We’ve already heard that Kody Brown, the polygamist husband on TLC reality show Sister Wives, was introduced to his fourth wife by his first wife, Meri. Kody has four wives, three of which he’s had for the past 17 years. He was married to the first three before he had any of his 13 biological children, and all three helped each other raise their children together. (Hollywood Life has a good overview of how Kody met each of them if you’re interested.)
The introduction of a fourth wife, a divorced mother with her own three children, is being portrayed on the show now, and it’s of course disrupting the balance in their household. In a clip on TLC, Kody explains that he was initially against even considering his now fourth wife, Robyn. Meri, his first wife, liked her and decided she would make a good addition to the family. It’s like Meri wanted a new friend so she annexed Robyn and her kids. This is how Meri describes it. (You can watch the video here.)
Meri: So Kody and I were out one night and we went over to a friend’s house, and Robyn happens to be this friend’s cousin, so that’s where we first met Robyn…
Robyn and I kind of clicked that night. I asked her who she was, and about her family. She had her three kids there with her, and after we drove off that night, after we realized that she wasn’t married, I said to Kody ‘You might kind of want to think about her,’ and he’s all ‘No way.’
He was not having any of that. Because he’s kind of always had an aversion to marrying someone who had already been married before and taking on kids.
So he was like ‘Absolutely no way,’ and kind of gave me a dirty look. [laughs]
Kody: At that point she reinforces it. She says ‘No, you don’t understand, she is really cute.’
Meri: I didn’t say she was really cute… that’s what you were thinking.
Kody: When I heard she was divorced, I just put this wall…
Meri: I just knew that there was something there and so I kind of had to reiterate it to him. ‘You should think about it.’
Meri continues: When you come across something and you know that it’s just right for you, then you just kind of go with it, and there’s just no argument about it. That’s kind of how I felt about it… there was definitely a connection with me and Robyn. I just knew she was a person I could be friends with, and even more than that, have her in my family and have her love my daughter and all our kids, and have me love her kids and what a blessing it would be to our family and to her as well.
[From video on TLC. Discovery.com]
Meri got kind of embarrassed a little when she described meeting Robyn, and it’s like she had a crush on her. I guess I can’t relate as I have only one way of interpreting that, but these women really do love their “Sister Wives” as sisters and there’s not necessarily anything else there.
There are more video clips on TLC’s website, and Robyn sounds like she’s fitting in well with the family and wants to be a part of their team. She calls the first time she interacted with the family “magical” as the kids had so much attention and love from their moms and siblings.
Hollywood Life has more on how Kody and his wives support their enormous family. Apparently the kids work outside the home starting at 14 or 16. Their home was built relatively cheaply and on the show they explained that it was built by a polygamist. Here’s more from HL’s insider. “They all pitch in. The house isn’t tough to take care of once it’s built since you have three wives and all of the kids. The building supplies are cheap since one of the leaders of the polygamist group 20 miles from where I live owns a lumber place. Their homes aren’t REALLY nice. They have mostly mini-vans, and the kids start working as young as they can usually 14 to 16 years old.”
The Browns are of course being investigated for felony bigamy. They’ve tried to skirt around the law by only making one of the marriages legal. By going public, they hope to increase awareness and acceptance of polygamy. Their case has been turned over to the Utah County Attorney after an investigation by the local police in Lehi, Utah where they live. The County Attorney will decide today whether or not to charge them with a crime.
I am fascinated by his show…though I do admit Kody makes me uncomfortable. The women all seem to flow well together, yet at the same time when they are describing certain situations(the 4th wife), they try to make themselves out to be victims.
seriously. “Under the Banner of Heaven” by Jon Krakauer. No one would think polygamy is as it is portrayed in this show. this is hogwash.
hmmm…let me think…
nope, still gross.
Look, I know we all descended from the ape and evolved to reproduce ameliorated, more varied versions of ourselves, but this is just wrong even despite the fact that we’re all essentially just animals with the intention of procreating. These are individual women with personalities involved in an ensemble that belittles and undermines their needs and desires as women and negates them the singular role of wife in a family unit by distributing their importance throughout a group of other women so as to leave each woman with only a morsel of worth. This is wrong.
I have felt at times that I would be happier living with a group of like-minded women. I am not a lesbian, just someone who appreciates the power that women have. However, the sex part would disrupt all that, especially when it is shared with a man that all know. That’s the part I can’t get over. I do find the program fascinating.
liz, we did not descend from the ape; we share a common ancestor (now extinct) with apes. Apes are our distant cousins, as are bonobos; there is no direct line of descent. Just wanted to point it out as I’m sure some creationist will start freaking out 😛 I do completely agree with the rest of your point though ^^
We are primates, but we are primates that have valued monogamy in most parts of the world for most of our history. That’s not to say we have always followed it to a T, but there’s a reason that females and males are born with a ~ 45:55 ratio (slightly more males are born in the world as an evolutionary response to the fact that throughout human history, men have been more likely to die in hunting accidents and war). Upsetting this natural balance by assigning more than one woman to a man just doesn’t make sense evolutionarily. It is truly not natural. And since I know people are going to bring up the gay issue, I would also like to point out that homosexuality is indeed natural, and shows up in thousands of other species as well; from penguins to whales. In fact, I can think of no species that doesn’t have instances of homosexuality.
The only species in which harems (one male, many females) exist are those in which rival males are routinely killed or run off. Not exactly a human inclination, despite how jealous any of us may have felt at one time or another. In a civilized human society, killing romantic rivals is not considered to be acceptable.
Now certainly harems have existed in human civilizations, but they have been rare even in those societies; Chinese emperors did have hundreds of concubines, but there was only one emperor at a given time. Nobles generally had concubines as well (especially if their wife was unable to produce a male heir), but these women were not considered wives and the actual wife didn’t really get a say in this practice because it was a patriarchal society. Ditto for other instances of harems in what is now called India, and parts of the Middle East. And again, these were really only an adaptation to the fact that so many men died, and living in a patriarchal society meant that with the death of the man of the house, the women would be immediately impoverished. The only way to escape this has always been to sell one’s body. Prostitution isn’t called the world’s oldest profession for nothing. And being a concubine really is trading sex for a roof over your head and some food.
In egalitarian societies, where men and women have equal rights, where women are not considered objects to be traded or sold, there is no place for this type of patriarchal, institutional polygamy. A case could be made for polyamory in which all parties are allowed to take on multiple lovers, but I suppose that debate is best left for a different day.
And as I described at length in the previous post on this TV show, the people who ultimately suffer most are not the women – the people who suffer are the children. The boys are kicked out before they finish going through puberty (much like in the animal species I mentioned that keep harems), and the girls are similarly married off as soon as they enter puberty. Even in this “progressive” polygamist household, Meri was married at 19, and I believe the next one (see? I can’t even remember her name. She’s wife #2) was 19 or 20 as well. At 19, can you really understand all the ramifications of dedicating your life to the practice of polygamy as a woman? I know I couldn’t have. Hell, I’m only 22 and I still realize how much I’ve matured since 19, and how far I still have to go. I cannot imagine having a husband at my age, let alone kids, let alone being responsible for three other families in my household.
I do consider myself to be open-minded and believe that it is generally none of my business how people decide to live their lives or what goes on in their bedrooms. I don’t believe in prescribing my morals onto others. But when there is a clear and proven harm to women and children, and they are not allowed to escape from the affects caused by their family situation, I draw the line.
Sorry for the novel, this is just something I’m very passionate about. I have watched several documentaries on this (The Secret Life of Women on Lifetime is a great series that has a few episodes about fundamentalist polygamy and interviews a bunch of former and current members), and read a few books written by people who have either been kicked out or rescued from FLDS sects. If you watch/read this material, there is no question that you will understand how messed up this is.
I think its going to be tough to add another wife after being a 4-some for 20 years…
This just creeps me out. Seems so uneven. I’m big on reciprocity in all relationships — business, friendship, and romantic.
One guy with four wives doesn’t add up. Any given night three women are sleeping alone. They aren’t allowed to have more than one man or even to be involved with each other (I think it’s rather judgmental they refer to the idea as gross. It’s far more head scratching to share 1 person).
This is just wrong.
I don’t watch this show so can someone fill me in on who is who?
Brown Hair Blue top is Mari, wife 1, Brown Hair & Scarf is Robyn, wife 4, right? How bout the blondes?
Oops I was wrong, The Secret Lives of Women is by WE TV, not Lifetime!
Wow, Shannon, that was a great, insightful post! You sound like a very mature, thoughtful, 22 year-old.
I will say this: whatever I feel about these people and the health of this relationship, this is NOT a crime in progress. Marriage is a legal status, and only 2 of these people are legally married. The same way that a particular church has no right to dictate who gets married at City Hall, the government has no right to suddenly deem the other 3 unions “marriages” and prosecute. In the eyes of the law, this is a man and his wife who have 3 girlfriends living with them. It’s not my cup of tea, and I’m not saying we should allow group marriage, but no way is this a felony. The intimate details of our lives are not subject to state regulation. You want an open marriage, want to swing? Fine. That isn’t a crime, why is this?
They kind of remind me of the Duggars — their choices make me feel squeamish, because I wouldn’t make them, and I can’t imagine it working for 99.9% of people out there. Yet this particular family (like the Duggars) seems to make it work by being very calm and pleasant. I wouldn’t want to live that way and I can’t imagine it succeeding for a huge majority of people, but hey, it’s their business. I think better of them than the Gosselins, say.
I cannot stop watching, however, I do not approve. I would never share my husband knowingly with another woman. I have too many needs!
hells bells…
this guy has the life!
the one ‘I’ fantasize about. sans the kids.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
my man is my primary bitch.
then there’s victor webster who’s my shirtless chauffeur.
then there’s keanu reeves who’s my butler and takes my briefcase after a long day.
then there’s john corbett cooking dinner (fajitas) in the kitchen.
then there’s joe manganiello who’s prepping for my massage before dinner.
then there’s boris koejoe picking out polish for my mani/pedi.
last but not least there’s jason momoa fixing stuff around the house, shirtless…just because.
ahhh…my imaginary harem would kick kody fat sister wives’ ass!
lol 🙂
TQB – it is notoriously hard to prove polygamy. According to Wikipedia: “the unanimous 1878 Supreme Court decision Reynolds v. United States declared that polygamy was not protected by the Constitution, based on the longstanding legal principle that ‘laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices.'”
You have brought up the point that Kody is only legally married to one of his wives. Other practitioners of polygamy figured out a long time ago that they could appear to only be married to one woman on paper and thought they could circumvent the law doing so. However, most states (including Utah) have de facto common law marriage statutes and recognize common law marriage. This is how it is possible to prosecute bigamy in such states, provided there is substantial evidence. Because fundamentalists have learned of this, they often live in enclaves that further isolate them from society (like the Yearning For Zion compound in Texas, and the bordering FLDS towns of Hilldale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona and more recently Mexico), or secretly live in connected houses like on this TV show. In public, they generally pretend that everyone but the first wife is actually a single mother, and they will collect welfare from the government as single mothers.
In their towns, every single person is FLDS, including the police force. People who get lost and accidentally drive through these towns may encounter shotguns pointed in their direction. Any attempts to talk to women will result in the women running home and shutting their doors. Outsiders are very obvious due to their clothing – you remember the weird pioneer dresses and hair of the women on the news from the Texas raid? (sidenote: that is a rather recent trend, dictated by the prophet to exercise further control over the women)
Like I said, it is very hard to prosecute this, and very rarely done. Even in high profile cases like that of Warren Jeffs, prosecutors have focused more on his involvement with statutory rape, conspiracy to commit statutory rape, etc. instead of prosecuting him for polygamy because unless one of his wives decides to testify (unlikely) they can’t prove it in court. And of course the defense will have thousands of people willing to testify against the credibility of the wife brave enough to speak out, who will be threatened with death, and/or to have her children taken away by the community, and of course excommunication from the church.
Now look, if these people really were your average FLDS types, a lot of people would question why polygamy is illegal. But you have to realize that this situation is incredibly rare among people who practice polygamy. Generally speaking, the women are not allowed a fraction of the freedom the women in this TV show have. You cannot judge polygamy by this clean image on TV, because it gives us a very skewed picture of the reality of polygamy for hundreds of thousands of people. If this really were the norm for polygamous households, I’d say live and let live. The problem is that these people are portraying polygamy in a way that is very outside of the norm, and it’s obvious that even these people have problems with making things equitable. Can you imagine how it must be in a household where the husband does not value the feelings of his wives? Trust me, that is the case for most of these people. They are cut off from mainstream society. They don’t watch TV, they don’t read books, they are homeschooled. They aren’t even allowed to interact with people outside of the FLDS. They cannot talk to family members who have been excommunicated. The ultimate judge, priest, and government is the prophet. One man has complete control over the entire community, and his word is law. He has the power to take a man’s wives away and assign them to a different man, and the wives are not allowed to protest. This happens frequently. He decides when marriages happen, and who gets married to whom. This is why families are more than willing to hand over their 13 year old daughter, to be married to a 65 year old man who already has 30 wives and also happens to be the girl’s uncle. He can have two sisters marry the same man, even if that man is their cousin (incest is common in these communities, unsurprisingly). He can also kick anyone out of the community without any resistance from his followers, because they truly believe that he can speak directly with God. Tell me, does this really sound like none of our business? Does the freedom to practice one’s own religion in America extend that far? I don’t believe it does, and neither does the Supreme Court. It’s one thing to choose to live in a cult. It’s another thing to exercise so much control over peoples’ lives that they are terrified to leave and have no choice but to stay.
@ fabgrrl:
“Wow, Shannon, that was a great, insightful post! You sound like a very mature, thoughtful, 22 year-old.”
I concur! Excellent post Shannon!
Robyn and I kind of clicked that night.
O. Kay.
i’m trying to decide if it’s better or worse that two of kody’s four wives are lesbians.
I am so fascinated with this family. No it’s not normal and I couldn’t live like this, but somehow they all get along so well. I love how they interact with each other. You can tell they truly love each other. This is not a regular polygamist family by a long shot. Cody isn’t in charge, but he is the leader. The women support each other and help each other and love all the kids, but still keep their separate identities within the house. It’s so fastinating to me. They seem like really nice people who are doing what they believe in without hurting anyone. It seems like a really loving environment. added note: it must have been really hard to introduce the new wife and her kids to the family. But again, they seem accepting and loving. This is a very unusual group of people.
Shannon–you totally rock with your novel-length posts:) I love it. I actually have a PhD in religious studies and am a professor of religious studies now. I’ve done some research on LDS splinter groups and polygamy, and its history in the US. And I completely agree with pretty much everything you’ve written. This is *not* something that we should attempt to sanitize or sweep under the rug or ignore, or simply to invoke the classic “free exercise” clause (i.e. freedom to worship as we please in the US) and let polygamists carry on as usual. There’s a lot of very damaging and dangerous stuff going on, and one of the major challenges in the US is to make sure that reasonable people do indeed have the freedom to worship as they please and to be free from state-sanctioned (i.e. established) religious practices and laws. (Hello Republican/Christian right–get your religious crap the he!l out of our legal, legislative, and government structures). But the other side of that is to make sure that we are paying attention to the common good of society, and to the health and well-being of our most vulnerable (children, women, minorities). When people are being held captive (both literally by means of isolationist strategies and figuratively by means of “brainwashing” or ideological control), then we are failing in maintaining that balance.
Jesus can you spare us the novels please?
Shannon, I agree that this show is a very rosy version of a very dark community and lifestyle. But singling out just one identifiable practice – polygamy – as a way to criminalize the entire set of behaviors is overly broad. If a married couple has a third partner living with them, should they be prosecuted? Moreover, it’s clear that everything that’s going on with the FLDS that you have articulated (very well, btw) doesn’t get any better if you remove polygamy from the equation. You just force them more into the fringe, where it becomes less and less possible to reach people who desperately wish to get out of that lifestyle. As you noted, there are different laws that protect the rights of underage victims, and they have been used successfully.
I don’t condone this practice and I certainly don’t think it should be legal, but refusing to recognize a polygamist marriage and actively prosecuting a “family” as polygamists when they are not, for any legal purpose, actually all married, are two very different concepts. There has been no legal recognition of the second, third, and 4th wives and thus they do not receive any of the thousands of benefits conferred by this status. All they have is a religious union. Saying this is the same as a legal marriage is the same fallacy as suggesting that Civil Unions are “good enough” as a substitute for gay marriage. It is absolutely not the same thing.
I understand and agree with your points from a societal perspective, but as an attorney and someone who has spent a great deal of time working with the equal marriage movement, I have a real problem with the government “declaring” these people to be married and then prosecuting them for it. What’s to stop them from prosecuting a gay couple, by suggesting they’ve entered into an illegal common law marriage? I suspect there are police and courts, especially in Utah, who would love to do so.
Logic like this – that the state has a right to intervene in private affairs – is what allowed anti-sodomy laws to remain in effect until the very recent past. It’s not a freedom of religion issue; it’s due process. If this prosecution goes forward, we could see a new ruling from the Supreme Court in light of Lawrence v. Texas – not necessarily allowing polygamy, but certainly preventing the state from “deeming” someone to be married in order to facilitate a criminal prosecution.
I like the novels. Fabulous posts, Shannon.
Now bizzy, I don’t think women have to be lesbians to “click.” I’m not gay, but I have girlfriends with whom I felt an immediate “spark” the first time we met. By spark, I guess I mean that I felt instantly that they were totally cool, fun, funny, interesting, intelligent women with whom I could have a beautiful friendship. So I get what Meri was saying.
Of course, that doesn’t mean I want to take my girlfriends home and live with them — god knows, if anything can ruin a friendship, it’s living with your best friend! And it definitely doesn’t mean I want to share my girlfriends with my husband. Sometimes I’d love to get rid of him, but I don’t want him to sleep with anyone else.
I would never want to marry someone who was divorced and had kids. Good for the first wife for seeing something in her , but I could never get past the whole idea of my husband being married to someone else first. Or having to put up with ‘The Ex-Wife’ and her kids. It may sound cruel, but its just how I feel.
I’ve watched the show, and find myself getting angry. Anger that these women have been brainwashed with all this BS. With Kody now having 4 wives, his 13 kids, plus now Robin’s 3 kids, that’s 16 kids. How can he possibly have time for them? It seems, his goal in life, is to keep these women pregnant and keep having as many kids as possible. As as the “wives” age and can no longer bear him anymore children, he’ll continue to keep seeking out younger wives who will give him the kids.
Has anyone caught the way the wives will say “Kody’s gone a lot…” He takes off in his sporty 2 door Lexus, (with no baby seat in sight!) off doing God knows what, while the women stay home with the kids, cooking, cleaning. etc….
The show hasn’t touched on this, but in this sort of arrangment, they think that by bearing as many children as they can, will bring them closer to God, and they’ll become “Gods and Godesses.” Note, Meri the 1st wife, only has the 1 child, when she couldn’t have anymore, he went looking for another wife to bear him more kids. That’s what’s he’s after. IMO, it’s sickening. There’s no way in hell, a man would put up with a woman having 4 husbands.
These people want to be accepted, whatever, by society because of their lifestyle, yet, there are still restrictions with the ‘set-up’. These women are being degraded willingly and it makes me sad. If they are so open-minded, they should be able to go out into the world and find another husband – one that will actually marry their sorry asses and not make them sleep in the next room listening to sex noises all night. If it’s good for the guy, it should be good for the other women as well. How is that fair he can go out and ‘fall in love’ multiple times, and the women only experience ‘love’ once? Bullshit. They should be charged. So what if he only marry one – he admits on camera that he is sleeping with multiple live-in partners, wouldn’t they all be considered common law wives??
TQB your point is very valid, and I suspect that if polygamy were to make it to the Supreme Court again, a case for violation of due process could certainly be made. Actually I think that if common law marriage were challenged in terms of due process, it might be under a different issue that involves prosecution that arises from common law marriage (alimony payments, as an example). The reason I think this is that the FLDS has always argued their case in terms of the first amendment because polygamy is part of their religious doctrine.
I do understand where you’re coming from and how legislation that affects polygamy could also affect the status of marriage equality. And I agree that in conservative states, common law marriage could be used as ammunition for persecuting gay couples, at least until there is a federal ruling along the lines of Loving vs. Virginia for marriage equality. I think this may even be one of the many reasons why prosecutors avoid enforcing bigamy laws except in cases that have been made very public these days.
And I agree that the illegality of polygamy has served to drive it further underground. It is impossible to infiltrate the FLDS and the only way the government is ever able to intervene is when someone within the community is brave enough to contact the outside world.
I believe that with statutory rape laws, child abuse laws, and conspiracy laws, the need for polygamy laws to achieve the ends our society wishes to for children has passed. But what about domestic violence and spousal abuse laws? That is another can of worms so I won’t get into it much further here. But I do think that it will be much harder for adult women who leave polygamy to retain full custody of their children if they cannot prove domestic violence, especially in cases where a man installs his wives in different houses and just visits them.
The FLDS community actually views prosecution of polygamy as legitimizing their marriages (they love being martyrs) and I suppose it does. By refusing to recognize polygamy while at the same time prosecuting it, the state does seem to be standing on pretty flimsy legal ground. And you are also right to point out the issues with the government infringing upon the private activities of consenting adults (though I would question the consent here). There are arguably better ways that do not involve legislation to end the abuses that happen in polygamous sects, although people are really slow to accept such methods. Laws are seen as effective by the general public because they change policy immediately.
Thanks for the informative comments (aka “novels”). I feel like I got the condensed version of a very complex subject and I appreciated learning more about it.
That concerned me too, about them being “deemed married” under common law and then subsequently possibly (being set up to be) prosecuted for bigamy. I’m also wondering, if anyone here knows, with the common law in Utah, what prompted this family to move to Utah from Wyoming (I read that elsewhere) in the recent past, to pretty much set themselves up for prosecution under the common law theory? I wonder if you have to live in Utah for the prescribed length of time, to be considered married under common law, or if the entire time they have been together, anywhere, is taken into account? I actually don’t know if Wyoming has common law too, and if they would have had the same problem there eventually, but I am basically wondering why they didn’t move to a state that doesn’t have it at all, considering they took the trouble to make sure the subsequent 3 marriages were not legal in the eyes of the law, to avoid prosecution?
you all should read under the banner of heaven by j.krakauer very insightful aboutthis oppressive cult
@Granger: yeah ok, i should have made my quote longer. they clicked and are moving in together. the fact that they’re having sex via kody’s skanky ass is …
… making me need to lie down and take a nap.
I just started Banner of Heaven! Looking forward to a good read. I like the author. I also have a very good Mormon friend (a liberal!) who claims there is lots of Mormon doctrine that is more favorable to women that the church elders like to breeze over.
This Kody gives me the creeps and I figured out why (besides the obvious, by which I mean the many wives and the Prince Valiant do) — he reminds me of a super-religious evangelical guy I once knew who had a real thing about having once had a “following” at a campus he worked at. It made him feel super-special and important because he was supposedly the conduit of messages from God (God even chose his children’s names — apparently God really digs families where all the kids’ names start with “J” — just like the Duggars!)
Anyhoodles, Kody affects the same “aw shucks I don’t know why I am so important but who am I to doubt the creator” vibe that this other dude I knew has. He’s created this situation where he isn’t overtly degrading his wives (he’s nice to everyone! they all get along! he seems humble and lovable!) but. . . it’s as if he’s constantly winning a popularity contest where he has four women and 16 kids all vying for his attention. Icky power trip, Kody! Needy, needy, needy!
Also like todays’ dissertation-length posts. Maybe we should have “windy Wednesdays” to go along with hot guy Fridays!
These people are not just privately living their lives. They are PROSELYTIZING for polygamy on television and they are doing it by lying about what really goes on in polygamy and sanitizing it for mass consumption. This makes them fair game for public scrutiny, public condemnation and legal action. I hope that they are all prosecuted, to the fullest extent of the law, for bigamy and any other crimes that they have committed. I doubt very much that that will happen in a state like Utah, where despite what the so-called mainstream LDS church says publicly, both LDS scripture and LDS political power, still overwhelming block the prosecution of polygamy.
Polygamy is a terrible institution that does great harm to women, children, adolescent boys, and even adult men who are not powerful in the religious cults that support it. Krakauer’s book and subseqent documentary, “Under the Banner of Heaven” do an excellent job of exposing the horrors of polygamy. There is also a great documentary about polygamy, available for free on Youtube, called “Waiting for Heaven.”
This is not just an ordinary, stupid reality show, meant only to watch for amusement, snark or distraction. These people are shills for polygamy. They are frauds and they are criminals. In no way do they do have anything to do with the rights of LGBT couples to marry. These polygamous cultists would be the last people in the universe to support the civil rights of anyone else.
You do realize that more than just the LDS church practise polygamy? I know people who actively live this lifestyle and are happy and healthy. I know women who are the heads of their poly families too btw. It may not be common but they are out there and not just connected with the LDS.
Personally, I don’t give a damn what consenting adults choose to do with their lives and relationships. If everyone involved is agreeable to the status quo, then go for it. I might even try it out some day – I’ve been known to say that if my husband and I break up, my next relationship will be either open or poly. And no, I’m not a member of the LDS church nor will I ever be.
Can I make the point that “Under the Banner of Heaven” probably doesn’t portray most Mormons or polgamists. It’s more of a sensationalized true crime book.
So– ok, I do watch the show. I understand his attraction to Robyn but it seems he could postpone acting upon it until after the new baby is born so he could give more attn and be available for the new child and mom. I do not understand the urgency.
I’m sorry, but give Robyn a huge chin wart and a black pointy hat and she looks just like a witch. The other women are much prettier naturally.
That being said, I can’t believe Kody
can give all his children attention.
He probably doesn’t even know who belongs to which wife. It’s just not a normal way to grow up. Now he’ll have more witchy kids with Robyn. TLC must be paying him a boatload of cash because I can’t see how he can afford this lifestyle without government help.
watching this just leaves a horrible feeling in me. These women just seem to know all this about kody. But it doesn’t seem he knows or really cares to know about their likes and dislikes. Speaking as a women, I cannot see how they share him. especially with sex! And the children cannot be receiving proper attention. I mean i grew up in a family of 6. my family had to work so hard to work plus spend time with us. I mean He can’t give ALL of them the proper attention they need.
Polygamy was founded by a guy who cheated on his wife. She asked why and he told her god appeared and told him to have several wives. Okay.. so thats how it got started, Now In other words. The guy got caught cheating on his wife and made up a bullshit story so he’s be out of trouble. And hopefully in the long run be free to sleep with whoever he wants. Doesn’t this ring a bell, for almost all slutty men out there? They go from women to women sleeping with whoever they want. This belief just spiraled out of control by this one guy being, A GUY, thinking about only himself and his sexual needs/fantasies. This show disgusts me. I try so hard to understand it and why they Chose this lifestyle? But…I just can’t. i see no logic in it. I only know the disgusting feeling in my gut watching these women give themselves to this man who’s only purpose it seems to reproduce, to be gods and goddesses in heaven (this is the morman belief with polygamy) the more wives and children the higher up you will be in heaven. sooo wrong. so mistanken.