Fundamental Mormons seek recognition for polygamy

[malkin767]

By Jason Szep

Comments

[gunpwdr_n_sky]

what do they have in common?

[nadadoll]

Polygamy/polyamory.

[gunpwdr_n_sky]

I was kind of hoping that wasn't what was implied. Just because it's a generalization and blah blah wank.

[gunpwdr_n_sky]

"I don't think the revelation that Joseph Smith received came from Christ," said John Llewellyn, a retired Salt Lake County policeman who once practiced polygamy but now campaigns against it. "I think it came from his Y (male) chromosome."

I want to know what changed. Maybe he practiced it in the beginning cause of family pressure/tradition?

[skunky_brew]

Maybe he practiced it in the first place because polygyny makes for a better supported household (when one has a herd of kids)? I would think that the "revelation from god" was his way of sanctioning his lifestyle choice.

[sell_snowdrops]

But why is he very against it now?

[skunky_brew]

Ah, I totally misread your quote! ;D Sorry!

(I was talking about Joseph Smith for some reason; go go reading comp!)

better supported????

[mollyfurie]

How can a polygynous household be 'better supported?" It's hard enough to keepone house, spouse and kids these days, much less a dozen wives and many dozens of children.

Men have always made religion, and they've always made it to suit themselves.

If any religion is fair to women, it is only because women have fought for it. Why bother? Tripeds have no more connection to the infinite than women do.

Re: better supported????

[skunky_brew]

If a family is meant to operate as its own little economy* (horticulture, crafts, tons of kids), it makes more sense to incorporate an extra wife or two in order to better handle the workload. It's common for Mormons to have lots of kids- wouldn't it be more sensible to spread the brood between two or three mothers rather than having one poor woman pop out a dozen kids on her own?

I'm not making an argument about how "fair" polygyny or religion is to women. I will say, however, that polygyny is not necessarily detrimental to women.

(just fyi, I'm no tripod)

* I don't know how many polygynous mormons run their families this way; I was mostly thinking of the Amish and some African societies

Re: better supported????

[mollyfurie]

Actually, I was thinking that certain high maintenance women should by rights have a small herd of husbands. A woman in her prime can easily wear out one or two, and producing great broods of children is terribly unecological these days. Of course, THEN you'd have to find some way to entertain or dispose of the surplus women - just as the FLDS must find ways to rid themselves of unwanted young males. See - you can justify ANYTHING if you want.

Polygyny is not at all detrimental to women who are not interested in sex, (or not interested in sex with men), genuinely like poverty and welfare fraud, are happy to accept the inevitable serious birth defects attending generations of first cousin marriages, and don't mind dropping their teenage boys off on some deserted highway to fend for themselves. Because that is the way they are living.

Not detrimental at all...................

Re: better supported????

[skunky_brew]

Sure. There's no chance that these women want to be in this sort of relationship, and there's no chance that they're intelligent enough to make that sort of decision for themselves.

They need you to tell them that they're abused.

And what about African polygyny? Is that wrong too?

See - you can justify ANYTHING if you want.

There's nothing wrong with polyandry either.

Seriously, I hate it when people like you sell women down the river as poor abused things in cases like this. Aren't we as smart and capable as men?

[mollyfurie]

As I said, Iknow little about the Maasai, so I decided to look them up. I am always happy to find any sign of female equality in any society anywhere. Ihave stopped simply assuming it on the basis of a few reports, or on the basis that certain areas of life are "controlled" by women because so often tribal societies are romanticized by those writing about them, that they lose all connection to reality. Of course, many professional journals are not available to the lay person on the net, and it must be in THOSE studies of the Masai that the position of Maasai women is seen to be so powerful in religion

The "Reply" button is the

[kenosis]

Somehow you turned this from a "Men have always made religion, and they've always made it to suit themselves" into trying to find female equality in spheres outside of religion.

Let me ask you this: when you say "equality", what, exactly, do you mean? Equal opportunities? Equal actualization? Equal legal status? Equal income? Equal leisure time? I'm not being a smart-ass or something, I'm just want to know what you would say would be a characteristic of a society where men and women are equal -- within the confines of anthropology.

Re: The "Reply" button is the

[mollyfurie]

Well I guess the Very First Thing is that female genital mutilation would NOT be an indication of a high or equal status for women. The intent of such procedures is to limit or eliminate the sexual feelings of women - to ensure their fidelity by robbing them of sexual urges as far as possible. If you - like so many in anthropology - argue that this custom is perfectly OK (and probably nobodys business), at least consider the increased risk to both mother and child in childbirth, and the fairly high death rate for the young girls on whom the operation is performed

Re: The "Reply" button is the

[kenosis]

So what would technically equal mean?

Who makes religion

[mollyfurie]

Please name a religion, begun by women, the traditions of which are not lost in the romantic mists of time - where one can suppose all sorts of things. Please name one major religion that is now controlled by women. There have been a few aberrant sects like the Shakers. Actually that's the only one that comes to mind at all - perhaps there have been others - and now, of course, Paganism - which tends to honor women equally with men or even in preference to men - is growing by leaps and bounds (probably a good thing). Of course, during the same periods in which women agitated for political and social freedoms, they won some rights in the more liberal churches - all recent innovations and mostly contradictory to the "sacred" texts

Re: Who makes religion

[kenosis]

A religion created by women: Christian Science. Tenrikyo.

A religion controlled by women: indigenous religion of the Aro. The Maasai religion also tends to be women controlled -- but this doesn't say anything about egalitarianism.

Re: Who makes religion

[mollyfurie]

I don't know about the Aro, but obviously the belief system of a people is embodied in its relgion. If women controlled the Maasai religion, I expect that female genital mutilation would NOT be a part of their society, and especially women would not be barred from religion or property ownership. Their sense of female divinity would forbid such societal inequality.

I looked up some African - including Aro - proverbs on the net. I couldn't find any particulars illustrating the place of women in Aro relgion. But these proverbs and commentary are what I did find:
"A woman is a flower in a garden; her husband is the fence around it'."
In other words, she must be guarded. And confined? That proverb would work as well in any patriarchal religion.As it does in all human societies. And among animals. This honors the woman's reproductive capabilities, nothing more. It is as if women said that men must be revered because they have penises, which produce sperm - necessary to the fertilization of ova! It pays respect to their reporductive

Re: Who makes religion

[kenosis]

I don't know about the Aro, but obviously the belief system of a people is embodied in its relgion. If women controlled the Maasai religion, I expect that female genital mutilation would NOT be a part of their society, and especially women would not be barred from religion or property ownership. Their sense of female divinity would forbid such societal inequality.

I'm not sure of that. There are many women throughout Africa that support female genital mutilation.

You're aware that you're interpreting Aro proverbs through your own eyes and perceptions, right?

I would say that women dominate the religion, but, like I've said, this is hardly my area of expertise. Certainly you can do your own research.