Unless you're living under a rock you know the Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments this week on gay marriage. As expected, the slippery slope argument of "but what about polygamy?" reared it's head. Because everyone agrees we need to draw the line somewhere, and polygamy is the place, right?
A year ago I would have agreed. Polygamy is whack. I knew not all polygamy was teen girls forced to marry 72 year olds. But I still thought it was inherently misogynistic. I didn't want any daughter raised thinking she's less important than men or any son raised thinking he's more important than women. But today I'm seriously questioning my support for banning polygamous marriage.
Rarely does a reality TV show open your eyes to your own prejudices. Sister Wives is that rare exception. Kody Brown and his four wives are fundamental Mormons living a polygamous lifestyle. Over the past year I've watched the Browns marry wife #4, raise their kids, deal with police investigations, and move to Las Vegas. They've really changed how I thought about polygamy.
Unlike most reality TV, they don't need to stage anything to make it entertaining. It's a lifestyle that is totally foreign to 99.9% of us. The basic every day type of things like how they interact with each other and cook dinner and go to bed is totally fascinating.
When I first started watching it I naturally looked for ways to confirm my suspicions that polygamist men are misogynistic and women have low self-esteem. I'm not sure if the gender stereotypes are any stronger in this family than in the average American family. Yeah, the husband Kody is sometimes referred to as the "leader" when a big decision needs to be made. But his decision process is basically finding a solution that makes all the wives happy. Because the wives do have opinions and they demand to be heard. Another surprise.
The 4 wives are surprisingly independent and headstrong. Every issue that someone things is unfair is talked through, dealt with, and resolved. No one's feelings are ignored. Like the issue of money. Meri has one kid and Christine has 7. But they get equal portions of the family money. It's an issue that both wives have strong opinions on and they work it out as a family unit.
In a strange way the sister wives have almost a feminist philosophy- the idea of being an independent woman who finds fulfillment from within herself instead of from the love and attention of a man. That's how they overcome jealousy. They treat it as an opportunity for personal growth. Overcoming jealousy requires recognizing that your happiness ultimately comes from within and you don't need to have some man's love all to yourself in order to be happy. Their happiness and self-worth depends on themselves.
We're constantly hearing about the issue for women of balancing family life and work. For a lot of women it's a serious battle. Career-minded women might feel guilty they aren't spending enough time attending to their children, and women who want to be stay-at-home moms sometimes need to go to work to make ends meet. You don't have that problem when you have sister wives.
Christine loves being a fulltime mom, it's what makes her happy. Janelle has a serious career and her work is where she finds fulfillment and purpose, it's what makes her happy. Janelle goes off to work and her earnings help support Christine's famiy. Christine takes care of Janelle's kids after school and does their shopping. Christine can afford to stay at home financially. Janelle can rest easy knowing her children are being taken care of by a woman she trusts and loves and someone her kids consider their other mom. Janelle doesn't have to worry about what to make for dinner, when she gets home she can be entirely focused on bonding with her kids. It's a win-win.
What about the kids? In the oral arguments on Prop. 8, the wishes of California children of homosexual parents were raised by Justice Kennedy as an important consideration. These kids want their parents' unions to be recognized as marriages. Do the wishes of polygamous children matter?
The children in Sister Wives want their parents' marriages recognized too. They were chased out of their home in Utah because once they went public, law enforcement threatened persecution. Some of the teenagers don't plan on having polygamous marriages, and that's fine with their parents. The parents support their kids' independence and whatever they decide to do with their own lives gets equal support. Even the kids who don't plan on having their own polygamous marriages strongly support their parents' and are really happy that they were raised in a polygamous family. They wouldn't trade it for anything else. It's just not what they want for their own marriage.
Being confronted with those intelligent, independently-minded teens who so whole-heartedly want plural marriage recognized even though they would never choose it themselves caught me off guard. It's strange when a normal 16 year old makes you realize you're not as open-minded as you thought.