Success and failure among polygamous families: the experience of wives, husbands, and children

In this study, we interviewed 10 polygamous families, all residing in a Bedouin Arab town in the south of Israel and consisting of 1 husband, 2 wives, and children. Five members were interviewed in each family: first wife, second wife, the oldest child of the first wife, the oldest child of the second wife, and the husband. Five families were considered well-functioning families and five as poorly functioning. Findings suggest that polygamy in both well-functioning and poorly functioning families is painful, particularly for wives. Yet, there are many ways and techniques that enable members of the family to function well. Among them are acceptance of polygamy as God's wish or destiny, equal allocation of resources among both families by the husband, separation between the two households, avoidance of "minor" conflicts and disagreements, maintaining an attitude of respect toward the other wife, and allowing open communication among all siblings, and among children and the other mother. We discuss the need to develop, implement, and evaluate family intervention programs for polygamous families among different communities in the world.     

Mind the Gap

Abstract

Monogamy and polygamy are often considered to be a binary pair. Yet this binary is only possible under very particular conditions. This essay explores those conditions which are elided in order to sustain the binary through analyses of cases from across Christian history. In doing so, we are able to see places were monogamy and polygamy blur and create what I term polygamous monogamy. In particular I pay attention to the way time — which is impacted by other elements from Christianity such as divorce, remarriage, and the afterlife — factors into numbering marriages.     

The lost tribes of Mansfield: how an English market town was won by the Mormons in mid-Victorian times

In mid-Victorian times the Mormon Church flourished in the English market town of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. Hundreds of poor families willingly abandoned everything familiar to make perilous Atlantic crossings to pioneer an American Zion. Although young people initially led the emigration, they were soon joined by parents and siblings whose sea passage was subsidised by the Mormon Migration Fund. The vigour of the Mormon Church (LDS) among miners and framework knitters is a phenomenon made more interesting by evidence that the practice of polygamy was known to the converts. In one case documented in this article Mansfield women followed their missionary to Utah to become his plural wives. The social geography of Mansfield as well as its unique spiritual legacy of dissidence created conditions similar to those that fuelled the extraordinary exodus of Welsh Mormon converts. In this article, unreliable LDS family history records are examined in the light of British genealogical sources, to reconstruct a small group of families swept up in enthusiastic emigration to Utah.