On Polygamy and Modern American Perversions thereto pertaining (Part II):

Now on the question of Polygamy. A quick Google search on the topic will bring up three kinds of websites: 1. Academic references and discussions of polygamy around the world 2. Horror stories from western ex-polygamists 3. Fanciful prose justifying polygamy as a way of life...in the west. I should mention something about the third type, I have never seen such a justification (not that I did ALOT of reasearch, but enough to say I looked into the matter) without the context of an extreme form of a Judeo-Christian (mostly Christian) faith. That is, justification is sought from scripture and Divine inspiration.

This pattern points to an interesting fact about the way most westerners perceive polygamy, as a perversion of some norms that exists mostly among fundamentalist (read: oppressive, Scripture-perverting), cult-like groups. The media is almost exclusive in its treatment of the subject within that context. The problem with this focus is the cementing of the notion that this is the best way to understand the concept of polygamy. Of course, this is stupid. Taking something as diverse as polygamy practices within human society and then associating it with an anti-social ultra-religious trend within a very conservative society (America) is plain silliness. It is no different than saying that because you have some red apples that are rotten in your hand that all red apples are rotten. While it seems to be a good supposition, knowing the facts clearly makes this a silly assumption.

Curiously, I have never seen an intelligent discussion of this very interesting behavior outside of academia. The times I have heard it discussed (such as whole episodes on 24-hr news channels like Fox News Channel's "Dayside with Linda Vester") has ALWAYS been in the context of the extreme fundamentalist religious communities of the western United States. It has come to the point where I take no interest in the matter outside of academia because laypersons seem incapable of discussing the matter without appeals to morality, perversion, psychoses, and other such nonsense.

Polygamy is simply the practice of maintaining many wives and, extremelly rarely, husbands. That is the end of the definition. Issues of abuse, women's rights, oppressive communities, religious fundamentalism, and other such qualities are case-specific observations that may or may not have anything to do with the practice of polygamy itself. Once this is realised then a discussion on the question of maintaining many spouses could be productive.