Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Here's what I don't get. Polygamy is "illegal".

But how can you legally marry someone else if you are already legally married to another? Is it the prevention of the second marriage that makes it illegal? Something like, you are at the courts and they say "Sorry, we can't sign your marriage certificate to this person because you are already married. It's illegal for us to do that". Or can you sign the papers, get married a second/third time and THEN it breaks the law? And you get arrested?

I don't know how thoroughly states check marriages. I think you just have to state that you are not already married.

Some states (Utah) consider cohabiting with multiple partners polygamy even if there is only one actual marriage. I believe this is also the case in states that recognize common law marriages.

I don't know if anyone gets arrested, your second marriage is just never valid until you end the first legally.

But if this is the case, it irritates me highly. Someone can have a second wife/husband (without a marriage certificate) living a mile away, and that's okay. Because people would just think "oh, it's a mistress..". But if that person moves IN (still without the certificate)...it becomes illegal? Just seems so, so stupid.

This is the case in Utah. This is why most polygamists have separate trailers or houses on the same property: to skirt the law.

Not that I'm an expert on this or anything. Chalk it up to morbid curiosity.

In most places, your marriage isn't valid, but you're still a bigamist. The attempting to get married is the crime.

It's so weird that that's illegal.

Maybe not weird. Just stupid.

Isn't adultery illegal too?

Polygamy is illegal throughout the US. But there is a distinction between a Church wedding (which is religious and doesn't create the state sanctioned relationship civil marriage does) and the process of recognition of such marriage by the state. You can get married by a priest if you're a same sex couple its just that the state won't recognize the union and give you the legal protections (right to inherit, tax deductions, presumption that kids you have are fathered by your husband w/o you having to prove it).

And the crime of bigamy is holding a woman out as being your wife (or a man as being your husband) when you are legally married to another woman (or man) - you don't necessarily have to try to get your marriage legally recognized. You could have 2 church weddings (but not have the second legally recognized) or just cohabit and tell your neighbors that you're married, while you're still married to another person.

Many activists working for Mormon women are pushing to get polygamy legalized or at least provide some legal recognition for the relationship, because currently most Morman women and men in polygamous marriages know they are doing something illegal and their fear keeps them isolated and unwilling to get help, because they are afraid of being punished.

Its also interesting that many of the women in polygamous marriages get WIC and other goverment assistance as if they were single mothers (their "husband's" income is excluded from the calculations).

I think the activists make a good point and there should be at least some legally recognized status for these women and men, so we aren't isolating them from society. Its a little like the argument for legalizing prostitution - just so sex workers can freely report crimes w/o the fear of repercussion.

Maybe I'm wrong but I think it was originally put in place to protect women who would have no recourse if there husband decided to leave them and get married to another person prior to divorcing them. At which point, the woman doesn't get things like alimony and what not if her income depended on her husband. So again, maybe I'm wrong but I'm thinking it was put in place for the instance not where a man is married and living with more than 1 wife but more that a man would leave his wife without divorcing her.

Of course now days, women are more independent and it would be less of an issue but still in that case, I think polygamy shouldn't be allowed unless the existing spouse is ok with the second (or third or fourth) marriage.

Right. It seems like all you would have to do to avoid that situation is obtain consent from the existing spouse.

There are some scholars who argue that life for women in Utah before statehood was not really bad. The second/third wives were often sent back east to obtain either medical or legal education because the men were needed to do pioneery stuff in Utah.

Okay, so in some states (or in the US) just calling someone your wife who isn't your legal wife is illegal? Or does it need to be more obvious...like they are living with you, bearing children with your, AND you are calling them your wife?

I think it gets confused because there are things such as common law marriage in which if you are living with someone and call them your spouse, then they become your common law spouse.

And as for just making polygamy so that the existing spouse(s) consent seems like it would take time and effort for the various states to come up with and really no state other than Utah would really have an investment in it. So if Utah wanted to, I think they could legalize polygamy but I think also that the Mormon church wants to say "ooohhhh we don't do THAT" because even though people do, they seem to want to keep it hidden.

The key issue is whether you have a legally recognized marital relationship with another person.

If you're married to one person and holding yourself out as being married to another, then you've committed bigamy.

But if you're not married to anyone, holding yourself out as being married isn't a crime, And in some states cohabiting for a period of years will give you a status as a common law spouse. Some states like California don't have that though, and you could live with somone for years and never be entitled to any legal protection (like Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke who were together for 14 years)




The problem is that every other state would have to recognize polygamous marriages if you could have a marriage that gave the second/third/fourth wife (etc) full legal benefits. Polygamous marriage isn't carved out under DOMA like same sex marriage is.

Partly because of a desire not to have polygamous marriages recognized throughout the US, the federal government stopped the territory of Utah entering the Union in 1896 unless they agreed to outlaw polygamy. That was challenged in Reynolds vs the US in 1878.

The official position of the Mormon church is that they don't practice polygamy and only "outlaw" branches of the church still do. So there isn't a big group pushing to have it legalized.

I think that giving secondary wives a legal status that isn't marriage would avoid a lot of the hassle that making polygamy legal would.