Mutliple Wives

Polygamy is not a horrible institution as long as all parties are willing participants.  As a Mormon, we too are faced with this issue often.  We believe polygamy to be morally okay, if practiced right.  However, we are prohibited to practice it due to events in the late 19th century here in Utah.  Some excommunicated sects of the church still practice this, but they practice a perverted version forcing child brides and marriages to men much older.  We also have a problem with them casting out their teenage sons so there is no competition for the women.  This is where Polygamy becomes wrong, when men forget why there is a need for it and they use it for their own sick purposes. 

If practiced right, the first wife should be okay with the husband taking a second wife.  The second wife would understand she is equal to the first wife by law and the husband should treat them as such.  Neither wife should be subservient to the other.  And neither should be made to feel less. 

My husband and I have joked often about the issue, since I haven't always been a member and non mormons love to make jokes about the practice of Polygamy.  I cannot have children.  After all our trials, adoption will be the only answer.  But an adoption can cost between 10-40,000 USD.  In a Polygamist society, this would not be an issue.  He could marry a second wife and have his children through her.  Unfortunately, that will not be the case. 

Of course, with multiple wives, you always worry about the Sarah/Hagar fight when one is blessed and the other is not.  I mean, that's what led all of us to be divided nations instead of one brotherhood. 

One last comment, in 2002 or 2003, I read an article in Newsweek about a man who was from Africa.  He was a Muslim and had received refugee status with the US for him and his family.  There was a catch, though all were given status, he had two wives.  He was told, before they could get to the US, he had to divorce one of his two wives.  His first wife had given him 3 sons, all still very young.  His second wife, whom he had only married within the last year, was pregnant with their first child.  Which wife was he to choose?  He went with his first wife only because she had 3 children and she was his greater responsibility.  He loved his second wife and did not want to have to do it, but he must.  So, this poor woman had to come to a foreign country with no one to care for her and her unborn child.  I found this article heartbreaking and it brought up many issues concerning legal polygamy in other countries and the illegality of it here in the United States.  (Strange that Gay Marriage gets so much support, but a loving family must be broke up for the "moral" betterment of the nation.)

Angela