Since the goal of Traditional Gal Pals is to embrace the traditional female role in modern times, it is of utmost importance to discuss current events that effect women from time to time. So this week, I thought it would be interesting to touch on the topic of polygamy.
Seems as though polygamy is practically everywhere you turn these days from real life instances of child-brides forced into marriages with old men like the self-proclaimed fundalmentalist LDS church prophet, Warren Jeffs to shows like HBO’s Big Love series (now in going on its fifth season) to TLC’s most recent reality series, Sister Wives. Whether you agree with the polygamous life-style or not you are almost forced to think about it with all of these shows highlighting this different look at marriage.
Personally, I must admit that I have always found this topic to be fascinating. Perhaps my interest in the topic began while dating my high school sweetheart who happened to be a Mormon. While he was a part of the modern Mormon (LDS) church that did not practice polygamy, I found it to be curious that he belonged to a religious group that had practiced polygamy up until 1890.
Polygamy is nothing new. The practice goes back to biblical times when old-testament figures took on multiple wives. Even in this day and age, not including the religious sects in Utah that have since broken away from the modern Mormon church, there are many men & women living in other countries who chose to live this way. So the question is posed: What are the benefits of plural marriage (aside from the male ego) & could you ever envision yourself embracing life as a sister-wife? Let’s first clearly define the term sister-wife.
Sister-wife:
In a polygamous marriage, another wife of a woman's husband.
In other words, sharing your husband with another woman where she has equal wifely rights to everything including sex, financial matters, bearing children, etc… Now, for the majority of women, I think its safe to say that the answer would be a resounding “NO WAY”, but just for kicks, let’s consider the benefits of having a sister-wife (or wives).
The romanticized version of the sister-wife scenario paints a rosy picture. The modern day sister-wife is not forced as a child-bride into marriage, but rather, is a consenting adult who chooses to live this way. The wives are naturally best friends. They help one & other with the household duties & child rearing and confide in one & other. Some work outside of the home if that be their hearts desire while others chose to be stay-at-home mommies to the entire brood. They equally share the husband, switching off nights with him so that they all have equal one-on-one conjugal time. This way they always look forward to seeing their hubby after having a nice little break away from him for a few nights. How exciting! Talk about keeping things fresh. There’s also the additional security of knowing that if anything were to happen to you, your children would be cared for and raised by your sister-wives. So much love, so much friendship, so much peace of mind. What’s not to love about sister-wifedom? Sounds just like having sorority sisters for life, right?
Well, other than stating the obvious jealousies & nervous breakdowns that would inevitably erupt from such a love triangle (or square or octagon depending one how many wives are involved), polygamy is still illegal and therefore, you’d have to hide your “marriages” away from the public eye. And men, if you think one wife & a couple of kids is expensive, think about what kind of income it would take to feed, house and clothe two, three or four wives & children by the dozens, not to mention having to constantly juggle the needs and emotions of everyone all at once. Still sound appealing? Most of you are probably saying, pass me the Advil.
To get a more realistic idea of what plural marriage involves just check out the following video clips from TLC’s Sister Wives. Before viewing, for those of you who have not heard of the Brown Family, click on the below link for a little background information on the polygamous clan and their new reality show.
(The Brown Family)
(Video 1: Preparing for Robyn, wife #4)
(Video 2: The Kiss)
Needless to say, since the airing of the first show, Kody has gotten into a little trouble with the law. It will be interesting to see how this all pans out. Guess he didn't realize that putting his controversial life-style in front of the camera for all to see would lead to a full blown bigamy investigation. Oopsie-daisy!
So what do you think? Could you embrace the sister-wife life?
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