Polygamy and the law

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I haven't had time to follow the Tom Green polygamy case, but I've been reading up on it just this morning. In college I wrote a long paper about polygamy and the First Amendment, and I've always been a little perplexed about the history of polygamy and the U.S. Constitution. The truth is I'm perplexed by all laws that regulate relationships between consenting adults, but particularly where those relationships are grounded in a supposedly protected constitutional right (i.e., the free exercise of religion), I have a hard time understanding what possible "compelling state interest" could override the individual's rights.

I'm not saying I'd want to live in a polygamous relationship, or that I don't think those relationships can be abusive. Any marriage can be abusive. I have no problem with punishing incest or child molestation, but if some people want to practice polygamy, it seems like they ought to be allowed to do so.

What's your take? Is this a situation where women need to be protected by the government even if they don't want to be protected? Is this about preserving the fundamental fabric of society? Or should we as a country mind our own business?

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Answers

Once again: another article on the subject. The history of polygamy, mormonism, and Utah's statehood is pretty fascinating, although it will make you cynical about politics and organized religion, if you aren't already.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001
Couple wild guesses here. Feel free to lambast the obvsiously-not-a- lawyer guy here.

Does the government lose out on any money in polygamous relationships? That could be a big motivation if everybody wanted to do it. However, I don't think there are enough people interested in it to take that big a bite out of the government's taxes. Or maybe welfare applies to all of a man's spouses et al., and it would be too obviously easy a way for a guy to get some kind of support for a dozen women by marrying them all?

Maybe they're meddling out of concern for the children, the same way they do with Christian Scientists who refuse medical care for their kids?

Then again, maybe they're all just jealous because they know their wives would divorce them and take them to the cleaners if they said they wanted a second wife... say, in her early 20's...

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

I actually wrote about this at my site the other day. I'm in the process of getting married and was dealing with the marriage license stuff and got to thinking about gay marriage. What I wrote is here , but the gist of it is: there's nothing special about the number 2 and since marriage is just a legal contract to the state, consenting adults should be able to enter whatever legal contract they want.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001
A polygamy conviction seems stranger to me than an adultery conviction. One couldn't be penalized for having several live-in girlfriends and their children in one's home. So what's the offense exactly? In adultery at least you can argue some sort of violation fo the offended spouse's quasi-property right (alienation of affection), but in polygamy you're basically convicting someone for getting extra marriage licenses. Odd crime.

Colin, I suppose in theory we could envy people with two or more wives, but with two little ones underfoot at home, I'm more prone to envy the bachelors.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Oops -- sorry about that bad link. *sigh* S'what I get for typing too fast.

Anyway, one more thought: my position is that if the government were to create default marriage licenses for N>2 people, they should be completely equitable in the case of benefits, etc. It shoudn't be that a guy gets to have 5 wives, but that those 6 people are all married to each other.

I guess that's not what the folks in Utah are doing, though. Hrrmmm..

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Well, not having done any actual academic research into the issue, I suspect that the core of the issue is financial. The government subsidizes benefits that are paid to spouses (Social Security, for one) and would conceivably lose money if they had to pay out to multiple spouses.

That theory aside, I personally believe that any legislation of what constitutes a "legitimate marriage" contract (disallowing same-sex marriage and polygamy being the primary issues here) probably is unconstitutional, despite the fact that every ruling to date has come down the other way. (Reading up on the issues to figure out why that's the case is on my list of "things to do one day".)

I am interested to see how all of this will shake out in the coming months, but I'm afraid that the polygamy issue is simply the bullet the government is using; the public opinion is swayed a great deal by the fact that the girls were a) awfully young and b) in some cases, his step-daughters (Deb Eaton, anyone?). The only way to get the issue of polygamy fairly tried would be for an upper-class white guy with an Ivy-league education to be the husband in question. When Biff wants to marry Buffy and he's already married to Muffy, then perhaps the issue will get a fair trial. Until then, I believe that it won't.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Nope. Definitely not unconstitutional. Has been challenged in the Supreme Court, and lost.

Incidentally, a prohibition against polygamy is part of the Utah State Constitution, and has been since Utah became a state. It was one of the requirements before the feds would grant statehood.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

I think it's a mind-your-own-business thing. If that's how you want to be married, fine by me. I think it's rather sad that there's these stupid laws preventing anyone who doesn't conform to the norm from committing in that manner if they want to. However, I don't think polygamy, polyandry, or any other form of marriage between 3 or more people is ever going to be allowed in this country, given the Christian ethic going on with the vast majority of people in power.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001
Beth, any idea why it was ruled to be constitutional? I knew about the Supreme Court decision, but I've never had the chance to look into why. It seems so counter-intuitive to me.

Not the first time I've completely disagreed with a Supreme Court ruling, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

It's been a long time since I wrote that paper, but I believe the basic idea was that protecting the institution of marriage was a compelling state interest that justified overriding privately held religious beliefs. Any law students out there who can help me out on this? It's a standard con law case.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001
Okay, so curiosity won out over doing actual work. The justification, in essence, appears to be that they are not legislating religious belief, only religious practice, and they did so on the basis of the 'slippery slope' argument. Polygamy leads to human sacrifice leads to anarchy. Some of the more readable links:
What I find interesting, and confounding, about this case is that they are having to prosecute him technically on the basis of common law marriage (or something like that), because he actually did divorce each wife and then marry the next one as he went along.

I wouldn't have a problem with polygamous marriages, as long as various kinds of multiple-partner relationships would be allowed. That is, it shouldn't only be men that get to have multiple wives. The problem of having too many children to support is probably exacerbated by polygamy, but I have problems with having more children than you can support regardless of the marriage circumstances.

As far as protection from abuse goes, we do have laws that are intended to protect young people from being taken advantage of by older people, spouses from being abused, etc. I'm not convinced, even by the arguments of women who have been in these marriages and are now critical of them, that polygamy poses any greater risk of these or other abuses than any other kind of relationship.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

Utah isn't the only place where this is an issue. France is now prosecuting polygamous African immigrants.

'I can't say to a wife of 20 years she has to go'

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

I was thinking about this topic this morning. I really don't understand what business it is of anyone what consenting (*key*) adults do. I guess I would see it as a First Amendment issue. If the "group/family/whatever" is hurting no one by their union, let 'em be already.

Basically falls right along my view of why I think gay marriage should be legal.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

The only argument that I can think of for limiting the number of wives/husbands people can have is that there would be some fraud potential in family based health care plans.

And even that could be fixed with different actuarial tables and new types of insurance plans.

Personally though. Sheesh, I wouldn't have the skills to handle more than one spouse. Complex social dynamics.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

I wish I could remember who first posted this argument to Usenet:

You can't be compelled to testify against your spouse in a court of law. There are also some tax benefits (I don't know the details) regarding transferring money to your spouse that are hard to get any other way. Therefore, if polygamous marriages were legalized, it would give a whole new dimension to the term "Mafia families".

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

A friend of mine (non-Mormon) who went to grad school in Utah said that there was a lot of "blind-eye" polygamy even in Salt Lake City, not just out in the boonies by people who have been kicked out of the Mormon church.

One of the financial issues the local governments faced was dealt with by saying that the local school district only provided books and stuff for the first six (I'm not sure of the exact number, but it was fairly large) children in one family. After that, the family had to pay a per-child subsidy. With some families that had 12 and more small kids, I guess the school districts had to do something, or the taxes would have been unbelievable.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2001

But that wouldnt necessarily have to be as a result of polygamous family arrangements (although that might increase the burden regarding children approximately the same age) - large familys are what happen when you have a concentration of people who don't practice birth control. 12 children families can be found in traditional Catholic communities as well.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2001
Just a nickpicky point. You can't be compelled to testify against things that your spouce secrety tells you in court, you can be forced to testify about other things.

So, for instance, you see your spouse kill someone you can be forced to testify about that.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2001

LyndaB --

From what my friend said, in some communities there are enough families sending 20 or more kids into the school system, that they made such local laws out of self defense. I'm only going on heresay, of course.

But a single-mom family with 12 kids doesn't have them all in school at the same time, usually -- they're spread out farther than that. In this case, the large numbers are all in school at the same time.

OTOH, first wife gets to be "head" wife, so since I would be first wife, I might get used to the idea of telling subsequent wives whose turn it is to do the dishes, to do the laundry, to scrub the toilets.

Where DID I put my white gloves?

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2001

Personally, I don't polygamy per se offensive. Almost unworkable for the majority of humans, especially myself, though.

However, when it is coupled with child abuse (getting a 13 year old pregnant?!), fraud (welfare benefits), etc. I think the government should step in for THOSE offenses.

I've read the personal stories at Tapestry of Polygamy, and I would say that the polygamous splinter groups in Utah are just about as far away as you could get from the egalitarian and highly communicative ideal among the polyamorous community

-- Anonymous, May 20, 2001

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