My 5 wives

TLC newest reality TV show features this formerly Mormon family with 5 wives and 24 children. They have withdrawn from the Mormon church and now practice a type of spirituality where they hand pick the beliefs they like from various religions.

Who the heck wants 5 wives and 24 children?

Quote: Pacomartin

They have withdrawn from the Mormon church and now practice a type of spirituality where they hand pick the beliefs they like from various religions.

Is there anyone with any belief system who does not pick and choose their beliefs?? Before you answer, any major religion has more sects, branches, denominations, orders and cults than a dog has fleas.

Quote: Nareed

Is there anyone with any belief system who does not pick and choose their beliefs?? Before you answer, any major religion has more sects, branches, denominations, orders and cults than a dog has fleas.

I suppose I should have said that they no longer are a member of "organized religion".

Organized religion, is religion as a social institution, in which belief systems and rituals are systematically arranged and formally established. Organized religion is typically characterized by an official dogma, and a codification of rules and practices.

I don't think that you can be Catholic without believing in the four dogmas about Mary, mother of Jesus: (1) Perpetual virginity, (2) Mother of God, (3) Immaculate Conception and (4) Assumption.

All Christians believe that Mary is the mother of Jesus and in the doctrine of the Virgin Birth. I don't think many Protestant churches necessarily believe in the other four dogmas.

Quote: Pacomartin

Who the heck wants 5 wives and 24 children?

Not I

Quote: s2dbaker

Not I

That HBO show "Big Love" has a guy with three wives. In the pilot he is going from one bed to another bed, but the fantasy quickly dissolved as he has to take Viagra to keep up, he now has three mortgages, three sets of insane inlaws, three houses and automobiles, one wife is overspending on her credit cards, and a pile of kids to put through college. He marries a fourth wife who divorces all of them. His oldest son from his first marriage is only 7 years younger than his 3rd and youngest wife, and naturally he gets the hots for her. In addition they are constantly trying to hide from the law and the neighbors.

Quote: Pacomartin

Who the heck wants 5 wives and 24 children?

Anyone who has 4 wives and 20 children, particularly if, as with most plural marriages, they are happy and contented living in a matriarchy. In most of the non-cultish plural marriages, the woman only owns one thing: her bed. This symbolizes that at all times her consent is required. Most decisions are made by the wives and the husband is informed of it or "consulted" in a manner that clearly indicates a vote has already been taken.

Quote: Fleastiff

Most decisions are made by the wives and the husband is informed of it or "consulted" in a manner that clearly indicates a vote has already been taken.

I suppose, but I can't find very good online descriptions of how these marriages work. I know that the Quran requires that each wife be treated equally. But I get the impression that the man often moves from home to home, and each wife runs her household alone without consulting with the other wives.

When I was in Bahrain, I saw houses with four turrets for a man with four wives. They look like mini-castles.

The ethno atlas lists society by monogamy or polygamy (polygny = multiple wives; polyandry=multiple husbands) and sororal (sister wives).

Marital Composition: Monogamy and Polygamy
36 Missing data (code .)
186 Independent nuclear, monogamous (M, .m)
453 Independent nuclear, occasional polygyny (N, .n)
69 Preferentially sororal, cowives in same dwelling (R, .r)
18 Preferentially sororal, cowives in separate dwellings (S, .s)
344 Non-sororal, cowives in separate dwellings (Q, .q)
157 Non-sororal, cowives in same dwelling (P, .p)
4 Independent polyandrous families (O, .o)

1998 World Cultures Ethnographic Atlas Codebook
Contact: J. Patrick Gray, Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI. 53201 jpgray@uwm.edu
G Murdoch (May 11, 1897 – March 29, 1985)

Koran requires each wife to be treated equally, but does not require each wife to be treated equally well treated.
Saudi Arabia usually has all the wives in one forbidden (harem) area of the home and often "wives" are really servants taking care of other wives children or other wives. So a legal wife might be viewed as a nanny or as a first wife's maid.

American polygamous marriages seem to function inversely with publicity about them. Same as communes. Beverly Hills Commune has writers and artists but they actually support themselves as writers and artists. Polygamous marriages that shun the limelight but involve women with high income seem to do well.

Many women separate their love life and their sex lives these days.

In some countries poverty is so endemic that a sex change industry is supported solely by prostitutes who wish to become females solely for financial reasons. Social distinctions are made since they simply do not have forms with boxes for Male and Female. Countries where there is a massive sex travel trade often have different views: consider Cyprus and middle class white UK Females. A substantial number of the men who service the females only do so for money, often their orientation is conflicted.

Quote: Fleastiff

consider Cyprus and middle class white UK Females. A substantial number of the men who service the females only do so for money, often their orientation is conflicted.

Iberia, was a documentary written by James A. Michener in 1968. He followed it with a novel called The Drifters three years later which follows six young characters as they travel together through parts of Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Mozambique.

With the first jets in the early 60's the primary destination for vacation excursions from the U.K. was the southern coast of Spain. Michener was fascinated with the fact that young middle class British women started doing what their male upper class British had been doing for 300 years with the Grand Tour, viewing southern Europe as a place to, in the words of the Rolling Stones, 'Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!'.

He interviewed a Spanish banker who every year would grow a beard, put and earring on and take a month off and pretend to be a gypsy, to see how many British women he could bed.

Quote: Pacomartin

He interviewed a Spanish banker who every year would grow a beard, put an earring on and take a month off and pretend to be a gypsy, to see how many British women he could bed.

That constituted the banker's annual vacation entertainment. In present times it seems the various men have no other jobs but servicing the travelers, male and female. It is a part of the sex trade, but we tend to view it differently since its Middle Class purchasers and a sunny beach resort and often the rental rate is unstated.

Many of the men in Cyprus have wives and many have male lovers but the sex industry involves their working life far more than their marriages or other relationships. When homicides occur, the English police often find a closed society that volunteers nothing about the dead English women or the various boyfriends and what their primary interests are.