Christian Polygamy

What do you tell a person who has been living happily in a polygynous relationship as the second wife, has two small children, and now all of a sudden has to separate from her husband and sister wife because the hitherto happy family has realized, no doubt with the help of their Christian friends, that polygamy is wrong ?   The family wonders about moving to a place where wife #2 can live in a house or apartment of her own yet close to her former husband and sister wife so that the children still have both parents to grow up with and the poor second wife does not lose her husband’s and sister wife’s friendship because they are all really close.  But doing this of course would still pose a danger in their Christian friends’ opinion because who knows, they might be falling back into their terribly sinful polygamous lifestyle if the second wife does not take her children and move away and have her husband pay to support her and the kids from afar.

What would you tell wife #2 ?  What would you tell her husband ?  What would you tell the Christian “friends” who advise them ?

Well, I have advice for them all.

To the wife I would say:  Rejoice, there is nothing wrong with your marriage.  Return to your husband and sister wife and be happy and may Yahweh bless you with many more children.

To the husband I would say: Rejoice, take your two wives and be happy, and repent from the sinful idea of putting away your second wife.  Also, get rid of those so called friends who told you polygamy was wrong. They are of their father, the devil.

To the Christan friends I would say: Leave the poor family alone !  Your advice is wicked and ungodly, it creates pain rather than relieving it, it robs a wife of her rightful husband, and children of their father.  Keep your false teaching to yourselves and stop looking for biblical wisdom that helps you to argue against polygamy – there is no such thing because the bible tells you that polygamy is marriage, nothing more, nothing less.  Stay out of other people’s lives since you do not have biblical wisdom to offer, but only the adversary’s lies.

“Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a robe of many colors.   But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.”  (Gen 37:3-4)

You might wonder why in the world I am quoting this verse in connection to jealousy and polygamy.  And indeed, why in the world would I, since obviously, the jealousy of Joseph’s brothers that we are told about in Gen 37 has nothing to do with polygamy.  We are told specifically why Joseph’s brothers were jealous of their youngest sibling:  Their father favored him because he was the son of his old age.

There is, of course, a reason why I quote this in connection with polygamy.  It has been said by good Christian critics of polygamy that quite obviously, polygamy causes strife, not only between wives, but also between brothers, as we can see in the example of Joseph who gets sold to the Ishmaelites because his brothers are so jealous of him.  In order to blame this jealousy on the polygamous lifestyle the family led, one has to  assume that Israel loved Joseph more than his other children because he was the only (at that point) son of Rachel, the wife Israel favored. This assumption has its roots in the romantic ideas modern day Christians, just like the “rest” of society, have about love.

But Scripture clearly tells us that Israel loves Joseph “because he was the son of his old age”.  So we have another case here of people leaning unto their own understanding / assumptions rather than relying on the plain facts of Scripture.  It’s really a little ridiculous that something like this has to be pointed out, but experience has taught me that no argument is too silly for those good Christians who oppose polygamy that they would not use it.

I set up a new blog today titled “Sister, Where Art Thou ?”.  If you are interested in  knowing more about us, possibly thinking about joining our family even, Sister, Where Art Thou ? is the place to go.  You will find information about us, like what is most important for us, what life looks like, what our goals are.  Enjoy your stay, and come back often

We have been pondering survival in many ways over the past year or so, and on several of our sites, but very recently thought it might be an interesting topic for our esteemed readers of Joshuah’s House too.  So we wrote a little bit about the basics of survival (Survive !) and also about polygyny in this particular context (Polygyny as a Tool of Survival).

Enjoy.

This post is for those of you, should you exist, who wish to comment on the most recent addition to JoshuahsHouse.com, entitled Polygamy and the Bible.

http://joshuahshouse.com/polygamy-and-the-bible.html

An interesting look at “christian” opposition to polygyny.

Source: THE ORTHODOX JEWISH PRO POLYGAMY PAGE

CHRISTIAN OPPOSITION TO POLYGAMY

Christian commentators with a perverted perspective following in the Roman Catholic tradition have tremendous difficulty with Yaakov having four wives. This very point shows to what extent the Roman church is not a continuation of Jewish traditions, society and morality, but rather the continuation of Greek and Roman pagan traditions, society and morality.

Homosexuality was a major force in ancient Greece. The warrior class considered themselves to be super masculine, and therefore the highest object of their affections and attention was other males. The preferred relationship was a seasoned soldier with a young boy. They viewed women as “breeders”, an unfortunate necessity for continued population, but not ideal partners. In Sparta, each new recruit in the army (age twelve) was given to an older soldier to be his sex slave for two years. Plato and Socrates, the supposedly great Greek philosophers also were homosexuals, and lauded the practice. (See “The Pink Swastika” by Lively and Abrams pages 15-19)

Christianity somewhat discouraged homosexuality, but adopted entirely the Greek attitude towards women and normal relations between men and women. Christianity adopted the view that the normal relationship between a man and a woman is intrinsically sinful, can only be justified for the sake of having children, and that the whole institution of marriage is only a concession to the yetzer hara (evil inclination). Christianity holds that the ideal is for a man to castrate himself (Mathew 19:12), and barring that he should if at all possible be celibate. Even having one wife is a concession to the yetzer hara, and having more than one wife is out of the question.

This is in stark contrast to Jewish ideals. Homosexuality is a capital crime. Normal marital relations are not just a concession to the yetzer hara, they are an ideal. A posuk in Mishlei says “In your youth you should sow your seed, and also in old age you should not let your hand rest.” Chazal (our sages of blessed
memory) interpret this to mean that one should be married and have normal marital relations even when past child bearing years. In many communities, a man would not receive s’micha (rabbinical ordination) until he was married. A person cannot be a teacher of small children unless he is married. We consider the married state to be the ideal state.

The Christian opposition to polygamy is deep rooted and still virulent. Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon religion was murdered in an anti polygamy massacre about 160 years ago. Within this decade U.S. Government agents murdered a cult leader and 100 of his followers. One of the “charges” against him in demonizing him to the United States Public was that his group practiced polygamy. We do not support pseudo religions or cults, but we can see from these two incidents the background against which the Cherem Rabbeinu Gershom was made. Similarly, the Christians censored the siddur (Jewish prayer book) and as a result, several passages which were interpreted as being against the Christian religion
were taken out of the davenning. It is just in the last few years that the siddurim are being restored and Jews again feel free to go back to the proper prayers. So too, the takonah against polygamy which was done to avoid massacres by the Christians, will probably totally disappear when we realize that we no longer have to worry about what the Christians want from us. And perhaps this is another interpretation of what the Vilna Gaon meant when he said that eliminating the Cherem Rabbeinu Gershom would bring the g’ulah (redemption) closer. When we can worship Hashem and do his commandments without worrying what the gentiles think, we will be much closer to the redemption.

Mipnei chata’einu galinu mei’artzenu, because of our sins we were exile from our land. We went into exile among Edom, the descendants of Esav. Rome and the church were our framework for one thousand nine hundred years. During that period, we defended ourselves as best we could. Among the defenses was to ban polygamy, something considered by G-d and his Torah to be moral, fine and normal. Something considered fine and normal in the vast majority of human societies since the beginning of history (as if we need them for justification). But because of our exile in Europe, we picked up certain alien values. We
somehow took polygamy, something practiced by our Patriarchs, by King David, etc. throughout our history, and associated with gilui arayos, the depraved sexual practices which are practiced or condoned by the peoples surrounding us. We must divorce ourselves from this goyish attitude. Polygamy was part of the founding of our people, and was part of Hashem’s d-vine plan for us.

Full Article…

FOXNews.com

More than two months after being forced to return children from a polygamist sect to their parents, Texas child welfare authorities want eight youngsters put back in foster care.

Individual hearings for the four mothers of the children, who range in age from 5 to 17, are set to begin Monday.

Child Protective Services has asked a judge to return the children to foster care because their mothers have allegedly refused to limit their contact with men accused of being involved in underage marriages.

“We continue to have concerns in particular for these eight children, which is why we have asked the judge to review the case,” said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.

None of the children live at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, from where authorities took roughly 440 children into foster care in April. Officials said the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which established the ranch, was forcing girls into underage marriages and grooming boys to be adult abusers.
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Source: Deseret News

Lawyers for a member of the Fundamentalist LDS Church may be trying to prevent that person from testifying before a grand jury investigating crimes within the polygamous sect.

A hearing on a motion to quash a subpoena was held behind closed doors here on Friday. Little else is known about what happened at the hearing or why there is concern about anyone’s testimony.

A Deseret News reporter was not allowed inside the courtroom on Friday afternoon because the hearing involved matters of grand-jury secrecy, a bailiff said. Texas 51st District Judge Barbara Walther also would not release a copy of the motion to quash that was filed with the court.

As they left the courthouse, lawyers for both the FLDS and the Texas Attorney General’s Office declined to comment.

“I can’t talk about it,” said Michael Gross, a San Antonio attorney who represents FLDS members.

He said he could not even say whom he is representing.

“It’s confidential,” said Angela Goodwin, Texas assistant attorney general.

The grand jury is expected to meet in nearby Eldorado again next week, where more FLDS members may be called to testify. Six members of the church already have been indicted, including FLDS leader Warren Jeffs.

Source: Houston Chronicle

A West Texas judge on Friday agreed to end court oversight of 34 children from a polyamist group.

Child Protective Services indicated last week that it would no longer pursue legal action against the parents of 34 children because the agency felt they were not in immediate danger. On Friday, State District Judge Barbara Walther agreed to the motion, without comment.

Friday’s court action doesn’t mean CPS ends its involvement with the 10 families of the 34 children, all members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a group that allegedly practices underage marriage.

CPS may still investigate the families or deliver services.

The child protective agency typically drops custody cases either when a thorough investigation leads them to believe no abuse occurred, or when they conclude that despite past abuse, a caregiver can now protect a child without the court’s help, said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.

Meisner said she could not discuss the specific reasons for CPS’s decision to ask for an end to court oversight, nor the ages or gender of the 34 children.
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Source: New Scientist

Want to live a little longer? Get a second wife. New research suggests that men from polygamous cultures outlive those from monogamous ones.

After accounting for socioeconomic differences, men aged over 60 from 140 countries that practice polygamy to varying degrees lived on average 12% longer than men from 49 mostly monogamous nations, says Virpi Lummaa, an ecologist at the University of Sheffield, UK.

Lummaa presented her findings last week at the International Society for Behavioral Ecology’s annual meeting in Ithaca, New York.

Rather than a call to polygamy, the research might solve a long-standing puzzle in human biology: Why do men live so long?

This question only makes sense after asking the same for women, who – unlike nearly all other animals – live long past the menopause.
Enforced monogamy

One answer seems to be a phenomenon called the grandmother effect. For every 10 years a woman survives past the menopause, she gains two additional grandchildren, Lummaa says. It seems that doting on and spoiling grandchildren aids their survival, as well as furthering some of their grandmother’s genes.

Men, by contrast, can reproduce well into their 60s and even 70s and 80s, and most researchers assumed this explained their longevity. But Lummaa and colleague Andy Russell wondered whether other factors explained the long lifespan of men, such as a grandfather effect.

To test this possibility, the team analysed church-gathered records for 25,000 Finns from the 18th and 19th centuries. People tended to move little, no one practiced contraception and the Lutheran Church enforced monogamy.

Only widowed men could remarry, and if they had children with their new wife, they fathered more kids, on average, than men who married once.

But ultimately remarried men “don’t end up with any more grandchildren,” Lummaa says. “If anything the presence of a grandfather was associated with decreased survival of grandchildren.”

Perhaps, Lummaa adds, the children of the first mother lose out on food and resources that go to the second mother’s kids. “It’s kind of the Cinderella effect.”

Even fathers with only one wife provided no benefit to their grandchildren, a finding supported by previous research.

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Source: News Radio 1200 WOAI San Antonio Texas

A judge in San Angelo ruled this afternoon that a 14 year old girl who was ’spiritually married’ to Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints ‘prophet’ Warren Jeffs when she was 12 must be taken away from her mother and placed into foster care, 1200 WOAI news reports.

Merrianne Jessop, the daughter of sect leaders Merril and Barbara Jessop, is believed to be one of the two girls what Jeffs was shown kissing in a photograph seized from the Yearning for Zion Ranch in west Texas during a raid by police in April.

State District Judge Barbara Walther ruled that by allowing her daughter to participate in underage marriage, Jessop was not a suitable parent for the girl.

She allowed another of the Jessop’s children, an 11 year old boy named Benjamin to remain in her care. Texas Child Protective Services dropped custody motions against a third Jessop child, Samson, 17, because he is of legal age.

“We were able to present our evidence to Judge Walther, and she agreed that there were serious concerns,” CPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins told reporters after the hearing.

In the case of Merrianne Jessop, she ordered the child back to foster care. Benjamin can stay with his mother, but with some very specific conditions which will allow Child protective Services to monitor his safety.”

Crimmins said Judge Walther also ordered that both of the children not have any contact with Merril Jessop.

Crimmins said Walther ordered that Merrianne Jessop be turned over to state care immediately. He didn’t know if the girl has actually been turned over.

He says the state is prepared to present its evidence in the other children involved in motions to remove, although he said it two of the cases, an out of court settlement is possible.

The two children are among eight which Texas Child Protective Services officials have asked be taken away from their parents because the parents declined to adhere to a court approved conditions forbidding the children from having any contact with men involved in ‘underage marriage.’

The two children involved in today’s court proceeding are among the 460 children who were removed from the YFZ Ranch by state officials during a raid in April, and then returned to their parents by order of the Texas Supreme Court in June. Crimmins says motions to reclaim custody of dozens more FLDS children are likely to be field as the investigation continues.

Source: CNN.com

The mother of a girl allegedly given in marriage at age 12 to jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs refused to answer questions Monday from attorneys for the state.
Warren Jeffs and four followers were indicted in Texas last month for sexual assault of a child.

Warren Jeffs and four followers were indicted in Texas last month for sexual assault of a child.

The state wants to remove the girl, now 14, and an 11-year-old brother from the mother’s care, saying she has refused to guarantee the girl won’t have contact with men accused of being involved in underage marriages.

The girl’s father allegedly blessed her marriage to Jeffs and the underage marriages of at least two sisters.

The hearing was initially delayed while lawyers in the girl’s case and three others tried to negotiate settlements. Later, Texas Ranger Nick Hannah helped Child Protective Services introduce into record dozens of marriage records, photos and church records outlining family relationships that were seized from the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado.

The girl’s mother refused to answer roughly 50 questions asked by attorneys for the child welfare agency, including what constituted abuse, the names of her children and her relationship with their father.

“I stand on the Fifth (Amendment),” she said repeatedly in a flat tone.

Her attorney, Gonzalo Rios, said Jessop, 55, was exercising her right against self-incrimination because of the continuing investigation.

In documents submitted with the state’s custody petition, the 14-year-old girl is quoted as telling a caseworker that a young teenage girl marrying an older man “can’t be a crime because Heavenly Father is the one that tells Warren when a girl is ready to get married.”
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Source: KXAN.com

The ex-husband of a teen bride who helped convict polygamous church leader Warren Jeffs on counts of rape by accomplice — could face trial.

Allen Glade Steed is charged in Utah with one count of first-degree felony rape for his sexual relationship with Elissa Wall after the couple married in a 2001 religious ceremony.

She was 14 and he was 19, and both were members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Steed attorney Jim Bradshaw says plea negotiations recently ended with no agreement.

A hearing is October 22nd to determine if prosecutors have enough evidence for a trial.

If convicted, Steed could spend the rest of his life in prison.

He didn’t immediately comment.

Jeffs has also been indicted in Texas on sexual assault charges for an alleged relationship with an underage bride in 2006.

The Associated Press does not generally identify people who say they were sexually assaulted, but Wall has spoken publicly and published a nationally distributed book, “Stolen Innocence.”

Source: Salt Lake Tribune

While Texas authorities were initially investigating 20 cases of sexual assault and 50 bigamy cases involving FLDS members, it is unclear how many of those cases remain open four months later.

Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange confirmed the number of cases – outlined in an April e-mail – was accurate in the month officials raided the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado.

But she said she can’t confirm the current number of cases still being investigated. And Salt Lake City attorney Rod Parker, a spokesman for the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, thinks that more than likely the numbers have drastically changed as the investigation has progressed.
So far, the Schleicher County grand jury hearing evidence against sect members has indicted six men, including sect leader Warren S. Jeffs, on charges of sexual assault, bigamy and failure to report child abuse.

Parker said he wonders in particular about the volume of bigamy charges that had been predicted back in April.

Based on the number of men on the ranch in plural marriages, prosecutors likely would need to charge women in order to file 50 bigamy charges, he said – a departure from the typical bigamy suspect. He said women typically have been viewed as victims of bigamy, not perpetrators.
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The modern Pharisee had a few words to say about all of this…check it out.

Source: Deseret News

Texas Rangers are investigating 20 cases of sexual assault and about 50 bigamy charges involving members of the FLDS Church, the Deseret News has learned.

Texas officials on Monday confirmed the number of open cases but would not say how many suspects were involved.

“We are working with several other agencies on this investigation, and I do not know what ultimately the team will decide to do as far as possible charges filed,” Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange said.

The investigation has already prompted five indictments, including one against the church’s leader, Warren Jeffs. A Schleicher County grand jury will convene again next week and may consider further indictments.

Rod Parker, a Salt Lake attorney acting as spokesman for the Fundamentalist LDS Church, was surprised by the sheer number of sexual assault and bigamy cases.

And he insists there aren’t enough men practicing plural marriage at the Yearning For Zion ranch outside Eldorado, Texas, to come up with 50 bigamy investigations.

“I think they would have a problem coming up with 50 bigamy charges without charging the women,” Parker said.

Mange would not go into specifics on suspects.
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