Essay 4, polygamy, is Big Love BS?

Channel flipping and I stumbled across this show, I am sure many of you have heard of it before, Sister Wives. Where do I start? I am a sucker for reality tv, let me disclose that bit of information first. There is something almost taboo about seeing the intimate workings of others lives, it is the same misperception of intimacy that we get from social networking sites. The premise of this show of following a family that is practicing polygamy. At first I was creeped out by the concept of it all to be honest. What kind of sleaze ball man would be traipsing around like a dog with all of these women catering to his every whim? And what sort of low self esteem would cause a woman to believe that this is somehow ok? Then I really watched this show, these were not ignorant of brow beaten women. This relationship was working for all of them. Each woman felt empowered and equal, the children were happy and smart and well cared for. This left me with one question, do we criminalize polygamy because it makes us uncomfortable? Does it boil down to our lack of tolerance for things that are different from us?

I am thinking that for essay 4 I want to explore the culture of polygamy, starting with the religious history of the practice and the legal history leading up to it being criminalized. The most well known aspect of polygamy is the history in the Mormon church and the battle to maintain legality in Utah prior to gaining statehood, the truth is though that there are other religions and cultures that practice polygamy and it was the cultural norm for thousands of years. I haven’t started much research so I don’t know how much has been written about the topic, however with all of the madness a few years ago with YFZ compound I feel like this is a relevant topic for many people even if it isn’t something that most of us think about often. Besides, I really like to write about potentially explosive ideas and take the less popular side of the argument.