Flaunting Polygamy

It comes as no surprise that Utah officials are investigating Kody Brown and his four wives. What choice do they have after the Lehi advertising salesman went on national television week after week to promote his lifestyle in a reality show? Was he expecting a free pass?

The Beehive State agreed to outlaw polygamy 120 years ago in order to join the United States. Mormons gave up the practice, but fundamentalist sects, including the Brown family, continue its practice today.

TLC, which has brought us midget families (the Foloffs) football team-sized families (the Duggars) and multiple birth families gone awry (the Gosselins), thought a man and his four wives would be a captivating new attraction. And indeed they are.

Rather than HBO’s fictional Big Love, TLC’s Sister Wives shows us real folks. Husband Kody is charming and affable in an aw-shucks sort of way. The wives all seem personable, caring, and intelligent. They go about their daily lives as if this is a normal family arrangement.

Of course they are delusional. The practice is illegal because it’s immoral. As my friend Jeremy said, “Why don’t they have a show about a drug lord’s family? It’s the same thing.”

These people all need counseling. One wife was upset that Kody kissed new youngest wife Robyn during their courtship rather than waiting until the “marriage.” News flash: taking on a fourth wife isn’t legal.

The show, at least the early episodes, depict the Browns — and their combined 16 children — as having unselfish emotional ties, devoid of jealousy and dysfunction. But why would any woman want to share her husband with three other women? And why would a man already sleeping with three women have the urge to bring a fourth under his roof? The whole idea is demeaning to women. And these homes usually aren’t so stress-free.

Earlier this year I interviewed Brian Mackert, who grew up as one of 27 children in a polygamous family in Salt Lake Valley. He told me the children — and the four wives — in the home constantly jockeyed for the affection, love, attention, and blessing of the father. The situation lends itself to an environment in which the patriarch has no sexual boundaries. Mackert’s father also sexually abused his son’s four sisters.