many other monogamous couples hire, except she isn’t a member of the family?
Is this is kindergarten thing? If I can't have 5 wives neither can you? So there.
I could see how polygamy was useful in evolutionary times to keep the species going but it is no longer needed for that reason now. For whatever reasons we still have it, it is a social reason.
And now for the information...
__________________________________________________ _________
polygamy
Main Entry: po·lyg·a·my
Pronunciation: -mE
Function: noun
1 : marriage in which a spouse of either sex may have more than one mate at the same time -- compare POLYANDRY, POLYGYNY
2 : the state of being polygamous
- po·lyg·a·mist /-mist/ noun
- po·lyg·a·mize /-"mIz/ intransitive verb
__________________________________________________ _________
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/09/11/fleeing.polygamy.hammon/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Girl, 14, fled abuse, 'mind control' of polygamy
(CNN) -- Sara Hammon saw some of her sisters pulled out of school to be married to men they didn't know. She dreaded a similar fate. And so, she ran away from home before she was old enough to drive legally.
She left behind 19 mothers, 74 siblings, and a father she says could never remember her name, even though he repeatedly molested her.
And, she left behind a culture she says was oppressive for young women.
Hammon recently gave CNN a deeply disturbing account of her life inside the polygamous sect whose leader, Warren Jeffs, goes on trial this week in Utah.
Jeffs is accused of being an accomplice to rape. The charge stems from his alleged practice of arranging polygamous marriages between child brides and older male followers.
Hammon is not directly involved in the charges against Jeffs, which concern an arranged marriage between a girl, 14 and her 19-year-old cousin. She left the sect before she could be placed in an arranged marriage. But she is one of its most outspoken former members.
"Probably the worst part of the whole theology," she said, " is the treatment of women and teaching women that they are not equal to men."
"They have to have a husband in order to get to the highest degree of heaven, and not only a husband but they have to allow the husband to have two other wives," she added.
Hammon was born in Hilldale, Utah, and raised in Colorado City, Arizona, towns where followers of Jeffs -- the President and Prophet, Seer and Revelator of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) -- freely practice polygamy.
The FLDS broke more than a century ago from the mainline Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, over the practice of polygamy.
The Mormon church, which gave up plural marriage more than a century ago, has renounced Jeffs' group.
Hammon was the first 14-year-old girl to successfully leave the FLDS, she said. Almost 20 years later, she recalls the time she spent inside the compound as being filled with fear.
"There was a tremendous amount of abuse in our home," Hammon said. "It happened on a daily basis and there was all kinds: sexual, physical, emotional, mental. My brothers were sexually abusive. Some of my mothers were physically abusive."
But it was her father -- an FLDS church leader -- who terrified her. He began sexually abusing her before she turned 5, Hammon said. He even tried to molest her on his deathbed when she was 13, she said.
"For me, he was a very mean person. I didn't know him while we lived in the same house for 13 years and he had to ask me my name every time he saw me.
"In fact, the question he would ask is, 'What is your name and who is your mother?' and that was the only way he could identify that I was his child," Hammon said.
Three of her older sisters were placed in marriages before they finished high school, including one who was 16 when she married a 62-year-old man, Hammon said. She recalled that one sister had two days notice before her wedding.
Hammon said girls in the compound were prepared for a similar destiny all their lives, but she knew from a young age she didn't want any part of it.
"It was like marching to the guillotine because I saw pictures of my mother before she got married and she was just so confident.
"Her posture was just excellent and she had a beautiful face and smile... and then I watched her deteriorate after she got married and I watched her go through so much emotional pain and that was what I felt was in store for me if I got married," she said.
Hammon described her father's wives as second-class citizens in the household who became shells of themselves the moment he came into the room. She called it mind control. Her mother had more than two dozen nervous breakdowns, she said.
"I don't know how a woman can allow another woman to come into her home and cook some supper up with the family for her and go to bed with her husband that night and respect herself.
"I don't see how that is possible. You have to let a part of yourself go. A part of something in you, you have to squash that down in order to live with that every day," she said.
It was a fate Hammon escaped with the help of a family she'd been babysitting for outside the compound. About a year after her father died, she asked them if she could stay and they agreed. Hammon says her mother didn't believe she could stop her.
Almost two decades later, the memories of her childhood haunt her. Hammon said she doesn't date much.
"I watched my mom just die emotionally and I relate that to marriage," she said.
Still, she doesn't entirely blame Jeffs for what she went through inside the FLDS community.
"I think that Warren Jeffs is the fall guy for something that has been going on for generations," Hammon said.
"Warren Jeffs is just a person to focus on. This system is a well-oiled machine, there's always going to be somebody to step up and take his place. What he has done is terrible... but I know a lot of other men who were out there and in charge who did some pretty terrible things too. Nobody was paying attention then," she said.
Jeffs was captured August 28, 2006, in a traffic stop near Las Vegas, Nevada. At the time, he had been on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List for months.
__________________________________________________ _________
Source: http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/?p=503
Polygafeminist Surprise by Naiah
Guess what? I believe in polygamy–well, in a sense; I do not condemn the idea. I do not believe in its current practice, and I certainly do not believe in the evils with which those who insist on practicing it nowadays tend to pervert it. Not believing in practiciing it, though, is not the same as not believing in it. My heart just breaks when I see Latter-day Saints and others condemn it as a perversion or a threat to the institution of marriage. I think we have forgotten our past and that again and again it has been shown to be the Lord’s model for marriage–when undertaken at His behest. We, as Latter-day Saints, are hypocrites if we in the same breath express our testimony of Jospeh Smith and our condemnation of polygamy.
No, I’m not about to pack my bags for Texas, and neither do I question or doubt at all the veracity or authority of Official Declaration-1. Our church’s position is that we no longer practice polygamy. It is not one of condemnation of the idea itself. OD-1 is simply an extension of the 12th Article of Faith. We believe in being subject to the laws of the land, and the laws of the land prohibit plural marriage. Plain and simple–that’s all it says. To my knowledge, there has been no retraction of the doctrine itself.
I have seen the Family proclamation cited as evidence against polygamy. “Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan.” I got news for ya, peeps; ain’t no quantities given. There is nothing in the language–either overt or in the syntax/grammar– of the Family Proclamation that dismisses polygamy. Polygamy is also marriage between man and woman. Each wife is sealed to her husband, one-to-one. Belief in marriage does not preclude belief in polygamy.
What about all the abuse? What about the unwilling child brides and the mistreated and cast-off wives? Um, frankly, that’s not polygamy; it’s child abuse and domestic violence. They are not intrinsic parts of plural marriage itself, and, therefore have no bearing on a discussion of the practice, particularly given that they occur in monogamous marriages as well. They are separate, but still disturbing issues, that the mis-practice of some has unfortunately yoked to polygamy in the minds of most people.
I should perhaps amend my first statement to read that I believe in healthy polygamy. Yes there can be such a thing. Assuming that it was both legal and reinstated by the Lord, it would first require a healthy first marriage–a marriage founded on love, honesty, respect, openness (good communication). Secondly, there would have to be the potential for a similarly healthy relationship with the second wife. Third, there would have to exist a healthy love and sisterhood between the sister-wives-to-be. I suppose I am also assuming that, by way of the health of the existing marriage(s), the husband would choose in harmony with his wife/wives any to come after.
Beyond that, you have, of course temporal concerns which can be worked out just as they are in any marriage. All families are juggling acts of needs and resources, regardless of how many wives are involved.
Should the laws of the land change, the Lord reveal through His prophet that the new and everlasting covenant is to be put into practice again, and my husband called to such I would meet it as an opportunity and a blessing and lovingly welcome another Mrs. Earhart.
I simply do not understand the level to which this doctrine bothers so many sisters. A loving, healthy household of sister-wives functioning together in life, each loving their husband and loving each other enough to share that husband, cooperating, supporting each other, sharing life’s joys and struggles as sisters should sounds like a fantastic, stable, and empowering way to live. Until an actual retraction, I will continue to view it so and to caution any faithful Latter-day Saint away from open condemnation of it.
(This was taken from a blog I googled. I was trying to find an article I read last year in a Philosophy class. I couldn't find it, but the author makes many of the same points.)
Is this is kindergarten thing? If I can't have 5 wives neither can you? So there.
I could see how polygamy was useful in evolutionary times to keep the species going but it is no longer needed for that reason now. For whatever reasons we still have it, it is a social reason.
And now for the information...
__________________________________________________ _________
polygamy
Main Entry: po·lyg·a·my
Pronunciation: -mE
Function: noun
1 : marriage in which a spouse of either sex may have more than one mate at the same time -- compare POLYANDRY, POLYGYNY
2 : the state of being polygamous
- po·lyg·a·mist /-mist/ noun
- po·lyg·a·mize /-"mIz/ intransitive verb
__________________________________________________ _________
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/09/11/fleeing.polygamy.hammon/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Girl, 14, fled abuse, 'mind control' of polygamy
(CNN) -- Sara Hammon saw some of her sisters pulled out of school to be married to men they didn't know. She dreaded a similar fate. And so, she ran away from home before she was old enough to drive legally.
She left behind 19 mothers, 74 siblings, and a father she says could never remember her name, even though he repeatedly molested her.
And, she left behind a culture she says was oppressive for young women.
Hammon recently gave CNN a deeply disturbing account of her life inside the polygamous sect whose leader, Warren Jeffs, goes on trial this week in Utah.
Jeffs is accused of being an accomplice to rape. The charge stems from his alleged practice of arranging polygamous marriages between child brides and older male followers.
Hammon is not directly involved in the charges against Jeffs, which concern an arranged marriage between a girl, 14 and her 19-year-old cousin. She left the sect before she could be placed in an arranged marriage. But she is one of its most outspoken former members.
"Probably the worst part of the whole theology," she said, " is the treatment of women and teaching women that they are not equal to men."
"They have to have a husband in order to get to the highest degree of heaven, and not only a husband but they have to allow the husband to have two other wives," she added.
Hammon was born in Hilldale, Utah, and raised in Colorado City, Arizona, towns where followers of Jeffs -- the President and Prophet, Seer and Revelator of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) -- freely practice polygamy.
The FLDS broke more than a century ago from the mainline Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, over the practice of polygamy.
The Mormon church, which gave up plural marriage more than a century ago, has renounced Jeffs' group.
Hammon was the first 14-year-old girl to successfully leave the FLDS, she said. Almost 20 years later, she recalls the time she spent inside the compound as being filled with fear.
"There was a tremendous amount of abuse in our home," Hammon said. "It happened on a daily basis and there was all kinds: sexual, physical, emotional, mental. My brothers were sexually abusive. Some of my mothers were physically abusive."
But it was her father -- an FLDS church leader -- who terrified her. He began sexually abusing her before she turned 5, Hammon said. He even tried to molest her on his deathbed when she was 13, she said.
"For me, he was a very mean person. I didn't know him while we lived in the same house for 13 years and he had to ask me my name every time he saw me.
"In fact, the question he would ask is, 'What is your name and who is your mother?' and that was the only way he could identify that I was his child," Hammon said.
Three of her older sisters were placed in marriages before they finished high school, including one who was 16 when she married a 62-year-old man, Hammon said. She recalled that one sister had two days notice before her wedding.
Hammon said girls in the compound were prepared for a similar destiny all their lives, but she knew from a young age she didn't want any part of it.
"It was like marching to the guillotine because I saw pictures of my mother before she got married and she was just so confident.
"Her posture was just excellent and she had a beautiful face and smile... and then I watched her deteriorate after she got married and I watched her go through so much emotional pain and that was what I felt was in store for me if I got married," she said.
Hammon described her father's wives as second-class citizens in the household who became shells of themselves the moment he came into the room. She called it mind control. Her mother had more than two dozen nervous breakdowns, she said.
"I don't know how a woman can allow another woman to come into her home and cook some supper up with the family for her and go to bed with her husband that night and respect herself.
"I don't see how that is possible. You have to let a part of yourself go. A part of something in you, you have to squash that down in order to live with that every day," she said.
It was a fate Hammon escaped with the help of a family she'd been babysitting for outside the compound. About a year after her father died, she asked them if she could stay and they agreed. Hammon says her mother didn't believe she could stop her.
Almost two decades later, the memories of her childhood haunt her. Hammon said she doesn't date much.
"I watched my mom just die emotionally and I relate that to marriage," she said.
Still, she doesn't entirely blame Jeffs for what she went through inside the FLDS community.
"I think that Warren Jeffs is the fall guy for something that has been going on for generations," Hammon said.
"Warren Jeffs is just a person to focus on. This system is a well-oiled machine, there's always going to be somebody to step up and take his place. What he has done is terrible... but I know a lot of other men who were out there and in charge who did some pretty terrible things too. Nobody was paying attention then," she said.
Jeffs was captured August 28, 2006, in a traffic stop near Las Vegas, Nevada. At the time, he had been on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List for months.
__________________________________________________ _________
Source: http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/?p=503
Polygafeminist Surprise by Naiah
Guess what? I believe in polygamy–well, in a sense; I do not condemn the idea. I do not believe in its current practice, and I certainly do not believe in the evils with which those who insist on practicing it nowadays tend to pervert it. Not believing in practiciing it, though, is not the same as not believing in it. My heart just breaks when I see Latter-day Saints and others condemn it as a perversion or a threat to the institution of marriage. I think we have forgotten our past and that again and again it has been shown to be the Lord’s model for marriage–when undertaken at His behest. We, as Latter-day Saints, are hypocrites if we in the same breath express our testimony of Jospeh Smith and our condemnation of polygamy.
No, I’m not about to pack my bags for Texas, and neither do I question or doubt at all the veracity or authority of Official Declaration-1. Our church’s position is that we no longer practice polygamy. It is not one of condemnation of the idea itself. OD-1 is simply an extension of the 12th Article of Faith. We believe in being subject to the laws of the land, and the laws of the land prohibit plural marriage. Plain and simple–that’s all it says. To my knowledge, there has been no retraction of the doctrine itself.
I have seen the Family proclamation cited as evidence against polygamy. “Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan.” I got news for ya, peeps; ain’t no quantities given. There is nothing in the language–either overt or in the syntax/grammar– of the Family Proclamation that dismisses polygamy. Polygamy is also marriage between man and woman. Each wife is sealed to her husband, one-to-one. Belief in marriage does not preclude belief in polygamy.
What about all the abuse? What about the unwilling child brides and the mistreated and cast-off wives? Um, frankly, that’s not polygamy; it’s child abuse and domestic violence. They are not intrinsic parts of plural marriage itself, and, therefore have no bearing on a discussion of the practice, particularly given that they occur in monogamous marriages as well. They are separate, but still disturbing issues, that the mis-practice of some has unfortunately yoked to polygamy in the minds of most people.
I should perhaps amend my first statement to read that I believe in healthy polygamy. Yes there can be such a thing. Assuming that it was both legal and reinstated by the Lord, it would first require a healthy first marriage–a marriage founded on love, honesty, respect, openness (good communication). Secondly, there would have to be the potential for a similarly healthy relationship with the second wife. Third, there would have to exist a healthy love and sisterhood between the sister-wives-to-be. I suppose I am also assuming that, by way of the health of the existing marriage(s), the husband would choose in harmony with his wife/wives any to come after.
Beyond that, you have, of course temporal concerns which can be worked out just as they are in any marriage. All families are juggling acts of needs and resources, regardless of how many wives are involved.
Should the laws of the land change, the Lord reveal through His prophet that the new and everlasting covenant is to be put into practice again, and my husband called to such I would meet it as an opportunity and a blessing and lovingly welcome another Mrs. Earhart.
I simply do not understand the level to which this doctrine bothers so many sisters. A loving, healthy household of sister-wives functioning together in life, each loving their husband and loving each other enough to share that husband, cooperating, supporting each other, sharing life’s joys and struggles as sisters should sounds like a fantastic, stable, and empowering way to live. Until an actual retraction, I will continue to view it so and to caution any faithful Latter-day Saint away from open condemnation of it.
(This was taken from a blog I googled. I was trying to find an article I read last year in a Philosophy class. I couldn't find it, but the author makes many of the same points.)