polygyny

Prof. Campbell is one of the few outsiders — and a secular, inquisitive, intellectual one at that — to have a well-informed opinion of the place, based on first-hand observation and experience. She has enjoyed direct, almost unfettered access to the women of Bountiful.
…
Preconceptions she had before her trip to Bountiful were shattered.

The results of her work and the opinions she has formed are controversial. Reaction ranges from mild shock to anger. “I’ve received some hateful emails,” says Prof. Campbell, a Harvard law school graduate who is married (to one man) with children.

Bountiful’s critics, feminists especially, have trouble accepting that women there are not brainwashed, subjugated automatons “in need of deliverance,” which is how the media often portray them, Prof. Campbell says.

In fact, the Bountiful women whom she has interviewed are clear thinking, resourceful and in some cases well educated. Not to be underestimated. They “cast Bountiful as a heterogeneous and dynamic social and political space,” Prof. Campbell wrote in, “Bountiful Voices” an academic paper written earlier this year, “where at least some women are able to wield considerable authority in their marriages, families and community. Their stories thus seem inconsistent, at least to some degree, with pre-existing presumptions about polygamy and its harms for women set forth in conventional public discourse.”

Source/Full Story: Bountiful misconceptions
Technorati Tags: polygyny

This would be bigamy, which is “the crime of being simultaneously twice married: the crime of marrying somebody while being legally married to somebody else.”

Martha Fleming tied the knot with a Detroit man in January.

Unfortunately, St. Clair Shores police said, her new husband didn’t know that Fleming was already married — for nearly 13 years — and he didn’t expect her to run off with a $9,000 inheritance check from his dead uncle.

"She splits with the money and leaves him high and dry," St. Clair Shores police Detective Margaret Eidt said Friday shortly before Fleming was arraigned on a polygamy charge, a four-year felony.

Fleming, 43, was ordered held in the Macomb County Jail on a $15,000 cash surety bond during arraignment in 40th District Court in St. Clair Shores. She is to wear a tether if she posts bond and is released from jail.

Eidt said Fleming married her second husband Jan. 30 at Christ Gospel Tabernacle Church, 30500 Harper, in St. Clair Shores. But she had been married to a man in Bay City since 1996.

Sometime shortly after her second marriage, she took the inheritance check from her second husband, cashed it in Harper Woods and took off, Eidt said.

The detective said a civil attorney representing the second husband discovered Fleming was already married. Eidt said Harper Woods police are investigating the theft of the inheritance check.

Eidt said she has been looking for Fleming since May, when an arrest warrant was authorized on the polygamy charge.

Fleming, who also goes by the last names of Smith, Nellett and Chatfield, was arrested about 3 a.m. Friday in Bay City, the detective said.

Source/Full Story: Freep.com

Source:   arkansasonline.com

A judge is expected to hear testimony Monday from child welfare officials who say Tony Alamo Christian Ministries punishes children with beatings and from parents who say the allegations are just part of an attempt to destroy their church.

After the hearing on the future of the children taken from the ministry is complete, Miller County Circuit Judge Joe Griffin will determine whether 23 children removed from the ministry in November and December are the victims of abuse or neglect. Griffin will decide whether they should remain in foster care, go to live with relatives outside the ministry or be allowed to return to their parents, possibly with conditions.

Technorati Tags: Tony Alamo

In response to the quoted sentence in bold below I say…

…indeed, it has been said to me numerous times over the years (once that it has been agreed upon that polygyny is in fact a perfectly legitimate biblical form of marriage) that “Well, it’s just not for me, and no woman in her right mind would want it.”

The assumption of those who say this of course is that they themselves are in their right mind and any woman who is unlike them on the issue, who would seek out and engage themselves in a plural marriage, must be mentally unstable, brainwashed, or existing in some state of extreme desperation.  Interestingly enough, this usually has been preceeded with another statement, which goes something like “It would be easier to accept your position on polygyny if more people (ie. the majority) agreed with you.”  Just who is brainwashed, and by whom I wonder?

Nautrally, I would disagree with this assessment, although I do readily admit that finding a lady possessing the qualities of a good, God fearing wife (especially amongst the christian community!) is akin to finding the proverbial needle in the haystack.  But contrary to the assumption that a polygymous wife must be flawed in some manner I would say that she is a precious jewel indeed.  The diamond, being ever so rare, so different from all the rest, is valued all the more, is it not?

Source: canada.com

But there must be consent, and this is where things get tricky. A lot of people seem to assume that these young, healthy women in a polygamous relationship have been brainwashed by those with religious authority over them. They believe no self-respecting sister would subject herself to this kind of arrangement of her own free will. Ergo, this must be stopped.

Well, I’ve seen high Anglicans genuflecting, Quakers quaking and holy rollers rolling in their places of worship, and it has occurred to me that something has happened to their brains. But when they emerge, shriven or whatever, they seem perfectly normal again.

It’s the same with people of other faiths I’ve seen on TV, lacerating their bodies, beheading live chickens and crawling with their faces in the mud. I presume they have families to look after and jobs to go to.

What the Bountiful women have done, though, is more permanent. They’ve hitched themselves, like sled dogs, to one man so that he can “raise up seed” and qualify to get to the celestial kingdom.

If they, and their man, really believe this is their religious duty, what right has any non-believer to stop them from performing it? And how can anyone presume to tell where religious instruction ends and brainwashing begins?

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Technorati Tags: polygamy, polygyny

I’m thinking of hosting a debate where similar questions are raised concerning attorneys, because we all know what they are like, don’t we…

Source: Salt Lake Tribune

Should the state prosecute polygamous parents and remove their children from their homes?
That question will be vetted by Marci A. Hamilton and Kirk Torgensen on Wednesday during the 25th annual Jefferson B. Fordham debate at the University of Utah College of Law. The debate is at 6 p.m. in the Sutherland Moot Courtroom.

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Faced with an uncooperative witness, Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith has asked that two of 10 charges against Warren Steed Jeffs be dismissed.

Smith said he received a letter from the attorney of alleged victim Candi Shapley saying she would not take the stand against the 52-year-old polygamist sect leader.

Smith told the Associated Press Monday that Shapley “does not want to have to deal with all the family and community pressures to be involved in this case. And that’s her decision, and I’m going to respect it and have always respected it.”

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Warren Jeffs, polygamy, flds

The following excerpts from worldontheweb.com, along with the corresponding comments, are yet another example of idiotic pseudo-christians condemning biblical plural marriage, without having the least bit of actual scriptural knowledge. I am very glad that I stopped trying to reason with such people years ago..these people hear and see what they wish to hear and see, and nothing more.

Some Christians are sloughing off the Bible’s “one wife” injunction and practicing polygamy. Thanks to the Internet, their search for superfluous spouses is getting easier.Mark Henkel, founder of Truthbearer.org, estimates that 50,000 Christians have become polygamists since the movement (unconnected to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) began around 12 years ago.

christian polygamy, plural marriage, polygyny

From http://www.azfamily.com/news/local/stories/KTVKLNews20080219_polygamy_divorce.bc42bd3.html

 PHOENIX – Anybody who’s been through a divorce knows child custody battles can be brutal.But what happens when those battles are fought against the backdrop of polygamy?Mike Watkiss shares the story of a woman who ran away from polygamy and is fighting to protect her children from what she calls a cycle of abuse.In the minds of a lot of people, with the conviction of Warren Jeffs, the polygamy story came to an end.Far from it.