How Can the Sister Wives Be Polygamists When it's Illegal in the US?

June 2024 · 3 minute read

Kody Brown has 4 wives. He's a Mormon, however even Mormon's banned polygamy a hundred years in the past. Is a form of polygamy prison in the US?

Source: Getty Images

he Brown family will get through the usage of a loophole, effectivey living like they're married 'spiritually' now not legally.

Sister Wives is a popular show, but more than likely now not for the reasons Kody Brown was to begin with thinking about. Perhaps Mr.Brown concept the look into his distinctive family lifestyles might normalize polygamic life, a practice that the Mormon church banned in 1890, but that a sect of fundamentalist Mormons still observe. Their religion initially held that a man who had more wives would be granted a higher degree of heaven. So, Sister Wives publicly broadcasts a polygamist family living in the United States. How is that even legal?

Even if it were felony, the display has done extra to showcase exactly how dysfunctional polygamy is. There's a limit to how many of us a person can sufficiently care for emotionally and physically. Besides the large price of residing, you would have to divide your time between four other households, all with multiple youngsters. While just about neglecting those youngsters, Kody Brown continues to be desperate to make more. As he mentioned in the past, he "just has so much love to go around." So a lot so that he was already on the lookout for a fifth spouse by the time his 3rd spouse Christine divorced him.

Source: Getty Images

The Brown family not too long ago went thru a divorce and a brand new marriage. Kody still has 4 wives but he exchanged one.

Is polygamy illegal in the US?

The United States made polygamy illegal in 1862, nearly thirty years sooner than the Mormon church assented on the topic. Nearly a hundred and sixty years later, the regulation hasn't modified. You can't legally be married to a couple of particular person, for tax functions. But that's it. You can nonetheless get 'married,' simply now not in a legally binding manner. Kody knows this. He's handiest legally married to his first wife, Meri. All of his different wives were 'spiritually married' to him. Meaning his marriages were known by means of the Mormon church however not the United States.

While it's been broadcast on the air that they are the use of this loophole, the United States hasn't made any moves to intrude and won't. There is a couple of family like this out there, and while they are slightly skirting the rules, the United States would possibly not get a divorce the ones households on the grounds of religious freedom. Besides, some should be glad in combination. But the Browns have now not been glad together, of past due. The display has become a form of empowerment for ladies, as the Sister Wives have progressively been breaking out in their patriarchal living situation.

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— Kody Brown (@realkodybrown) November 2, 2021

Instead of devoting all of his energies towards an ever-expanding circle of relatives, he must in all probability use his boundless love to deal with and nurture the circle of relatives he already has. Mormonism preaches a robust and happy circle of relatives existence, but if your fast circle of relatives has 22 participants and you only have one dad, you'll really feel about 1/22nd as important to him. In 1862 the United States believed that each slavery and polygamy have been evils in the colonies that needed to be rooted out in order to stop the social ills that arose from those practices. It was most effective because Utah outlawed polygamy in 1890 that the state used to be admitted into the Union in 1896.

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