Now that Big Love is over with, I’ve started watching Sister-Wives on The Learning Channel. This is a show about a polygamous family: One husband, four wives, 16 kids. It’s actually very interesting and I’ve been enjoying the show.
A recent plot line is that the police in Lehi (or is it Nephi?) have been investigating them and looking to charge them for their polygamy, which has put a lot of pressure on the family. I saw a teaser for an upcoming episode that suggests the family is toying with moving outside of Utah to avoid that sort of problem.
And as I watched that I couldn’t help but wonder, why is polygamy a legal problem in this day and age? I understand why it was originally, back in the Victorian-era 19th century, how it was an affront to the morals of society. But this is 2011, and society gave up that high ground long ago. Even if they’re still on the books, adultery statutes aren’t enforced, and polygamy is tantamount to adultery (there is only one legal marriage; the other wives are basically unmarried lovers in the eyes of the state, even if they consider themselves married for religious purposes). We don’t haul people who live together off to jail anymore. So why is polygamy still a crime?
The Attorney General of the State of Utah has taken a policy position not to enforce polygamy itself as a crime, but rather to concentrate on substantive abuses that sometimes accompany polygamy, especially in its FLDS guise (child abuse, sexual abuse, welfare fraud, tax fraud, etc.). This seems to me the way to go.
Prosecuting polygamists for nothing more than living in a polyamorous relationship is ridiculous and high hypocrisy in this day and age. It is time to decriminalize polygamy.