Polygamous Families in Contemporary Society (Paperback)

by Irwin Altman (Author), Joseph Ginat (Author), Sterling M. McMurrin (Foreword) "The Mormon religion is relatively young, having been established only in 1830..." (more)
Key Phrases: plural family life, modern plural families, mixed dyadic, Van Wagoner, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"An exhaustive, fine piece of scholarship; it is timely and should be read with great interest--not just by scholars but by the wider educated public as well." Philip Kilbride, author of Plural Marriage for Our Times

"Based on interviews, observations, and ethnographic materials, the authors research provides a rich description and analysis of life in plural families....The authors have written an objective and sympatheic account of the structure and dynamics of fundamentalist Mormon families in contemporary America. Highly recommended." D.A. Chekki, Choice

"Their comprehensive analysis of life in present-day fundamentalist groups, both urban and rural, is scholarly, dispassionate, and very readable. Their research will be used and cited for years to come." Utah Historical Quarterly

"This volume is a complete, detailed work that is contemporary in nature....This book of research will enable the reader to better understand the motives, routines, rewards, and concerns of family life that exist in contemporary society as polygamous families live out what they believe in." Gerald John Kloss, Latter Day Saints History

"...the book is highly successful in explaining the values guiding Mormon fundamentalist communities and why maintaining polygynous unions is so important to them despite considerable costs to both male and female participants." Nancy E. Levine, American Anthropologist

"This is an interesting book, well researched and written....Altman and Ginat have managed to conduct a rich and remarkable anthropoligical/sociological study on the workings of polygamous families." Baffour Takyi, Family Relations

Product Description
In this intriguing book, social psychologist Irwin Altman and anthropologist Joseph Ginat examine husband-wife and wife-wife relationships in contemporary Mormon polygamous families. The authors describe how husbands and wives in plural families cope with their complex lifestyle in various facets of everyday life, including courtship, weddings, honeymoons, adjustments to a new life, living arrangements, and the husband's rotation among wives. Other topics include budget and resource management, psychological attachments to homes, and the social-emotional relationships among family members. This pioneering, comprehensive analysis of life in modern day Mormon polygamous families uses first-hand interviews and observations to describe this unusual family lifestyle. It adds to our understanding of close relationships and complements knowledge on other modern relationship forms, such as single-parent families, blended families, and cohabitating partners. This is important reading for researchers in social psychology, anthropology, and religious studies. Lay readers will also find the subject matter to be fascinating.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 532 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (July 26, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521567319
• ISBN-13: 978-0521567312
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #974,908 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An interesting, sympathetic study of a little-known minority, November 12, 1996

By A Customer

In the latter half of the nineteenth century the LDS (Mormon) Church, settled in what is now the State of Utah, authorized and encouraged men to take multiple wives. This was based on a belief that such marriages were the will of God. The practice led to intense opposition by the US government, causing the LDS Church to officially abandon this position in 1890. Some church members, convinced that plural marriage was correct and the official church leadership had fallen from the true path, separated and formed their own churches where the practice of plural marriage continued. Such practitioners are automatically excommunicated by the official LDS Church. Plural marriage is actually a criminal offense in Utah, but the state has not actively prosecuted it for several decades. The last major organized police raid on one of these churches occurred in the 1950s.

Beginning in the 1970s Joseph Ginat, then a graduate student of anthropology at the University of Utah, began building contacts with these Mormon fundamentalists, estimated to number between 20,000 and 60,000. This was a slow and delicate process because of the long history of oppression. Practitioners of plural marriage are still subject to various forms of discrimination so tend to be secretive. For this reason, it is effectively impossible to gather reliable statistics on these people, so any numbers quoted should be taken as very approximate.

Members of the Mormon fundamentalist churches share a belief in the patriarchal authority and duties of the husband, traditional gender roles, and having lots of kids. About 20% of their families are plural marriages. There are two main fundamentalist churches: one in a rural area on the Utah-Arizona border, and another in urban Salt Lake County. There are also a number of smaller groups and independent families. The rural church is more conservative than the urban church. A few radical or outspoken groups get most of the media attention, but the majority of fundamentalists are very quiet.

Drs. Altman and Ginat studied 26 Mormon fundamentalist plural marriage families by interviewing them in their homes and other locations. Most of those interviewed had been born or raised within the fundamentalist movement. This book is a report of what the authors learned about those families, with some comparisons to other societies with similar practices.

A fundamentalist Mormon plural marriage includes one husband and two or more wives. This is commonly called "polygamy" but is more correctly polygyny, since there are no plural marriages with more than one husband. About 2/3 of plural marriages are one husband and two wives. Frequently two or more wives are sisters. Most plural marriage families are in the middle to lower-middle socioeconomic class, with few members holding professional or managerial jobs. The combination of large numbers of children, middling job skills and the necessity of avoiding persecution places a great strain on the financial resources of many such families.

The addition of a wife to a family ideally occurs with the approval of the new wife's parents, the existing wife or wives in the family, and relevant church leaders. In the rural group, however, some marriages are arranged by the church leaders, perhaps to provide for a widow. In some cases, the addition of a wife is initiated by women who want to become family and so persuade the husband to go along. Failure to achieve consensus before a marriage can produce family turmoil, perhaps leading to divorce.

Weddings are generally officiated by church leaders, and are marriages between the husband and the individual wife. The other wives in a family may take part in the ceremony, but they are not considered to be directly wed to the new wife.

Each wife has a strong bond with her husband, while bonds between the wives are generally weaker. Most wives give each other mutual support, but some have conflicted relationships. The husband is expected to be fair and treat each wife equally; failure to do so sometimes leads to counseling by church leaders or even divorce. Often family members turn to their religious faith to sustain them through periods of family conflict. There is an expectation that the husband's patriarchal authority can be used to settle disagreements that can't be negotiated.

Normally, each wife has her own living space, whether a room or an entire house, where she is sovereign. In some cases two or more wives share a house but have their own rooms. The husband generally rotates among these homes by some arrangement, with the rotation system varying between families. Most husbands have little or no space of their own.

Child care practices vary between families. Most expect each child's mother to have primary responsibility for raising the child, but the actual work is frequently shared among wives in ways that adapt to changing circumstances. Many families house teenagers in shared rooms segregated by sex, with younger children kept closer to their mother. In most families the father has substantially less involvment with his children than does the mother.

Most husbands celebrate the anniversary of their marriage to each wife, generally by doing something special and personal with her. Relatively few holidays bring the entire family together for a celebration; in the largest families, this would be a major undertaking. Common family celebrations are Thanksgiving, Christmas and father's birthday. Several fundamentalist families decline to celebrate Christmas on the grounds that it has become too commercial.

Most plural wives must work, apparently out of economic necessity. A few have their own businesses. Although the husband is the nominal patriarch, most plural wives see less of their husband than a monogamous wife would and most are therefore independent and self-reliant. However, the husband is expected to be there when needed.

Both researchers are male, and most of the interviews were arranged through husbands. In fact, men were in practical control of the interview process with a few minor exceptions. It is interesting to speculate on what might come out if women were to interview plural wives in the absence of any men.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Hmmm... not an accurate picture and very one-sided, November 24, 2006

By	Bonnie Lass "love to learn" (St. Paul, MN USA) - See all my reviews

As a member of a polygynous marriage myself (one of two wives very happily married to the same man (and we are NOT Mormon or Mormon Fundamentalist)), I have a few bones to pick with this book. First, the interview subjects were men, so the women involved are not given a voice, so much of the perspective comes from the men. The women might have plenty to say on the subject, but are largely ignored.

Secondly, to address the question of how these families support themselves, the answer is simple: Many of them bleed Uncle Sam -- a practice referred to by many in this faction as "bleeding the beast." Since the additional wives are not "legal" wives, they apply for and receive Welfare benefits to support them and their children. Pool that money in one extended family and that is a lot of money coming in -- money paid by tax payers.

In our own polygynous marriage, my husband, co-wife, and I each have professional jobs, contribute to society as a whole, and support ourselves. Because plural marriage is not legal in the US (and I am not even a huge advocate that it should be). What we do is not for everyone, but it works well for us. Our marriage is not sanctioned by the state, but we have been married in a spiritual union, exchanged rings, share a home, etc, and have been together for over 7 years. It can work (and very well), and everyone can actually pull their own weight and be an asset to society rather than a burden.

Thirdly, in a system where the men are placed in the position of "prophet" and given the ultimate authority over women, the doors open wide for abuse -- sexual, physical, and otherwise. The men who were interviewed for this book do not explore the fact that sadly, many women either want to escape this life, have tried to escape and have paid dearly for their attempts, or have even been killed. Also, the young men are chased out of these communities and out onto the streets of cities to survive on their own because they are competition for the old farts who want to "marry" the 14-year-old girls. This is not a healthy or productive way to live the plural marriage lifestyle.

This book is sorely lacking in facts and truth, very one-sided. Don't waste your money.