POLYGAMY — THE ULTIMATE FEMINIST LIFESTYLE

Copyright © May 1997 by Elizabeth Joseph

From a speech given at Creating a Dialogue: Women Talking to Women, a conference organized by the Utah chapter of the National Organization for Women. Joseph is an attorney, a journalist, and lives in Big Water, Utah.

I've often said that if polygamy didn't exist, the modern American career woman would have invented it. Because, despite its reputation, polygamy is the one lifestyle that offers an independent woman a real chance to have it all.

One of my heroes is Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon, a physician and a plural wife who in 1896 became the first woman legislator in any U.S. state or territory. Dr. Cannon once said, You show me a woman who thinks about something besides cookstoves and washtubs and baby flannels, and I will show you nine times out of ten a successful mother. With all due respect, Gloria Steinem has nothing on Dr. Cannon.

As a journalist, I work many unpredictable hours in a fast-paced environment. The news determines my schedule. But am I calling home, asking my husband to please pick up the kids and pop something in the microwave and get them to bed on time just in case I'm really late? Because of my plural marriage arrangement, I don't have to worry. I know that when I have to work late my daughter will be at home surrounded by loving adults with whom she is comfortable and who know her schedule without my telling them. My eight-year-old has never seen the inside of a day-care center, and my husband has never eaten a TV dinner. And I know that when I get home from work, if I'm dog-tired and stressed-out, I can be alone and guilt-free. It's a rare day when all eight of my husband's wives are tired and stressed at the same time.

It's helpful to think in terms of a free-market approach to marriage. Why shouldn't you or your daughters have the opportunity to marry the best man available, regardless of his marital status?

I married the best man I ever met. The fact that he already had five wives did not prevent me from doing that. For twenty-three years I have observed how Alex's marriage to Margaret, Bo, Joanna, Diana, Leslie, Dawn, and Delinda has enhanced his marriage to me. The guy has hundreds of years of marital experience; as a result, he is a very skilled husband.

It's no mystery to me why Alex loves his other wives. I'd worry about him if he didn't. I did worry in the case of Delinda, whom I hired as my secretary when I was practicing law in Salt Lake City. Alex was in and out of my office a lot over the course of several months, and he never said a word about her. Finally, late one night on our way home from work, I said, Why haven't you said anything about Delinda?

He said, Why should I?

I said, She's smart, she's beautiful. What, have you gone stupid on me?

They were married a few months later.

Polygamy is an empowering lifestyle for women. It provides me the environment and opportunity to maximize my female potential without all the tradeoffs and compromises that attend monogamy. The women in my family are friends. You don't share two decades of experience, and a man, without those friendships becoming very special.

I imagine that across America there are groups of young women preparing to launch careers. They sit around tables, talking about the ideal lifestyle to them in their aspirations for work, motherhood, and personal fulfillment. A man might be nice, they might muse. A man on our own terms, they might add. What they don't realize is that there is an alternative that would allow their dreams to come true. That alternative is polygamy, the ultimate feminist lifestyle.

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