by Emma Riley Sutton

Created on: April 11, 2008   Last Updated: June 25, 2008

Polygamy should not be legalized. Polygamy should be punished to the full extent of the law. The laws should be changed so that the punishment is truly a punishment and not just a "please don't do that again." The best argument for this is "Naomi."

I do volunteer work at a local domestic violence safe house. I normally help the women and children with their educational and employment needs. I tutor them; I help with job applications and resumes; I take them shopping for clothes to wear to interviews and then to work. I have dealt with many women and children in dire need of help. No one more than Naomi. She is the very definition of "in dire need and distress." The same holds true for the five children she brought with her. Painfully, it is even more true for the three children she was forced to leave behind.

I was there be chance when Naomi and her children were brought in to the safe house. She had been brought to the safe house through a cooperative with other safe houses around the country. This was the fourth safe house she and her children had lived in. She had been kept moving because of her unusual circumstances.

She was only 20 years old. She was the mother of of eight children. She had a baby every year since she was thirteen; her second pregnancy was with twins. He oldest daughter was seven years old. The youngest was a son, only two months old.

Naomi was the fourth wife of a man (I use that word loosely, very loosely) that was 39 years old when he married her. She was barely 13 when she married him. His other wives were older; the oldest being 20 years old. She was unsure how many children he had.

She had lived with two of his other wives. His first wife lived somewhere else with her children. She didn't know where.

As was the custom at the safe house, Naomi and her children received physicals within 24 hours of arriving. They were all underweight and suffering from malnutrition. Their cuts and bruises were healing; they did not require further medical treatment. Good food and sleep would take care of their physical needs. Their social, psychological, and spiritual needs would take years to treat.

She came into the living room where I was sitting with two other clients. We were watching television. She screamed and ran from the room when she saw the television screen. She had never seen one before. She also jumped when the telephone would ring. That, too, was foreign to her.

"I must pray," she whispered to me in the hallway where I found her, huddled with

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