Anglican Mainstream

Beliefs have consequences.  Here, beliefs are having profound, in-your-face consequences. 

The situation – of state funding of polygamous family units – which has begun here in the UK (see the Telegraph article, ‘Multiple wives will mean multiple benefits’, below), has already occurred in ’progressive’ Canada. However, I would like to consider a different dimension here which may surprise some. As an international bellwether, where Canada goes the rest of the world tends to follow.

In 2006, two studies commissioned by the Canadian Justice Department called for the decriminalization and regulation of polygamy.  The two commmunities which would obviously benefit here are ‘fundamentalist’ Mormons in BC who are openly polygamous – no more closets, thanks! – and polygamous Islamic immigrants.  But as Stanley Kurtz explains, the point has not been to advance outdated patriarchal notions of alpha males and subservient female harems etc. (would committed feminists do this?!) but rather to destabilize traditional marriage by undermining its privileged, normative status. ’The way to abolish marriage, without seeming to abolish it, is to redefine the institution out of existence.’ 

The widespread and socially acceptable phenomenon of cohabitation across Canada (slightly less so in the US) and now in the UK (note the recent British Social Attitudes Survey) indicates that marriage is indeed losing ground. The issue is actually not the advancement of polygamy, but rather the further weakening and marginalization of what society has understood by marriage. See Stanley Kurtz’s excellent ‘Dissolving Marriage:  If everything is marriage, then nothing is’, February 01, 2006: http://www.nationalreview.com/kurtz/kurtz200602030805.asp  

And finally, interesting corroboration for this argument comes from the survey results of the prestigious Vanier Institute of the Family.  One of the questions of a relatively recent survey on family values asked about ideal family type.  

‘Such “family tolerance” tends to be more common among younger than older adults, and among women than men. Regionally, it characterizes about 5 in 10 people in B.C., 4 in 10 in Quebec and Ontario, and slightly fewer numbers in the Atlantic and Prairies regions …  The findings also show that a noteworthy number of Canadians – particularly younger people – are fairly receptive to expanding the concept of marriage to include people who want to have multiple marriage partners.  Significantly, most of these family tolerance-minded people are individuals who, personally, have not abandoned the traditional marriage ideal. Rather, they don’t feel any need to impose their family dreams on others who do not have either the same family aspirations or family outcomes.’ http://www.vifamily.ca/newsroom/press_jan_25_05.html

And now to that Telegraph article on the our present situation in the UK: 

Multiple wives will mean multiple benefits

By Jonathan Wynne-Jones
Last Updated: 1:52am GMT 04/02/2008

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