Sister Wives

“It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion.  You know you should turn your eyes away, but you can’t.”

That’s how a friend of mine described her reaction to the hit reality TV show “Sister Wives” which chronicles the life of Kody Brown, the sister wives, Meri, Janelle, Christine and Robin (AKA “the new skinny one”) and their countless children.  I confessed last year that I watched it regularly.  Still doing it, with new episodes now.

The family members speak occasionally about their religious faith.  I’ve heard them refer to themselves as fundamentalist and related to Mormons (LDS) in some way.

I do understand that this family distances its faith understanding from the West Texas fundamentalist LDS group which was raided several years ago.  With that group, the top religious leaders apparently showed a predilection to having sexual relationships with young girls and then marry those young teens off to older men who collect stables full of wives.

There also appeared to be a systematic effort to keep wives and children ignorant of other ways of thinking.  They were brainwashed into unquestioned obedience to male authority.  Many of those male authority leaders have been standing trial lately.

But to get back to the Kody Brown menagerie:  Being in a polygamous marriage appears to be a foundation point of his family’s religious beliefs. Polygamy is required for them to secure a good place in the celestial kingdom..

So, in my ponderings this week, I am wondering about the possibility of a God-ordained state of polygamy.

Before I go on, please note that “polygamy” actually means multiple spouses. Technically, the Brown family practices polygyny, which is multiple wives or women.

When women exercise the same privilege of more than one spouse, it is called “polyandry.”  So this is definitely not the same thing as what are known as “open marriages” where either partner can have multiple partners on the side.

For the Brown household, and for those who hold to the same religious beliefs, only the man gets multiple sexual partners, and does so with the sanction and support of the other women involved. In my limited understanding of the religious faith of the Brown family, this type of marriage is necessary for eternal salvation, particularly for the women.

So, let me point out the one huge, glaring problem with the system:  There are just not enough women to go around.  I’m not even talking morals here—just a simple practicality.

Societally speaking, there are occasionally some good reasons for polygyny. When wars take a huge number of marriageable men to their deaths, the tattered society left needs to rebuild its population. The household that can absorb multiple women, giving them children and an inheritance, can actually be seen as quite good.

More than likely, except for political reasons for multiple marriage alliances—like a king marrying the daughters of rulers of nearby nations—this was the usual background to the casual attitude toward multiple wives found in the Bible.

But we’re living today in a world where women are in short supply.  It is estimated, because of selective abortion and the preference for male children, that there are about 160,000,000 missing women in China and India right now. That’s about the number of women in the whole United States.

Those societies are going to experience mighty instability as the extra men reach marital age.  What will happen if these men operate from the belief that their eternal salvation is dependent upon each man taking multiple wives?

Murder and mayhem, that’s what.

My basic line for religious truth:  If it is not true across the board, then it may not be true at all.  I’m really having trouble seeing Kody Brown and his ilk as anything but alpha males disinterested in monogamy, greedily grabbing any available female without regard to the needs of others.

Just doesn’t compute in this brain.