Family+-+'My+Husband's+Nine+Wives'

Family: "My Husband's Nine Wives"

Polygamy isn't usually something we think about in our everday lives, only in passing in a few select conversations, usually about how crazy the whole deal seems or how we would never imagine why a women would want to be put into that situation and, of course, what guy wouldn't want it. I think Joseph's view from the inside offers a different story, one that needs to be taken into account when discussing polygamy. Personally, I had never thought of all the little things that could be considered a compromise: making my own lunch, doing the dishes, watching my younger brothers, I always felt as though it meant I was taking responsibility and helping out the family, not once did it was an "arrangement that requires so many tradeoffs". Joseph offers a change a view, and by doing so, she points out some of the benefits of being a polygamist family: the wives have more time to persue their careers, the kids will always be looked after, and a sense of strong family ties. Now, there's a part of me that wants to stop there and say that despite the benefits the women enjoy, the man still has the better deal; he gets to be über lazy. Except, he doesn't; all his time is off with his family, all the time, and while Joseph's husband, Alex, is a writer, not every polygamist father is; he could be off persuing a career of his own, and that just adds to his work effort. All in all, the polygamist setup, as described by Joseph, feels very similar to the parenting style of black families in "From Changing American Families". A community effort goes towards raising the child, or children, and everyone has a part while still living their own life, except this time it is an actual family bound by marriage rather than a community that is close enough to consider everyone family.

However, this is only one tale about a lifestyle that many other people partake in. Everything in Joseph's life may be wonderful, but that doens't necessarily make it so for everyone else, and if there's room for abuse and neglect in a two-parent household, there's that same room multiplied by the number of wives in a polygamist household. Conversely, just because what we hear about polygamist families, in the news or otherwise, is usually bad, doesn't mean that it's that way across the board. I honestly think that the polygamist lifestyle is just as complex as the monogamous lifestyle, but in different ways. Joseph points out that for a women in the traditional monogamous family struggle with "successfully juggling a career, motherhood, and marriage" while making the claim that polygamy eliminates the pressure by spreading it through multiple women. However, if Joseph wants to be with Alex, she has to schedule an appointment, and if he's unavailable, she has to ask the other wives to rearrange their schedule. This system isn't less complex, it's more communal. Instead of feeling the pressure of an individual, the family faces the pressure of a group trying to work together and co-exist. Even though she appears to work well with the other wives, nine is a fair-sized group, problems are bound to come up, and all of that group "politics" can still add up in stress levels just like a single-husband woman can appear to have it together but still be stressed out. Of course, I'm only speculating, but this is my general opinion. Though I find very odd, to say the least, that Joseph asserts that polygamy eliminates the need to compromise in the household, she specifically mentions that she has to comprosmise with the other wives over Alex's schedule, saying that the biggest lesson is "there's always another night", which is one of the biggest points in compromise: there's always a next time to do what you want.

Even though Joseph is clearly biased towards her side of the story, I think she shows some reason when she says, the obvious truth, "plural marriage is not for everyone". Joseph's writing suggests that polygamy can be hard on the man, and that the lack of constant intimacy is definitely not everyone's style; therefore a lot of thinking should be done before commiting to a plural marriage. I personally wouldn't do it (okay, who am I kidding, I'm a teenage guy, there's that voice that says "do it") but I wouldn't do it because I personally think the kids need to learn how to do some of the stuff that the mothers are always taking care of. Without it, they'll walk into the world without valuable lessons, and I think knowing how to do laundry, even if via laundromat, is a very valuable lesson that the kids in Joseph's home wouldn't really figure out. After all, no kid really does that kind of stuff without it being our of necessity. Furthermore, and I may rant here, I think that the whole "it's not for everyone" angle is the one thing neither side of any argument can actually grasp. Take the gay-marriage debate, okay so I'm going to go a little off topic here; on the no-side, no one realizes that no one is making them go gay and that not everyone is going to come out just because it gets legalized. On the opposite side, there's the pro-gay group that insists that nearly everyone is gay: from Shakespeare to Abraham Lincoln to anyone who is important to history to Bert and Ernie (seriously, they're muppets, drop it.) What the group doesn't realize is that just because they want to see acceptance of homosexuality, doesn't mean that everyone needs to get in touch with an inner fairy.