Down in Kitty's Bassment

A flag-wavin', Earth-lovin', independent Pagan-in-a-giant-red-cornfield point of view. Believe it or not, there are some open minds in Nebraska. Oh, and I love NFL football too.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Practical Plural Marriage

Warren Jeffs hitting the big time of crime, the FBI's ten most wanted list, has brought a heightened awareness of polygamy to everyday Americans. Note that I am not in any way endorsing this man, his teachings or polygamy in general. I thought, however, that I would explore the issue on my own.

Warren Jeffs has got it all wrong. In his sect, teenage boys are run out of town in order to make the competition for the teenaged brides a little less stiff. These older men marry 5 or 10 young women and (as far as I can tell) keep 'em knocked up for most of their childbearing years. This results in tens and sometimes hundreds of children per family. Also (as far as I can tell) these girls and women are pretty much interchangeable. They cook, they clean, they submit to sex and raise babies to do the same. If the hubby gets a rebellious thought in his head, his little wives can be given to some other guy to treat the same way. HOW inefficient (and expensive) is this??? The way I see it, if you're going to practice polygamy to its full potential, you need to make it a better life system.

This will assume all parties are of the minimum age I think people should marry, which is 25. No person under 19 ever under any circumstances whould be roping themselves to another person for all eternity (presumably) for reasons I think I have probably already stated in previous entries. Give people a chance to get educated, get established, figure out who they are and what they want in a similarly mature partner (or in this case, partners).

Next, allow for equal opportunity. What's good for the gander is good (and perhaps even better) for the goose. If some guy can have multiple wives, then women should be allowed to have multiple husbands. This solves the problem of what to do with the surplus males. It does create problems in the old family tree, but I have not met too many guys who really wanted babies before their partners (or nagging mothers) told them it was either time to do so or was immininently going to happen. So you can either let it go, keep very good records, use one guy a cycle, or choose your breeders and get the rest fixed. This also reduces the number of offspring and therefore the expense of maintaining a large family.

Finally, choose your spouses by skill set. Why have a bunch of wives who just cook, clean and raise babies? Why not diversify your talent pool? Large families require a lot of cash coming in and make large bills. Marry an accountant. Polygamy is illegal, so the next wife you'll need will be a lawyer. Why feed your brood spaghetti ever night? A classically-trained chef could keep your palate satisfied. A professional organizer would come in handy, as well as an interior decorator. A teacher would be useful to help with all the schoolwork those kids will be doing. And then for those special occasions when you really want to impress your old school buddies, you need a trophy wife.

Similarly a woman could certainly get herself a useful group of husbands. A mechanic is absolutely necessary, as is a computer/electronics geek. An handyman would make an excellent choice, and you could always add guys with plumbing and wiring skills if handyman Hank was lacking. Again the accountant and lawyer would be a good idea. And those women who feel the need to splurge on luxuries could get their own hairdresser and fashion designer husbands, though these last two might be more interested in each other than in the wife. And a chef would be great. A personal trainer would be able to help you lose baby weight and burn off those chef-created calories. At least one of the men ought to be 6'5" or taller to change the lightbulbs and reach things in the top cupboards. (I have 10 or 12' ceilings and had to stack three books on top of my stepstool in order to change my kitchen lightbulb.) And finally, with all these guys, there is a far better than average chance that a woman will fall asleep satisfied. If one or two guys says they are tired or have a headache or just don't get the job done to your satisfaction (pun intended) you can always call in a back-up (or three). Notice I didn't add this on the men's list of wives because men are fairly simple creatures to entertain in the bedroom and are generally one-and-done.

Hopefully this Jeffs guy will get caught and his sect will be returned to normal civilization. When that happens, will plural marriage again be hidden from the public consciousness? Or has a "new" way of life firmly taken root in American society? If you are going to allow plural marriage, do it right. (Again, not an endorsement of that lifestyle, just playing with the idea.)

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