

I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do: Polygamy Raises Its Profile in America



Why once secretive plural families like the Dargers of Utah are coming out of the shadows and beginning to advocate for their way of life.



By Belinda Luscombe



...Proponents of defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman have long argued that if we entertain variations on that theme, like gay marriage, the institution will soon become unrecognizable. "If you think it's O.K. for two [men to marry], then you have to differentiate with me as to why it's not O.K. for three," said former presidential hopeful Rick Santorum on the campaign trail, echoing a common refrain....



Close observers of the marital topography are noticing a shift in attitudes toward polygamy and its sister wife, polyamory, which can roughly be defined as having multiple lovers by mutual agreement. Partly this is a result of a decades-long wholesale rethinking of the institution of marriage and who society and the courts say can engage in it. But it's also a result of more exposure to polygamous lifestyles. Some polygamists, sensing unsteadiness in the big ship monogamy that has always blocked their passage to the oceans of normality, are trying to navigate their way to validation of their version of family.



...Studies have shown that gay characters on TV in the 2000s measurably decreased viewers' negative feelings toward gays. If that holds true for multipartner unions as well, then [Kody] Brown and his ilk have reason to feel encouraged. There are screen representations of polygamous lifestyles aplenty, including other TV shows such as Polyamory: Married and Dating and The Girls Next Door and movies like the recent Oliver Stone film Savages and Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona....



In 2010 the Columbia Law Review, taking into account both fundamentalist Mormons and the growing number of Muslim immigrants, estimated that 30,000 to 100,000 U.S. families practice plural marriage. Deborah Anapol, author of Polyamory in the 21st Century, puts the percentage of polyamorists at 0.5% to 3.5% of the population [which would mean about 1 to 8 million U.S. adults]. That's a guess, but there are signs the figure is growing. Polyamorous groups report upticks in the number of local chapters and attendance at their meetings, conferences and marches. In May the American Psychiatric Association included a forum on polyamory at its annual meeting. Nonmonogamists are becoming increasingly vocal in defending their lifestyle. How fringe can a cultural practice be, after all, when it's part of the family history of both of this year's presidential candidates?



Perhaps nobody is as dedicated to being radically nonfringe as Joe Darger. A friendly, energetic, 43-year-old building contractor, he wants to be the guy people think of when they conjure up images of a polygamist....



Alternatives to Marriage



Across the country, just outside Boston, the Dargers have an ally of sorts in Thomas Amoroso. An emergency physician, Amoroso has a live-in girlfriend, Katherine, who has a live-in husband, Matt. (Amoroso also has another girlfriend.) [We know them. Sparkle Moose and I brought food to the housewarming potluck for their new house last year, along with a big crowd of other Poly Boston people that totally jammed the place.] They don't seek attention, but they're not averse to it. "We routinely walk down the sidewalk hand in hand in hand," says Matt, although he and Katherine would prefer that their last name not be made public.



The trio, who got together at a science-fiction convention (polyamorists are often fans of the works of Robert Heinlein [see my article!]), have tried to mimic marriage as much as they can. They've bought a house together. They are one another's health care proxies. Matt and Katherine are trying to have a baby, and Amoroso is looking forward to co-parenting. "If we lived in a society that permitted plural marriage, it's something I'd think about," says Matt. "But we live together, we support each other, we spend time together, so I've got the stuff I want."



Amoroso and Darger don't know each other, and there's not much else they'd agree on, but they're brothers in arms in the fight against what they see as a monogamy monopoly. Amoroso served on the board of the Alternatives to Marriage Project, and he speaks at conventions about his living arrangement. "Our lives are much the same as other people's," he says. "It's important to me that there's understanding and acceptance." The reaction he gets from most people, including his family and employers, is raised-eyebrow acceptance: "It wouldn't work for me, but if it makes you happy ..."



...Why do some people want multiple life partners when most of us can barely deal with one? Both fundamentalist Mormons and polyamorists argue that having several partners requires people to be more loving and generous and to learn to overcome jealousy. There's a term polyamorists use for enjoying their lover's happiness with another: compersion. (The word is thought by some to have originated in the '80s at a San Francisco commune by people using a Ouija board.) Fundamentalist Mormons believe the practice mirrors the selfless interconnectedness that will exist in heaven. They call it "living the principle."



Compersion and living the principle sound noble. The results often aren't. "When plural marriage works, it can be much more rewarding," says Darger. "But I think getting it there is not three times as hard. It's to the third power as hard."...





The current issue ofmagazine (dated August 6th) features a four-page, 2,500-word article about Mormon polygamists seeking recognition, focusing on the Joe Darger family in Utah. It also goes out of its way to tell about the increasingly visible polyamory movement. Though unfortunately, it sometimes intermixes the two.For the poly sections, I was pleased to see that the writer may have taken leads from this website. I could be imagining it... but how many other sources have publicized the claim (by people who say they were there) that when members of the Kerista commune invented the word "compersion," they were using a Ouija board?So far,has put only a seven-paragraph teaser publicly online (including a video of the Dargers and their school-bus-size load of children). The article is only in the paper magazine or online for paper-magazine subscribers Some parts:The article then goes on to describe the uglier sides of polygamy among fundamentalist Mormons and other patriarchal societies.Among the key distinctions it fails to make is that while traditional patriarchal polygamy results in gender imbalance and an excess of left-out single men, modern secular polyamory is fiercely egalitarian, often feminist-oriented, and seems to spawn as many MMF households as FFM ones.

Labels: Boston, polygamy