Marriage, divorce proceedings and other family law matters are governed by state law. All U.S. jurisdictions prohibit polygamy by invalidating marriages with more than two spouses. State laws against bigamy — marrying someone while they are still legally married to another person — are usually grounds for annulment. “Polygamy” refers to the practice of having more than one spouse. The terms come from the Latin roots polys – meaning “many” – and gamos – meaning “marriage”. The term broadly encompasses the concept of a woman marrying more than one husband (polyandry) or a man marrying more than one wife (polygyny). Authors such as Alyssa Rower and Samantha Slark argue that there is a reason to legalize polygamy on the basis of regulation and oversight of the practice, legally protect polygamous partners and allow them to join the dominant society rather than forcing them to hide from it when a public situation arises. [16] [17] Utah criminalized the practice of polygamy in 1935 after The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints publicly rejected it in 1890, 1904, and 1910. Many convictions followed.
Since the 1960s, prosecutions for polygamy have been rare. Prosecutors included Robert D. Foster, Steve Bronson, Mark Easterday, Thomas Green and Rodney Holm. The latter two have been challenged in the state Supreme Court. Both failed. Yet Utah was reluctant to prosecute, citing a lack of resources, the difficulty of obtaining convincing evidence, and the understanding that any prosecution would trigger an inevitable appeal to higher courts. The 2003 Supreme Court Lawrence v. The Texas decision concluded that all adult, consensual and non-commercial sexual activity is protected, weakening any attempt to persecute families for private residential or sexual agreements that did not seek the state`s imprimatur.
Most countries that accept any form of polygamy limit legal recognition to the practice of polygamy, but prohibit polyandry. The cultural practice of polyandry can be observed in the cultures of Tibet, Nepal and northern India and is associated with systems of inheritance and land ownership. Stanley Kurtz, an American conservative and member of the Hudson Institute, opposes the decriminalization and legalization of polygamy. Since the 19th century, the practice of polygamy in the United States has been prohibited by law and by the federal government. In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, which banned the practice of bigamy. At the time, many Republican politicians argued that polygamy was the only other moral injustice outside of slavery that deserved to be abolished. In 2008, beginning April 4, Texas state authorities temporarily detained 436 women and children after Rozita Swinton, a 33-year-old woman living in Colorado Springs, Colorado, called Texas Social Services and a local animal shelter claiming to be a 16-year-old girl. In late March, she phoned the authorities, claiming she had been beaten and forced to become the “spiritual” wife of an adult man. In response to their calls, authorities raided the Eldorado ranch, about 40 miles south of San Angelo. YFZ Ranch belongs to The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), a Mormon offshoot that practices polygamy. Two men were arrested for obstructing the raid, but were later released. Several men were convicted of sexual assault, rape and bigamy of underage girls.
[45] [46] [47] Hindu law allows polygamy in certain settings, although the application varies from one Hindu country to another. For example, traditional Hindu law allowed polygamy if the first wife could not give birth to a son. In addition, Balinese Hinduism allows sanctioned and unrestricted polygamy, but marriage is regulated by adat or traditional customs. Buddhists view marriage as a secular matter rather than a sacrament. As such, each Buddhist country has its own position on polygamy. For example, Thailand legalized polygamy in 1955, while Myanmar banned polygamy in 2015. In an October 2004 op-ed for USA Today, Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, argued that polygamy should be legal as a simple matter of equal treatment before the law. Turley acknowledged that underage girls are sometimes forced to marry polygamously, responding that “banning polygamy is no more a solution to child abuse than banning marriage would be a solution to domestic violence.” [18] Polygamy is the practice or custom of having more than one wife or husband at a time. Polygamy has historically taken two forms, polyandry and polygamy.
Polygyny is the condition or practice of having more than one female wife or partner at a time, while polyandry is the practice of having more than one male husband or partner at a time. Another unusual loophole is that many Muslim countries recognize polygamous marriages as long as the husband, before marrying his first wife, informs her that he intends to add more wives and accepts them. If the first wife does not agree, the husband cannot marry any other woman as long as he is married to her. After Joseph Smith`s death, polygamy continued in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), then led by Brigham Young. In the area that became Utah and some surrounding areas, plural marriage was openly practiced by followers of the LDS Church. In 1852 Young felt safe enough at LDS Church in Utah to publicly announce his practice of polygamy. However, opposition from the U.S. government threatened the legal status of the LDS Church.
Wilford Woodruff announced on September 25, 1890 that the LDS Church had officially abandoned the practice. Woodruff`s declaration was officially accepted at a general conference of the Church on October 6, 1890. The LDS Church`s position on the practice of polygamy was reaffirmed in 1904 by another official statement entitled “Second Manifesto”, reaffirming polygamy. [27] With the exception of Solomon Islands, polygamous marriages are not recognized in Europe and Oceania. In India, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore, governments recognize polygamous marriages, but only for Muslims. In Australia, polygamous marriage is prohibited, but polygamous relationships are common in some Australian indigenous communities. In Indonesia, polygamy is legal in some areas, such as Bali, Papua and West Papua. Balinese Hinduism allows polygamy, practiced for centuries by the Balinese and Papua. Protests against the ban on polygamy and polygamous marriages took place in Indonesia in 2008, but did not lead to changes to the law. In 1953, the state of Arizona investigated and searched a group of 385 people in the polygamous settlement of Hildale and Colorado City, which stretched across the Utah-Arizona border.
All the men were arrested and the children were placed with foster families. A judge eventually declared the action illegal, and all returned to the community, which now numbers about 10,000 people. [40] The Mormon practice of plural marriage was officially introduced by Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter-day Saint movement, on July 12, 1843. Since polygamy was illegal in the state of Illinois,[24] it was practiced in secret during Smith`s lifetime. During the Nauvoo era, from 1839 to 1844, several Mormon leaders (including Smith, Brigham Young, and Heber C. Kimball) adopted several wives, but all Mormon leaders who publicly taught polygamous doctrine were disciplined. For example, Hyram Brown was excommunicated on February 1, 1844. [25] In May 1844, Smith declared, “What a thing it is for a man to be accused of adultery and to have seven wives, if I can find only one.” [26] The practice of informal polygamy among fundamentalist groups raises several legal issues. It has been considered difficult to prosecute polygamists for bigamy, largely because they are rarely officially married under state law. In the absence of evidence that the alleged perpetrators have multiple formal or customary marriages, these groups are simply subject to laws against adultery or illegal cohabitation – laws that are not universally enforced because they also criminalize other behaviors that are otherwise socially sanctioned.