Polygamy, Law vs. Practice
Top court must decide polygamy issue, government told
Senior lawyers agree charges would be unlikely to survive an appeal
Andy Ivens, The Province: Tuesday, April 08, 2008
The provincial government will have to decide whether to send to the courts the question of the legality of practicing polygamy in Bountiful, after a decision by a senior lawyer was made public yesterday.
Leonard Doust, a senior member of the B.C. bar, agreed with the conclusions of a special prosecutor last year – that having the state pursue polygamy charges against members of the breakaway Mormon sect in the Creston Valley enclave near the U.S. border would likely fail.
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Polygamy; by definition
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The term polygamy (many marriages in late Greek) is used in related ways in social anthropology, sociobiology, and sociology. Polygamy can be defined as any “form of marriage in which a person [has] more than one spouse.”
In social anthropology polygamy is the practice of marriage to more than one spouse simultaneously. Historically, polygamy has been practiced as polygyny (one man having more than one wife), or as polyandry (one woman having more than one husband), or, less commonly as “polygamy” (one person having many wives and many husbands at the same time). In contrast monogamy is the practice of each person having only one spouse. Like monogamy, the term is often used in a de facto sense, applying regardless of whether the relationships are recognized by the state (see marriage for a discussion on the extent to which states can and do recognize potentially and actually polygamous forms as valid).
In sociobiology, polygamy is used in a broad sense to mean any form of multiple mating. In a narrower sense, used by zoologists, polygamy includes a pair bond, perhaps temporary.
Bigamy is when one individual is married to two people at the same time and at least one of the marriages is a legal marriage. Most western countries have laws making any second marriage a crime.
Polygamy and The Law vs. Accepted Standards
Canada recognizes Common Law Marriage, marriage without official license. It is not a contravention of the law in Canada to live with and have sexual relations with another person. Nor is it a contravention of the law in Canada to live with and have sexual relations with several other persons, as long as you don't claim the union(s) to be a spousal bond.
Is not this the dilemma? Basically a moral question of where the law can draw the line between what constitutionally defines marriage and promiscuity.
A person who is married to one person and then marries another without going through divorce proceedings, can be charged with bigamy. When does bigamy occur in a common law marriage? Is not a spousal relationship between two persons, regardless of whether or not they themselves claim common law, still a common law relationship? If so, would not spousal relations between three or four persons then be classed as common law marriage, and hence fall under the definition of polygamy?
In Canada – the practice of polygamy has been tolerated largely because it is a religious practice and thus involves issues of religious freedom, and often the persons involved do not actually marry in the legal sense. A man will legally marry one woman, and ‘marry’ additional wives in what they consider to be a ‘spiritual’ sense.
The issue is not black and white, and the concept of plural marriages is not the norm for most people, but in a day when we're broadening our conception of marriage to include other previously unorthodox unions, why aren't plural marriages included or even considered? All the arguments being used against plural marriage are the same ones that appeared against interracial marriage, and which were used to legally ban gay marriage.
Polygamous relationships and polygamous families are going to exist regardless of the law. Personally, I do not agree with polygamous relationships, but if diminishing the stigma attached can lead to protecting the resulting children, then perhaps a relaxation of the laws would be of benefit.
What disgusts most people with this religious sect is not the polygamy but the child abuse, for which there are laws against.
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