About 250 young adults and children gathered Saturday in Salt Lake City, Utah to advocate a change in state marriage laws to allow for polygyny, which is currently a felony under Utah law. Various people spoke out for the right to live as they choose without harassment.
Several speakers described their lives, hoping to debunk reports of abuse, neglect, and forced marriages of underage girls. The event was sponsored by the pro-polygyny organization, Principle Voices of Polygamy.
I refer to their lifestyle as polygyny, rather than by the misnomer polygamy, because they believe that only men should have multiple spouses. Polygamy properly refers to either men or women having multiple spouses.
While I welcome the extension of equal rights to consensual nonmonogamous relationships and families of all kinds, I still remain skeptical of fundamentalist polygyny. First of all is because they believe that only men may have more than one spouse while women must remain monogamous, which is inherently unfair. Secondly, I highly doubt that these people would be supportive of other, more egalitarian, forms of nonmonogamous relationships.
So, while I support their right to live as they want without government interference, just as long as it's between consenting adults, I don't think I'll be going out to Utah to march in one of their rallies any time soon.
Thoughts?
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