Polygamist Marriages Internal Memorandum Essay

In “Mormon Masculinity Changing Gender Expectations in the Era of Transition from Polygamy to Monogamy, 1890–1920,” Amy Hoyt and Sara M. Patterson argue that during the era of transition from polygamy to monogamy, there was a perceived crisis in the lives of Mormon boys. These events together resulted in a change in the notion of masculinity in the LDS church. Their thesis was “..during the period from 1890 to 1920, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) perceived a crisis in the lives of their boys. That sense of crisis lay at the surface of an even deeper cultural upheaval taking place within Mormondom....With the transition from polygamy to monogamy, church members had to construct a new model for understanding marriage, family and sexuality...they were also forced to reconstruct their notions of masculinity (Hoyt and Patterson 72-73).”

Marriage is a social institution that is practiced globally. Traditionally marriages are known to occur between one man and one woman. However, cultural values and time have reshaped and birthed new types of marriages. Polygamy is a type of marriage that is often practiced around the world specifically in Asia, Middle East, and Africa. Polyamorous marriages have been in existence for centuries. Polygamy is classified into two categories, polygyny, and polyandry. Polygyny is the most popular type of polygamy, in this type of polygamous marriage, a man is married to multiple women. On the other hand, polyandry which is the least familiar type of polygamy is where a woman is married to multiple husbands. The intolerance of Mormons in the United States has led to the outlawing of polyamorous marriages. The Morrill Anti Bigamy law of 1862 outlawed the practice of polygamy in the United States. Like many other laws, this law can be overturned. In fact, it should be reversed because illegalizing polygamy is unethical. Polygamy should be legalized because it is unconstitutional for it to be illegal, same-sex marriages and interracial marriages are legal, therefore so should polyamorous marriages. In addition, legalizing polygamy would prevent immigrant families who practice polygamy from being separated and it would also strengthen the feminist movement.

Most would equate their struggle and first for equality to gay marriage. This is mostly due to so much acceptance of those individuals that do not fit the mold of the typical monogamous man and women marriage. We are far from a city that is accepting of this union or are we? Recently families who practice polygamy have been in the public increasingly. Modern day television series such as the Sister Wives follows a family in a polygamous union who documents their day to day life and the struggle that we mentioned in the previous paragraph. This family lives their life in peace which reverts back to my stance on the issue in which the laws that currently exist around polygamy unions are good as they are. Reporter Amy Robek of the 20/20 news show reported on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Ladder Day Saints Polygamy Compound in a documentary titled “Secrets of the Mormon Cult: Breaking Polygamy”. This documentary was filmed after the prosecution of the cult leader of the FLDS compound Warren Jeff’s. They got a rare inside look on what life is like within compounds, shedding light to outsiders the daily operations and schedules the sheltered people. What they discovered was these families are hold a lower standard of education, health care, and nutritional values. From

Mrs. Clark, an ordained minister in the Real Life Church of God, and Mr. Clark, an ardent believer, entered into a relationship that they both believed to be a marriage, in 1980. The marriage, according to the custom of the Church, was conducted by traveling to a mountain top and proclaiming that they

The Defendant, Hale Hallow, is petitioning the court to declare Utah’s state law criminalizing polygamy unconstitutional. Hale Hallow is a faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS, or Mormons) and has relations with multiple different women. He believes that he has a constitutional right to enter into a marriage with more than one of these women. However, Mr. Hallow is being denied such right due to Utah state law. After Utah’s state court of appeals ruled that the law will be upheld, Mr. Hallow appealed to the United States Supreme Court, arguing that his First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution were being violated. The Constitutional issues at hand are whether or not polygamy is a constitutional

Early in the Civil War, some Northerners equated polygamy with slavery and supported the passage of the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act in 1862, not to be confused with the Morrill Act of the same year that created land-grant colleges. This anti-bigamy measure was aimed directly at the Mormons in Utah and outlawed bigamy in the territories. With the war well under way and Utah far from a federal authority, the law was almost

The United States was thanking the success of America on the pillar that Christianity was a fundamental part of America’s history. The Supreme Court used this as a reason to end polygamy, what is interesting is that the Supreme Court wanted to use this belief in order to strike down the polygamist bid for property. The loss of property would have also effected the Utah’s land as well, by eliminating land that belonged to the Church of the Latter Day Saints, the courts would drastically change the

The institution of marriage in Canada has evolved significantly over the years in Canada. Being a very old institution, older than the actual country of Canada, the definition cited in the context of a Canadian courtroom is one that stems from England. In 1866 Lord Penzance articulated that “marriage… may… be defined as the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others”, a definition that is unapologetically Christian (Bala, 2009). By 2005, Canada has altered its legal view of marriage to reflect it instead as an acceptance of same-sex marriage. With this progression, naturally, there came a small cry from a minority population of polygamists using this groundbreaking alteration of one of the oldest interpretations

The Supreme Court took on the Late Corporation of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints v. United States in 1890. The case was to decide if the United States had the right to seize donated property from the Late Corporation of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints. The case was a six to three decision, led by Joseph Bradley, to take the Mormon Church’s donated property. The Supreme Court did not want the lands owned by the Late Corporation of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints allow the church to spread polygamy, now that polygamy was illegal. The dissent of the case was on the ground that the church had a right to property; it did not argue that the church had a right to religion. The dissent argued that the United States did not have the right

Mill explains that personally he has an aversion to the Mormon practice of polygamy, since he thinks women could be forced into situations they did not want due to the patriarchal nature of the marriages. However, he acknowledges that for the most part the marriages of the women to men are mostly voluntary; therefore they are not being harmed under his harm principle, (Mill 90). Mill ultimately decides that as long as there is no harm being done to members of the Mormon community or others, then polygamy is protected under the harm principle and no one should interfere with their practices. In addition, he eludes to polygamy an experiment in living; therefore the Mormons should be allowed to practice their polygamy without hindrances from the government or other people.

Mark Henkal is the self-described National Polygamy Advocate. In his speech “The Emperor is Wearing No Clothes,” he argues the case of why Christian polygamy should be accepted. He uses four main points to get his opinion across: grace-law hypocrisy, polygamists in the Bible, the meaning of adultery and one flesh, and prohibitions of leaders in the Bible. An individual with little to no Biblical knowledge might find that his argument makes sense. Just listening to the speech, without any critical thinking involved, might even persuade those with slightly more Biblical knowledge. Although outwardly he may seem to make solid arguments, there is much more to the polygamy argument than he brought forth.

Polygamy is illegal under section 293 of the Criminal Code. I believe that the laws should not be amended and polygamy should continue to be illegal.

Latter-day Saints believe that the marriage of one man and one woman is the Lord’s standing law of marriage. In biblical times, the Lord commanded some to practice plural marriage—the marriage of one man and more than one woman.1 By revelation, the Lord commanded Joseph Smith to institute the practice of plural marriage among Church members in the early 1840s. For more than half a century, plural marriage was practiced by some Latter-day Saints under the direction of the Church President.2

The proposed legalization of same-sex marriage is one of the most significant issues in contemporary American family law. As a heavily campaigned development currently discussed in law assessment; these extremely confrontational and debatable political questions are facing present day American courts. If same-sex marriage is legalized, its affect on the parents, children, same sex couples, families, and the social and political world will be astronomical. The arguments surrounding the issue though confrontational nonetheless are easily seen from a wide array of perspectives. One of the perspectives states that marriage is a promise to a spouse to stay loyal and faithful in all

They are looking into changing the law so it doesn’t affect children from age 12-17 who marry into polygamy. (Canada Polygamy laws upheld, 2011) Recent news has come out that 12 and 13 year old girls were moved from Canada to the US to marry widely known polygamous, Warren Jeffs who now is in jail named. Currently, Jeffs is facing allegation he married the 3 girls through 2004 and 2005 while he was at the age of 48. (Keller, 2011) Consequently, women are highly affected by polygamy due to its tradition of marrying young, abusive relationships and deep jealousy.