Ponders of the World

Elbert Hubbard once said “Polygamy: An endeavour to get more out of life than there is in it (Hubbard, 2008)”. When people of the male gender become the partner to numerous women, an act often referred to as polygamy, these men are attempting to obtain more “pleasure” than nature intended and the outcome is negative but not solely for the men.  The legalization of polygamous marriages in the United States would give a highway to the harmful treatment of the women and offspring (Posner, 2006).

Polygamy, Negative Effects, Women, and Children

 Instinctively, an unfulfilled life of a woman is not having the opportunity to receive an education to achieve their full potential and not experiencing complete and solo love from one man. With much effort, women have fought for the chances of this important consideration, but a select group of powerful men have brought the decision on themselves to determine the education level of the women that “belong” to them. Men of these polygamous sects keep the young girls intellectually isolated to maintain the knowledge of these girls to a minimum (Schaefer, 2008). Alas, when sharing a deep love of man with another, a woman is sometimes drawn to make drastic decisions. In a multi-wife marriage, because they have less physical alone time with, and affection for, their husband, the wives have greater incentives to perform adultery (Posner, 2006).

Certainly men have agreed over the centuries that multiple wives are beneficial to both genders, but the testimonies of escaped women tell otherwise. The stories of captive marriage are repulsive to people with just a smidge of character. On many occasions in polygamous the women that have been “married” are bound in the marriage in slave like conditions with incest and statutory rape as a common event in the household. Abuse and mental torture are used on women in these sects to make the wives stay in the group (Gay Marriage and Polygamy, 2004.).

In recent headlines, children are portrayed as the victims of polygamous cooperations with tales of abusive parents, of stunted maturity, and the beliefs that only originate from brainwashing. Physical abuse is used on children to make them submissive enough to the elders, or men in charge, for the children do not report any crime (McLaughlin, 2008). Stunted maturity is a lifelong handing cap the children spawned from polygamy will have to suffer through. Juvenile girls growing up in the polygamous system do not believe that there is a possibility for a wife to be the only woman in a marriage of a joyful and pure home. Polygamous propaganda is used in everyday life in a polygamous household. Brainwashing included events of the technologically advanced world. A major polygamous sect school taught the students that man never reached the moon (Nicholson, K. J., & Brown, J. 2008).

Clearly, polygamy unconstructively affects the women and children directly involved with the practices, but the effects do not stop there. The entailing wrongs will damage thousands of lives and give a vast multitude of children still unborn a heritage of woe and crime. No doubt if the country allows for the legalization of polygamy, the deconstruction of the meaning of marriage and family will be complete, but the very fabric of society and foundation of country will crumble (Jarmin, 2006).