Essay on The Legal Challenges of Religious Polygamy in the USA

If you have never heard of polygamy you will and if you had in the past it was most likely due to the hit reality series “Sister Wives” about a polygamist family in the state of Utah. Polygamy is defined as the practice or condition of having more than one spouse at a time. Polygamy is nothing new and has been practice for hundreds of years but it is now seen as an immoral act, and a criminal act in a large majority of the of the world. Now even though polygamy is wide known in certain areas like Africa (South Africa, Kenya), Asia (middle east), etc. Still there are rules that they must abide by and it frowned on in an obese manner in areas like the United States, Australia, and China, because as a society we see it as an unjust act that can not be upheld by any justification but it is permitted in the bible. I support polygamy because I see no fault in the act of a family with multiple spouses.

Throughout her speech, Joseph speaks of, what she believes are, the positives of polygamy without realizing how non-feminist it is. She talks a lot about having a happy husband and children while still working, “My eight-year-old has never seen the inside of a day-care center, and my husband has

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

Although marriage is a societal value, there has been a sharp increase in the instances of alternative family relationships, a phenomenon the law has been relatively quick to respond to. BOCSAR figures show that from 1987 to 2007, the number of married couples developed from 63% to 62%, which in the same period the number of de facto relationships (both heterosexual and homosexual) grew from 6% to 9%. As such, a new movement sources desire for

For the past 3 decades the views surrounding marriage has undergone a great deal of change (Lennox, 2015, p. 1101). This shift is due to the continual discussion of gay marriage. The interplay of religion and politics has led for much controversy. In the United States, the use of Christian and Jewish biblical texts are the main sources drawn upon for opposition, but have also been used as a supportive means of equality. Beyond the religious there are also psychological and physical health arguments, as well as civil rights arguments. Same sex marriage is examined through different paradigms, thus giving rise to religious, political/legal, and religious arguments surrounding the legalization of this institution for gay and lesbian couples.

Deborah Evans Met Aaron Conway and his wife Barb Conway five years ago as part of the religious sect Canyon County Family Society that has existed for 25 years with 120 members, which is part of the Mormon Church which strongly believes in polygamist marriages. Ms. Evans moved in with the Conway’s two years ago, in which time Mr. Conway and Ms. Evans began dating even though he has been married to his wife Barb

Any prohibition against polygamous marriage today must likewise meet these stringent requirements of the FRFA, in addition to the earlier Sherbert and Yoder decisions. The compelling state interests that have been identified are (1) underage marriage, child abuse, and incest; (2) subjection of women; and (3) welfare fraud. Yet there are

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.

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

Children are currently a major part of polygamy. By far children suffer the most in polygamy and its extremely difficult for children to escape polygamy if they would like to. These communities feel losing one children they are losing all the people they would have as their offspring. Polygamy needs to remain illegal to prevent them from experiencing being neglected, abused and taught wrongful gender equality. Children who are raised in polygamy often do not have much say in what happens in their lives. Due to the various amount of wives the man in the polygamous relationship might have depends, on how many children that will be born. Children could have a lot of insecurities due to the fact some children might be subject to favouritism. With so many children it would be hard to make everyone feel special without

As we know, same-sex marriage has been discussed and argued for a long time. Within the controversial topic of gay rights, there’s no area more controversial than same-sex marriage. And all of us ask ourselves if same-sex marriage should be legal or not. But the fact is that we have to start thinking about it as a moral and religious topic. The government shouldn’t legalize the same-sex marriage because the

Polygamy is the practice of having more than one spouse and is culturally accepted in many parts of the world, but is illegal in the United States. There are two well known forms of polygamy, both of which are still presently practiced in numerous cultures globally, polygyny and polyandry. These practices take place in societies where it is important to have either more men or more women in a families’ household based on the kind of environment they reside in. This paper is going to take a look at who practices polygamy, the history of polygamy in the United States, and how this kind of polygamous lifestyle affects the children that are the products of these family structures.

Marriage has evolved over time. Once, far back in history, when states were run in close cooperation with religious leaders, a marriage was strictly the dominion of the church, and the only definition was much like the one above (though they were more lax in avoiding incest than I would suspect Schulman’s proposed structure would be). In the eyes, there had to be a system where sex would be legitimized, while women and children were protected from it and its consequences. This made sense when repeated sex acts would almost definitely cause pregnancy, and possibly spread disease. As religion and government split into different organizations, each retained a definition of marriage that was a bit different from the other. Since religion held sway over what was considered pure and good, it took it upon itself to retain the parts of the old structure that dealt with the morality and social responsibility of marriage, and this is generally considered to be a social structure of marriage. And now, the social form of marriage is migrating into being controlled by the couple who are being married instead of their church. The government, on the other hand, became able to define who would be able to marry and place official benefits and restrictions on a married couple, creating a legal structure of marriage that was not the same as the social one. While