A Word on Polygamy

So maybe the world at large is not housebound taking in every minute of the Warren Jeffs trial (whose Texas crimes include the rape of a 12-year-old girl and group sex sessions in which he instructed his wives they must "work together" to please him sexually), but hopefully people are starting to notice the absolute misogyny many women are forced to put up with...a plural marriage (whether it's with little girls or grown women) blatantly forces females into the role of sexual playthings, incubators for children and little else.

Now, multiple marriages were a necessary function in early human history.  It's a fact that any one healthy woman can only have one pregnancy at a time while any one healthy man can sire as many children as his penis can handle without falling off from sheer exhaustion.  When the number one priority is the survival of the human race, emotional sacrifices must be made.

In fact, I think Europe in the Middle Ages would have been well-served to promote plural marriage for all its Christian residents.  Lord knows it would have relieved some of the burden of the women who, in the words of author Phillippa Gregory, "walk the hard road between kitchen, church and childbed."  There's nothing like not having to sire 15 children in as many years because you've got "sister wives" to help you out.

That being said, I can't imagine the reasons for polygamy today.  Human existence, barring any natural or unnatural disaster, is not nearly the crapshoot it once was.  We can set aside our obsession with survival and focus on other things...like making a genuine connection with another person that not only survives, but flourishes in, the 50 or so years of a marriage.

Speaking frankly, this means a person doesn't have to find a mate using the distinctly non-diplomatic checklist evolution provides us.  Women who don't have the perfect child-bearing bodies (cough...Hollywood starlets) and men who have amazing personalities but slightly asymmetrical features are just as worthy of partnership now as those natural selection would have chosen on our behalf eons ago.

But one man having more than one wife at a time in the present day is a startling perversion of a once necessary tradition.  Men who support and practice polygamy today are selfish, amoral and abhorrent if not completely brainwashed (as are the willing women who marry them).

In conclusion, I'd like to take a moment and mention how absolutely IDIOTIC it is for a family getting paid to be on a reality television show to sue a state over a privacy issue.  TLC's Sister Wives chronicles a Utah man and his four wives (one legal and three "spiritual") and their brood of children.  And they just want everyone to leave them alone.  Hang on while I play my tiny violin.

God, how I'd like to go over his taxes.  I bet he's fudging something.

Anyway, I draw parallels between agreeing to a reality show and going to prison...in doing so, you keep your basic rights but give up some others.  Like the right to privacy and the right not to be made fun of on a late-night talk show.  Or on a blog.