Don Hudson Blog: Love Times Three - a polygamous love story

Just one thing I want to know: would these polygamist men be OK with one of their wives taking another husband? Let's get real here. Polygamy, unless it goes both ways, is just another mysogynistic construct in a disgustingly patriarchal society. It makes me want to puke.

This debate shouldn't be about women's rights or religious rights or agendas. This should be about a human right to have relationships that are dynamic as we all are. There are plenty of abusive relationships that are traditional that could be described as worse than your typical polygamy horror tale.

The only "different" side the Dargers are showing is that many polygamists look like ordinary people. But scratch below the surface and it's a community where privileged men have rights, but nobody else. There's a constant attempt to portray polygamists as non-abusive, but polygamy is always abusive. It cannot exist in an atmosphere of equal human rights and justice. If you're not a privileged male in one of these groups, you're little more than very expensive livestock.

The only "different" side the Dargers are showing is that many polygamists look like ordinary people. But scratch below the surface and it's a community where privileged men have rights, but nobody else. There's a constant attempt to portray polygamists as non-abusive, but polygamy is always abusive. It cannot exist in an atmosphere of equal human rights and justice. If you're not a privileged male in one of these groups, you're little more than very expensive livestock.

The only "different" side the Dargers are showing is that many polygamists look like ordinary people. But scratch below the surface and it's a community where privileged men have rights, but nobody else. There's a constant attempt to portray polygamists as non-abusive, but polygamy is always abusive. It cannot exist in an atmosphere of equal human rights and justice. If you're not a privileged male in one of these groups, you're little more than very expensive livestock.

The only "different" side the Dargers are showing is that many polygamists look like ordinary people. But scratch below the surface and it's a community where privileged men have rights, but nobody else. There's a constant attempt to portray polygamists as non-abusive, but polygamy is always abusive. It cannot exist in an atmosphere of equal human rights and justice. If you're not a privileged male in one of these groups, you're little more than very expensive livestock.

A lot of people try to take an "enlightened" position by arguing that polygamy should be a protected religious practice. But as nice as they may seem, even the Dargers are contributing to the human rights problems that we see in polygamous societies. There's just no good excuse for a man to hoard women. It makes the available women scarce and subjects them to pressure to marry men of all ages, for the purpose of ensuring the MAN's good graces in the hereafter. This reduces women to objects to be collected in pursuit of the man's ends, as if the woman has no ends of her own. In Mormon fundamentalist society, the women are the means for the success of the men. This is doctrinal. Of course few people discuss the issue of all the men who can't marry in polygamous societies because there aren't any available women. These men must remain single or leave the society, although they're still under the same "divine" commandment to practice polygamy as the rest of the men. I suppose those young men are just screwed. Some justice that is! It's still a backward sex cult, no matter how pretty you dress it up. Polygamy is no more holy than slavery.

Whoops. Sorry, those comments weren't meant to be directed to Renn O. They were direction to Sanjiv. Sorry, Renn O

Renn O: The Dargers are trying to show the different side of plural marriage. Thousands of families live this way but they live under the radar. Warren Jeffs and the Kingstons, they're not necessarily the norm. Just because they use it as a way to further their own corrupt means, doesn't mean that it should be an outlawed way of life. Men use monogomy as a way to further their own corrupt means as well, so what's the difference? BTW, Jeffs uses religion to further his agends. Plural Marriage just happens to be a part of that. Look back at the history of the Catholic church. You'll find case after case of abuses taking place in the name of religion. Their story is just the same story repeated in a different way. Mrs. Andrews... the questions you ask as far as their finances are concerned are not questions that should determine whether or not they live Plural Marriage. They are questions that the family probably asks themselves, and they've probably planned for them in one form or another. As far as each of the wives competing with each other for the man's attention, I believe you've been misled. If you've read or watched any of their interviews than it's obvious that the women work together, rather than against each other. They're obviously not fighting each other for his attention. Also, Joe himself said in one of the interviews (though I can't remember where) that he perceives his women as counselors. He doesn't consider them lower than himself and he obviously doesn't treat them this way (again, read, listen, and watch the interviews). Just because Warren Jeffs obviously views women as a lower life form, doesn't mean that all polygamists do. The children are not being shown a bad example of a family relationship. They're being shown an example of love, courage, and respect, and that's what you want children to learn.

@Renn O - hilarious how you misuse 'socialist'. The enemies of polygamy are on the right, not the left, because it's conservatives who believe they have a monopoly on right and wrong. Anyway... Yes, the Dargers are nice, and yes they get through lots of laundry - wow - but they are show ponies for the fundamentalist lobby and always have been. Polygamy advocates want to distract you from the overwhelming truth about this culture, that is dominated by autocratic cults, deranged prophets and has a rich tradition of underage marriage, incest, trafficking and exploitation. None of this is in dispute. The Dargers are a reprieve from that - a brief and narrow reprieve at that. But they do not represent polygamy, far from it. If you're interested in a polygamist family, take a look at the Kingston family. Much more gripping and significant. The prophet, Paul Kingston, is alleged by his own nephews to have in the region of 350 children. And I'm betting that most people on this blog, or at ABC News for that matter, haven't even heard of them. This is a scandal all of its own. Many of Paul Kingston's children don't realize he's their father. Many have been born through marriages that are deeply incestuous - half-brother and half-sister, uncle and niece. Such are the allegations of his own family members. Skirt around the elephant in the room by all means, but don't kid yourself that you're any wiser for it. By ignoring the atrocities of polygamy in favor of a campaign commercial, you protect the persecutors, plain and simple. secretsandwives.com