To be a polygamist is to be a probable cause? (3rd)

 Both of my blogs have covered the controversial topic of polygamy. The first blog enclosed information about the various kinds of plural marriage.  The main purpose was to touch upon the way polygamists are found and brought up against the law. In most cases, child abuse and fraud are what brings the fact of polygamy to the courts, not just the polygamy. Also, there is so much polygamy in states such as Utah that they can’t afford to waste money on sending officers to investigate for just polygamy.  I used this information to stand for polygamists to be prosecuted for breaking the law, instead of it being a surprise add on to the other significant charges.

In the second blog I asked if polygamy should be illegal or legal? I supported it to be legal because the law should not say who a person can or can’t love.  With the way the economy is, it makes it sense for families to come together. I talked about how it is shunned by society because it usually involves one person with multiple spouses, but that is a choice. If a person wants to be that way then it should not be scrutinized. It also came up that polygamy goes hand in hand with some religions and that would be violating the 1^st amendment.  This adds another strong stand for why polygamy should be legal.

Polygamy is being covered by entertainment more frequently here lately, but it has always been standing in the back of the room with its trunk up in the air. The big elephant has become more apparent and should be faced with a stronger force of law or be abolished as a law completely.  

Polygamy: Illegal Or Legal?



 From Wikimedia Commons



In my last blog I discussed polygamy and how most of the time people use it as a probable cause to investigate fraud or child abuse, not just the polygamy itself. This time I would like to talk more on the bigger question, should polygamy be illegal or legal? If people don’t investigate just it, then why even bother with it being a law?

I have always cringed at the word ‘polygamy’, but when I confronted why I didn’t want anything to do about it; I realized that it is just society telling me, “No, that’s bad! Why? Well…just because.” I do not want to be a polygamist and that is my choice but it may not be the next person’s, so why should the law force it from everyone? I believe most people in our society have problems with polygamy because it is hard to understand why a person would want to marry a spouse having other spouses that they know about and live with comfortably. Janja Lalich explains that people who marry into polygamy might have been, “…at a transition point in their lives, when perhaps they were not completely connected or totally fulfilled with what was going on at the time, and if there is any common thread or traits, it is idealism, curiosity, and urge to create a better world, and wanting a sense of meaning and purpose”.

 I realize that polygamy has a bad reputation, especially with examples like what happened in Eldorado, Texas at the Yearning for Zion Ranch: old men marrying little girls, sex-trafficking, and having multiple kids to get government/ public assistance. The problem with this is that you cannot say that that goes for all plural marriages, just like if you made the connection to abusive partners in marriages to all marriages needing to be abolished by the law because abuse might happen in them. Stanley Roberts points out that when it comes to polygamy, “The first thing that must be made into law governing these types of marriages is that their will be no form of public assistance unless all members of the household, meaning husband and wives are gainfully employed”, and I agree with him on this but not only pertaining to plural marriages.  People, regardless of the type of marriage, should not have kids in abundance in order to get help from the government.  If polygamists are shunned from marrying, then why isn’t a monogamous married person  who has extramarital affairs prosecuted? Why isn’t their marriage license revoked or not recognized?

Polygamy should be legal to those who honestly love more than one person, not just because it is a tradition that a person is forced into. My question is should polygamy be legal? Also, do you think that polygamy has sprouted up even more due to our economic crisis?

To be a polygamist is to be a probable cause?

Polygamist wives from flickrCC

Being married to more than one person at a time usually makes people turn their heads in disgust. A 2009 poll on USNEWS. Com revealed that 91% Americans think that polygamy is wrong. There are two types of titles for multiple marriages, polygamy and bigamy. Specifics even go further with a male polygamist being a polygyny, a woman polygamist is polyandry, and when both the man and woman in the marriage are polygamists, they are group marriages. Polygamy is illegal in all states of the U.S., but, as with any law, it is often broken. The hotspot for polygamy conduct is in the state of Utah. Utah had to give up the practice of polygamy over a century ago. It might make a person feel better to be told that there are investigations to pinpoint down polygamists. The down side of this statement is that that is not always true because it would cost too much money and be putting officers out of the job of fighting serious crimes.

The Brown family was being scrutinized for possibly breaking the law. It seems that they doomed themselves when publically coming out to talk about their lives on TLC’s “Sister Wives”. Brown and his family said that the reason to do the show was to make their definition of family known to people; they want people to see how normal their abnormal family is.

Utah says on The News Tribune that bigamy/polygamy is rarely investigated and in circumstances where it is, it is because of, “cases involving allegations of abuse, sexual assault and fraud, not bigamy”. Since bigamy is a crime just like the others in that list, then why is it overlooked? Tom Green was the last person Utah did arrest for a polygamy charge, which was in 2001. Just like Mr. Brown, Mr. Green talked about his lifestyle to national media. This does not seem fair, since other polygamists who live in silence are not even examined. Instead of this crime being investigated in Utah for the fraud or abuse icing on top, bigamy/polygamy, investigations need to be more abundant and for the sole purpose cracking down on polygamy felonies.