One Woman’s Changing Mind on Polygyny

Here’s a slice of life, “Polygamy Ain't Lookin' So Bad,” that is tongue-in-cheek (including playing off gender stereotypes) but still shows why some women may want polygyny. I’d like to note that “polygamy,” while used to describe polygyny in this essay, can also be polyandry (one wife, many husbands), all-female marriages of three or more, all male marriages of three or more, or group marriages involving at least two people of each gender.

Ahhhh, polygamists: scary old white men marrying dozens and dozens of 13-year-old sisters or… Bin Laden.

That’s all too often the media portrayal.

It has been practiced for millions of years and not just by sickos. I have the read the Bible, thank you very much, and quite a few of those revered guys had multiple wives.

They sure did. Some of them married close relatives, too.

Still, my whole life it gave me the willies to even contemplate polygamy. Self-righteously, I’d declare, “I’d never share my man!” like sex is the only aspect to a polygamous relationship.

Then I had kids.

She explains how her thinking started to change.

I think my husband was going a little crazy having different women living with us. But, I wondered, if they were cooking for him AND he could have sex with them, would he have been as annoyed? (Paging Dr. Freud.)

Probably not. But as the writer already noted, it is about more than sex. If her husband had spousal relationships with those other women, it would be completely different.

From there, she explains more of her discovery, before wrapping it up…

Sadly, I don’t see polygamy being legalized anytime soon.

It could be closer in Canada than in the US, but we’re closer than ever in recent times. We need to work towards full marriage equality, showing solidarity with everyone who is denied the freedom to marry.

The whole essay is worth a read, if you have the right sense of humor.