Polygamy is a marriage which includes more than two partners and is the basis of the show ‘Sister Wives’ on the TLC channel. The show documents the life of a polygamist family that previously lived in Utah with Kody Brown, his four wives and their 17 children. Kody and his wives said they wanted to do the show to make the public more aware of polygamist families and to combat prejudices against the lifestyle. Kody says his polygamist arrangement is legal because he is legally married to only one of the women, and the other marriages are spiritual unions. The way they are leading their lives led the Brown family to become investigated for possible prosecution so they packed up the bare essentials and moved their family to Las Vegas to protect the children from the ongoing investigation.
When the average person hears the word Polygamy, they tend to have visions of Warren Jeffs the president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who was convicted of two felony counts of child sexual assault this year. It doesn’t leave a good picture in your mind of this lifestyle and the people who live it, so my curiosity got the best of me and since then I have been following this family on their weekly reality show. Kody, the patriarch of the family seems to be somewhat of a goofy guy that looks like he should be surfing on the California coast hanging out with his beach bums. He is actually a very hands-on father and really seems to genuinely love each and every wife. The wives talk about sometimes getting jealous over the time he spends with the other wives and their children, but they say they chose to live this kind of lifestyle, they love the other Sister Wives and they wouldn’t have it any other way. Some of the children have expressed that they someday would like to live the Polygamist lifestyle and others say they just want the traditional marriage with two partners in the relationship. After watching the show and getting to know this family, I realized that I had many misconceptions about Polygamy.
I personally would never share my man with another woman. Marriage is hard enough to put two people under one roof with different attitudes, values and goals – much less adding three more women to the mix. On top of that these women are popping out children with the same man one after the other so you have to add finances into the relationships which is usually one of the top reasons that lead to divorce. I believe in this country that anyone should be able to live any lifestyle they choose – Polygamy is just not the way I would want to live. The only benefit I see with Polygamy would be that you would have 4 other adults to help with the children, grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning. I have three sisters and we all had to pitch in and help around the house, and I must admit – it was more fun and a lot easier with more women to share the workload but that’s about it. I would not settle for 25% of my husbands time and would definitely not want the extra drama of the other wives. I would not choose to live the Polygamist lifestyle, however it seems to work for the Brown family and as long as they are not hurting anyone the public should just leave them alone and let them live their lives in peace!