Amor Grande or There’s Something About Marriage
HBO’s latest sensation is a series called Big Love. It’s all about polygamy and it was created by gay couple. Creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer wanted to create an unbiased look at polygamy. Technically they are exploring a subset of polygamy called polgyny, the marriage of one man and multiple women the most common form of “plural marriage” in the United States thanks to offshoot sects of our friends at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, informally known as The Mormons.
I became interested in the history of this unique group with the publication of Jon Krakauer’s “Under the Banner of Heaven”. A fascinating book it presents some of the more recent cases of violence in the breakaway Mormon sects (most famously the Fundamental Latter Day Saints or FLDS) and contrasts them with the history of Mormonism in general. It’s a pretty good read. Pick it up if you come across it.
Now, the show actually presents two views of polygyny. We first encounter Bill Henrickson and his wives: Barb, Nicki and Margene. They live in three adjacent houses with a common backyard. This is the voluntary polygyny family. Bill, one of the lost boys thrown out of the compound he called home to reduce competition for wives has developed his relationships with his wives naturally (or as naturally as possible in this situation). Even though the family is strictly patriarchal and Bill is unquestionably the king of his castle, he and his wives are in the situation entirely by consent. (The children are a different matter.) Bill and his family have chosen to live in the mainstream rather than remain on the sect’s compound. It must mirror the difficulties that polygamists have when trying to blend in with society at large.
The other view of polygyny is shown in via the Juniper Creek compound. Here the Mormon sect has separated itself from the rest of the world. It is obviously inspired by the FLDS sect at Colorado City/Hildale. Here marriage is not the product of a developing relationship. Women are assigned to their husbands by the compound’s prophet. (The prophet is an office established by Joseph Smith when he founded the LDS and is believed to be appointed by God.) Though there are similarities to arranged marriages, they are less stable. If the prophet is displeased with a man’s behavior, he could be expelled and his wives could be reassigned to others. Women are very much property and not considered an equal.
We have Bill’s relationships, the good polygamy, and the compound marriages, the bad polygamy. While Bill’s marriages are far from idyllic, I think they show that the one man and one woman dynamic isn’t necessarily the only way we need to go. As long as all parties involved are consenting and of age, there is no real reason to discourage these types of relationships by making them illegal. Of course, all types of polygamy must be legal and any number of men could marry any number of women. Or any number of men could marry any number of other men. Or any number of women could marry any number of other women. It’s certainly not up to government to regulate happiness or attempt to make all relationships conform to a cookie cutter norm. And it’s not a duty of government to deny responsibilities and benefits to a minority. Our constitution is engineered to protect these people. Otherwise we simply become a tyranny of the majority.