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I overheard a couple girls on the subway talking about how open relationships are so “weird” and “gross” and then comparing them to polygamist marriages found in certain sects of the Mormon church. I only caught the tail end of their conversation but they essentially concluded that they were all abusive, unnatural and “yucky” (kind of like their whorish make-up).

I find that a lot of atheist people I’ve run into are in open relationships. I’ve always been a bit of a fence sitter when it came to polygamy. I would never participate in an open relationship or agree to add a third person into a serious relationship. I find it emotionally taxing enough just to put in enough care, love and energy into keeping one relationship strong. I also feel like it would be difficult to maintain the same sort of connection I have with my partner with more than one person. But I’ve never thought it was wrong and have often wondered if laws against plural marriage are extremely discriminatory… my guess is that they probably are.

It should be four women signs now

Anyway…After reading Escape by Carolyn Jessop and watching Sister Wives on TLC I’ve come my own personal decision on the matter. Open/polyamorous relationships are perfectly fine and dandy in my books if everyone in the relationship is on board – unless they’re within the FLDS because that shit is messed. up.

I read Escape last week and haven’t been so engaged in a book for a long time (the last time I read one with such enthusiasm and emotional investment was when I read A Long Way Gone by Ishmeal Bhae… there are some strong people out there). Keeping the description as short as possible… The book outlines the life of Carolyn Jessop who grew up in a polygamist family. She was married off when she was 18 to Merril Jessop, the default leader of the FLDS, who was 50 at the time of the marriage. Merril has at least 5 wives and somewhere around 48 – 60 children, the numbers are different in different places. Carolyn describes a life with Merril’s family that is rife with mental and emotional spousal abuse, manipulation from her sister wives, husband and children, child abuse to very extremes, no freedom and life threatening pregnancies. She pushed very hard to become college educated and even harder to maintain custody of all of her children after she escaped from the church. She is an incredibly strong willed woman and lived through over 16 years of a situation I couldn’t stand for a week.

Her story is absolutely horrible. Her words were twisted around and fired back at her, she was made, by the will of God, to have sex with a man she hated, had to share her house with so many other people who were all against her… It seriously sounds like living hell. Not that I had a positive image of the FLDS before, but the book really impacted me and stuck with me. I’ve been recommending it to people everywhere I go (and I also recommend it to all of you).

I was watching some bridal show shortly after finishing the book (probably Say Yes to the Dress!) and a preview for the show Sister Wives came on. Having just finished Escape my interest in the subject had obviously been peaked so I decided to watch it. I think I’ve gotten through the first 4 or 5 episodes… and holy. crap.

All 4 wives are super happy and cheerful to be so blessed that they have a gigantor family of like a zillion kids and to be blessed enough to be married to Kody.

But seriously, the tension in the show is so awkward. They all seem to be tiptoeing around, trying not to make themselves seem too fake or too real. The relationships, especially with Kody, lack intimacy and are incredibly superficial. The wives get embarrassed and awkward to kiss their husband. Additionally, they all seem to be censoring themselves a lot. Their words are very carefully chosen and if something comes out sort of wrong then Kody is extremely quick to change the tone of the comment.

The wives have obvious issues with self confidence and jealousy. Especially the first wife Meri, who Kody has been married to for 20 years. She has serious issues adjusting to the 4th wife and when she goes to talk to Kody about it he is incredibly dismissive of the problem. It is obvious that Meri decided to do this lifestyle in order to please God and live the life dictated to her by her religion… so Kody uses this against her, telling her it was her choice and now she essentially just needs to suck it up. But when Meri tried to get him to understand why she is jealous she asked him to imagine her with another man. Kody got SO fucking defensive… and told her that that thought was so incredibly vulgar that he couldn’t even imagine such a thing. It was so incredibly hypocritical.

Kody and his wives

What is really disgusting is how much Kody just loves the attention. He rotates through the wives, sleeping with a different one each night and you can tell he just loves it. He totally eats it up… his confidence and ego are through the roof because of all of it.

It’s so fucked up. One of them even said something like “if you have problems with your wives, then marry another one!” then they all laughed, said that’s what they were doing by adding the fourth wife……and then none of them saw any problem with that picture.

I think it’s sort of obvious what my issue is here. Polygamist relationships that are full of abuse and lacking in love and connection are just so unhealthy. It is unhealthy for the women and especially unhealthy for the children growing up in such a tense environment. The FLDS religion says that the more wives a man has the better off he’ll be in the after life, so these kids get married off to old men and then abused for the entire life. The wives can’t speak up for themselves and it’s very difficult to escape. There is one thing about being in a relationship where all parties involved have decided that adding more people to the mix would be a great thing… It’s a whole other ballgame to force this life on women because it is some sort of freaky and chauvinistic rule of the religion. It’s just disgusting.