by Linda Sunkle-Pierucki

Created on: April 23, 2008

Everyone's eyes are on the media's feeding- frenzy reporting the Texas raid on the FLDS ranch two weeks ago. We are all of course concerned for the children. Our concern has perhaps overshadowed other serious issues in this situation. Critics of this action fear speaking out due to the deep-seated revulsion most of us feel for child sexual abuse. This fear has led to less-than-honest debate about the entire situation and attendant facts.

Reporting has ranged from somewhat sympathetic to the women of the sect to downright salacious-even going so far as to call the group a Sex Cult'. If reporting were more factual and less sensationalized, the viewership might be far better informed about polygamy and the lifestyles it espouses. The sheer sensationalism prevents most people from questioning whether the rights of these children and their parents are being grievously abused. A discussion of polygamy and its widespread practice may put this issue in its proper perspective.

Polygamy is almost invariably a religious practice. Polygamy was a widely-accepted practice in the Old Testament and the New Testament appears to contradict itself on the issue. Islam accepts polygamy under Sharia Law and is practiced somewhat over much of the world, with most adherents citizens of Asia, the Middle-East and Arab world. In many cases, polygamy was originally a method of providing for widows and orphans under religious tenets where there were few social services to provide for them. Many populations also see the arranged marriages of young children as a method of assuring their future through dowry and legal rights. Polygamy has far less to do with sex, then, than assuring the well-being of the weaker of the populace.

Some groups have codified polygamy more deeply into their religious practices than have others. When life is hard and food preparation and family care requires a goodly amount of hand-labor such as gardening, cooking, laundry, livestock care and child-rearing, many multiple wives in such countries see it as advantageous in allowing them to work a bit less. It also often provides for younger wives to care for those more elderly as time passes. Since that is not the case in the United States, we find it difficult to understand why any woman would willingly be involved in polygamy.

The United States has frowned openly on the practice of polygamy throughout much of its history and several federal and state laws forbid it. For many years, Mormon communities practiced polygamy

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