Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Why would anyone want multiple spouses?

Transcript

Why would anyone want multiple spouses? · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
0:03
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
0:08
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
0:17
Speaker 1: the podcast The Swing. In this podcast on iTunes, is it? Yeah,
0:23
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know? I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
0:27
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant in the flesh. We're both wearing um robes
0:31
Speaker 1: and mustaches. Right, swinging swinging? Chuck as into swing? Yes,
0:39
Speaker 1: you have you ever heard of swinging? Yeah? I think
0:42
Speaker 1: I told the story once about the Atlanta Swingers Club
0:45
Speaker 1: was very close to well, no, it was just called
0:48
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Swingers Club. Well, it's pretty straight. I may
0:51
Speaker 1: have said this, but it was a long time ago.
0:52
Speaker 1: It was very close to my phone number growing up,
0:55
Speaker 1: and we used to get calls all the time for
0:58
Speaker 1: people seeking the Swingers Club. And being the Baptist family,
1:02
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, my mom basically made them
1:06
Speaker 1: seem like they were. It was the devil calling. I'm
1:09
Speaker 1: sure pretty funny. Yeah. So um, In this very special
1:13
Speaker 1: episode of Stuff you Should Know, we find out what
1:16
Speaker 1: fuel young Chuck Bryant's budding sexuality That turns out it
1:20
Speaker 1: was misplaced phone calls, the Swingers Club and continued sexual
1:23
Speaker 1: dysfunction because now that I'm adult, I'm like, they're just
1:27
Speaker 1: trying to have a good time. Yeah, hey man, it's
1:30
Speaker 1: not my deal. But you know, you don't want to
1:32
Speaker 1: say you don't want to put your hang ups on
1:34
Speaker 1: other people, right, Yeah, that's a drag. Well it depends, man. Um,
1:38
Speaker 1: we're talking today about polygamy, and there's a whole lot
1:41
Speaker 1: of people putting their hang ups on polygamists. They have
1:44
Speaker 1: a hard time here in the States, they do. But
1:46
Speaker 1: before we get into that, chuck um, before we get
1:50
Speaker 1: into the swinging this podcast around. Yes, um, well, let's
1:54
Speaker 1: get some administrative details out of the way. Yes, very
1:57
Speaker 1: important an announcement. This is like that. I know you're
1:59
Speaker 1: tired of hearing about it if you don't live in Atlanta,
2:01
Speaker 1: But this is the last Southeast one of the last
2:03
Speaker 1: chances we'll have to say. We're having our Trivia night
2:06
Speaker 1: in Atlanta October. It's a Wednesday block out from six
2:11
Speaker 1: pm two about eleven pm. Yes, you're going to show
2:14
Speaker 1: up to work on Thursday. Not on all four cylinders,
2:19
Speaker 1: depending on how many cylinders you have, um, but you're
2:22
Speaker 1: going to have had a great time the night before. Why, Chuck,
2:25
Speaker 1: what's going to have happened on Wednesday October? We're gonna
2:27
Speaker 1: play bar trivia and we're gonna have daily shows. John
2:31
Speaker 1: Hodgman sitting beside us, Yes, Onion editor in chief, Joe
2:35
Speaker 1: Randazzo and uh Aquitine Hunger for Sunce squid Billy's co
2:39
Speaker 1: creator Dave Willis Willis nice, Yes, and plus us and
2:44
Speaker 1: our families and Jerry, will your mom be there? Yeah?
2:47
Speaker 1: How adorable? And I hope my brother is your dad coming?
2:49
Speaker 1: I don't know. He finally went out and bought an
2:52
Speaker 1: iPod to listen to what his son was doing. Yeah.
2:55
Speaker 1: I don't think he's turned the thing on yet, and
2:57
Speaker 1: this is months ago. I think my mom will be
2:59
Speaker 1: didn't he show you the iPod? I bet him at
3:02
Speaker 1: my birthday play? Yeah? Yeah he did. He's like, look
3:05
Speaker 1: and you're like, what is that? Right? And it was
3:07
Speaker 1: a nano even if he said it's an iPod, Chuck,
3:10
Speaker 1: I'm surprised you don't know that you're in it. So
3:13
Speaker 1: that's what's going on Wednesday October to night before Tuesday,
3:16
Speaker 1: October twelve, Our buddies and de facto house band, The
3:19
Speaker 1: Henry Clay people are playing a show at the Drunken
3:22
Speaker 1: Unicorn on East Ponds, and we're gonna be there, and
3:25
Speaker 1: Jerry's gonna be there, and hopefully a couple of our
3:27
Speaker 1: buddies coming in from out of town Randazo, maybe Hodgman.
3:31
Speaker 1: We'll see and uh see some rock and roll and
3:35
Speaker 1: hang out with the band. They're cool guys. Yeah, it's
3:37
Speaker 1: like two nights of fun in a row. Yes, it's
3:40
Speaker 1: going to be a fun week. Yes. Yeah, So that's
3:43
Speaker 1: what's going on this October twelve in preparation of Halloween.
3:49
Speaker 1: Now back too, look at me? Yes, all right, so
3:51
Speaker 1: let's um get back to polygamy Chuck. Remember Warren Jeff's Yeah,
3:56
Speaker 1: thanks for this article, because I didn't really have an
3:57
Speaker 1: intro except for mention of Big Love, which I've never
4:01
Speaker 1: seen of you. You know, I watched Big Love initially
4:04
Speaker 1: and bailed on it, not because it was bad, it
4:06
Speaker 1: just didn't have the time. But I've heard it's really good. Sure. Yeah,
4:09
Speaker 1: well it's acclaimed series hbos. You can't go wrong with
4:13
Speaker 1: Mr Bill Paxson. That kys a class act. But back
4:17
Speaker 1: to Warren Jeff's Yeah, not to be confused with Bill Paxton.
4:20
Speaker 1: Bill Paxson plays a polygamist on tv UM Warren Jeff's
4:24
Speaker 1: is a polygamist in real life. Right at the very
4:27
Speaker 1: least he is. Uh. He's been indicted for allegedly fostering uh,
4:33
Speaker 1: the marriage between a fourteen year old and a seventeen
4:37
Speaker 1: year old. Right, fourteen year old and her nineteen year
4:39
Speaker 1: old cousin. Yes, some would call him a peederist, Josh,
4:42
Speaker 1: and not just a polygamist. He couldn't be a pederist
4:44
Speaker 1: unless he is a homosexual. Because Petter asked, you refer
4:47
Speaker 1: specifically to the child realistation of boys. I didn't know that. Well,
4:52
Speaker 1: then he would be a child molester. Then, in many
4:54
Speaker 1: people's eyes, allegedly Chuck allegedly allegedly allegedly. Well, he's in
4:59
Speaker 1: jail for it, he's convicted of it. He has not
5:01
Speaker 1: been convicted. He goes to he goes to trial in November. Well,
5:06
Speaker 1: he was found what was he found guilty of? Then
5:09
Speaker 1: apparently they're they're having a hearing to find out if
5:11
Speaker 1: he's one and the same as the person they were
5:13
Speaker 1: looking for. No, no, no, that's in Texas. He's been
5:15
Speaker 1: in jail for the uh. He was sentenced to two
5:18
Speaker 1: consecutive prison terms of five years following his two thousand
5:22
Speaker 1: seven conviction in Utah. Now there's new charges in Texas well.
5:28
Speaker 1: They're trying to get him extra out into Texas and uh,
5:31
Speaker 1: he much more serious charges were thrown out. I'm sorry,
5:36
Speaker 1: Texas has a much more serious charges. So they threw
5:38
Speaker 1: out even more charges in Arizona. This guy charges all
5:41
Speaker 1: over the place, and so he is in jail in
5:44
Speaker 1: Utah and they the governor signed an extradition weren't send
5:48
Speaker 1: him to Texas in mid August, and but they denied it.
5:52
Speaker 1: So they're it's they're waiting on a court ordered extradition basically,
5:56
Speaker 1: and that may bring him five to nine nine years
5:59
Speaker 1: that he and up to ten tho dollar five assaulted
6:03
Speaker 1: a child under seventeen. Yeah, so that makes much child molester.
6:06
Speaker 1: He's got a lot of stuff against him. I'm gonna
6:09
Speaker 1: just say allegedly all over the place because i have
6:11
Speaker 1: to I have to admit I'm not percent of what
6:13
Speaker 1: he's been charged with or convicted of. Okay, Um, but
6:18
Speaker 1: get having charges all over the place is nothing new
6:21
Speaker 1: for polygamists. Uh. Jeff's is the leader of a UM
6:28
Speaker 1: sect of Mormonism called fundamentalist Mormons. Um, we should say
6:33
Speaker 1: that the Church of Latter day Saints, the Mormons, although
6:37
Speaker 1: UM frequently associated with polygamy, haven't really done so since
6:42
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. We'll get into um, the Mormons in
6:45
Speaker 1: in there there there polygamist lifestyle later. But I think
6:52
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to say that, you know, Jeff's
6:54
Speaker 1: is not representative of the Mormon Church as a whole. No,
6:57
Speaker 1: not at all. You know, UM, let's the basis. Okay,
7:00
Speaker 1: let's talk about polygamy. What is it? There's like I
7:03
Speaker 1: think people have a give the definition of polygamy chock well.
7:08
Speaker 1: Before the definition, let me just say that most Westerners
7:11
Speaker 1: don't identify with anything but in monogamy. But culturally, worldwide
7:16
Speaker 1: and in history, monogamy is in in in the minority. Actually, actually,
7:21
Speaker 1: polygamous society is outnumbered by the hundreds monogamous societies. And
7:26
Speaker 1: monogamy appears to be a Christian hang up because if
7:28
Speaker 1: you go to um areas before the Christians got there,
7:32
Speaker 1: pretty much everybody historically was polygamus right then the Christians
7:37
Speaker 1: arrived and all of a sudden, there's monogamy everywhere. Rights
7:40
Speaker 1: you know that yes, and among mammals as well, humans
7:44
Speaker 1: are as monogamists are in the vast minority. Only about
7:49
Speaker 1: three to five percent of all mammals engage in monogamy.
7:53
Speaker 1: The rest are polygamus. Right, So definition wise, I believe
7:57
Speaker 1: it's polygamy is more than one spouse po gani is
8:01
Speaker 1: more than one wife correct, Yes, So polygamy doesn't attach
8:06
Speaker 1: gender or legality to it, it's just right. And then Paulyandry, yes,
8:12
Speaker 1: um is a woman having more than one husband, which
8:16
Speaker 1: Jerry beforehand. It's not like women can have more than
8:20
Speaker 1: one husband, especially if you are a member of the
8:24
Speaker 1: Nimba people and Nepaul. Yeah, women there have and I
8:28
Speaker 1: just think this is like a sitcom waiting to happen.
8:31
Speaker 1: Women there have to marry all the brothers of a family. Yeah,
8:35
Speaker 1: so if you marry one brother, you get Darryl and Darryl.
8:39
Speaker 1: If you marry Larry, you get Daryl and Darryl as well.
8:42
Speaker 1: And it makes sense in a way for them because,
8:45
Speaker 1: uh it allows them to pull their resources as a
8:47
Speaker 1: family hold onto family land, uh take care of their children. Well,
8:52
Speaker 1: it's very culturally specific, right, because the these this group
8:56
Speaker 1: of people, there's about um members of the Niambian culture. UM.
9:01
Speaker 1: And they simply don't have enough land for each man
9:04
Speaker 1: to go out on his own form a homestead in
9:07
Speaker 1: a family. So it's it's very culturally bound. The reasons
9:11
Speaker 1: for this UM and apparently it's fairly beneficial. There's a
9:14
Speaker 1: lot of consolidation of family's bloodline and resources. Um. All
9:19
Speaker 1: of the brothers have access sexual access to the woman,
9:23
Speaker 1: to the wife, right, we should That's something you're gonna hear.
9:25
Speaker 1: A lot of sexual access, which means you you can
9:28
Speaker 1: get it on. They have access to getting sexual access.
9:32
Speaker 1: Each brother does. But they said they do allow them
9:36
Speaker 1: to specify, like you were the father of this child. Right,
9:40
Speaker 1: they differentiate who's the father of which children? But they
9:43
Speaker 1: all yeah, they all um contribute to caregiving child. Um.
9:49
Speaker 1: And also it's hierarchical. Hierarchical. I was wondering how like
9:53
Speaker 1: who chose the wife right, um, And it's the oldest
9:57
Speaker 1: brother and he's definitely the dominant husband. You know, if
10:02
Speaker 1: I would rewrite the rules though, if I was a tribesman,
10:05
Speaker 1: I would say we should go with like the best
10:08
Speaker 1: looking brother of the brother who has the most game. Yeah,
10:11
Speaker 1: it's so we can all get the most attractive life
10:14
Speaker 1: it has if the oldest brother is like a real nudge.
10:17
Speaker 1: But that's what I'm saying, like they just in case
10:19
Speaker 1: the oldest brother is a nudge, he's still the dominant husband.
10:22
Speaker 1: Although I'll bet just sibling rivalry trans is pain cultural. Yeah,
10:26
Speaker 1: so I'm sure that there there is like one that
10:29
Speaker 1: has game. Is like, I got more sexual access to
10:32
Speaker 1: her than Tony is a sitcom man, except it would
10:36
Speaker 1: be like they would americanize it. It would be like
10:39
Speaker 1: for American like guys from Brooklyn Brothers that would find
10:43
Speaker 1: this woman tribesman and bring her to America and I'll
10:46
Speaker 1: marry her. I could see Ed Burns doing that. I
10:49
Speaker 1: could do. Yeah, you'd make them Catholic though, So Chuck,
10:52
Speaker 1: that's the Nambian people. They are definitely a rarity, even
10:57
Speaker 1: even rarer the Amazon Zoe tribe. Right. Yeah, that's multiple everything, right,
11:02
Speaker 1: multiple husbands and wives at the same time. It's just
11:05
Speaker 1: basically like it's it's a free for all in the jungle.
11:12
Speaker 1: But it's not fair of us to make fun of that.
11:14
Speaker 1: We're just laughing because I'm not making fun of ye.
11:16
Speaker 1: That's their culture again. They think we're weird. Again, I
11:20
Speaker 1: think that, man, this is such a potential. This is
11:26
Speaker 1: just potential dynamite here. Yeah, but it's just different cultures.
11:29
Speaker 1: They see your dad and his nanopod. But it's not
11:33
Speaker 1: just that like there, there is there's some real there's
11:37
Speaker 1: very real social like as in society um and biological
11:45
Speaker 1: benefits to polygamy. But there's also some very um negative
11:51
Speaker 1: social and personal drawbacks to right. Yeah, we'll get to
11:55
Speaker 1: those two. Yeah, so well, what are we going to
11:57
Speaker 1: talk about? Oh? Yeah, who else does it? Well, we'll
11:59
Speaker 1: continue you with the nomenclature, just so you know. There's
12:02
Speaker 1: also a bigamy that just catches legality to polygamy. Yeah.
12:06
Speaker 1: Bigamy is is the law. It's when a man illegally
12:09
Speaker 1: marries more than one woman and that is definitely illegal
12:11
Speaker 1: in the United States. Well, it's the practice of polygamy
12:14
Speaker 1: in a place where it's illegal illegal, Like no one, no,
12:19
Speaker 1: in the United States, you can't practice polygamy, except I
12:22
Speaker 1: think there's very small pockets in like Utah and Arizona
12:25
Speaker 1: where it's actually legal. Yeah. Colorado City, Arizona, I think,
12:30
Speaker 1: is one of like two places in the country where
12:31
Speaker 1: it's actually legal, but federally is still illegal, right, I
12:36
Speaker 1: I don't know, I have to say, but say, like
12:38
Speaker 1: in Georgia, if there's no such thing as polygamy, there's
12:41
Speaker 1: only biggam because polygamy is illegal. See yeah, okay, now
12:44
Speaker 1: I get it. I just fun to make sure. Uh.
12:47
Speaker 1: Biggest oftentimes are accidental bigamists, like they will marry before
12:53
Speaker 1: their divorce is complete. But there's also and they called
12:56
Speaker 1: it rare. It's not as rare as you think when
12:59
Speaker 1: the dude leads a double life and literally has two families.
13:03
Speaker 1: And uh, it's rare according to the population. But if
13:07
Speaker 1: you look up in Google new search, you'll find plenty
13:09
Speaker 1: of it. Or listened to the Grateful Dead song Friend
13:12
Speaker 1: of the Devil, that'll give you the right idea that'll
13:14
Speaker 1: get you on the troll. That's one of the few
13:16
Speaker 1: dead songs. I like it. It's a good one. I
13:19
Speaker 1: like easy Wind really, And uh, what is polyamory as
13:24
Speaker 1: being in love? That's just more than one person? That
13:27
Speaker 1: is just um. I don't get that communal familial living
13:32
Speaker 1: where everyone is everyone has sexual access to everybody else.
13:39
Speaker 1: There's not necessarily and usually isn't any marriage involved. Um.
13:44
Speaker 1: But it resembles like um a polygamist household in that
13:48
Speaker 1: there's like a group of people all contributing to the
13:51
Speaker 1: raising of children. And probably in most cases there would
13:55
Speaker 1: be a differentiation of whose kid is who's But it's
13:59
Speaker 1: like a mini taking a village to raise a child. Again,
14:04
Speaker 1: I don't know how good this is necessarily for child rearing. UM,
14:09
Speaker 1: we're not gonna make that call, but we can't say.
14:11
Speaker 1: There's a study in Malaysia that's emerging as brand new. UM.
14:15
Speaker 1: This thing was just published in July, UM and it's
14:19
Speaker 1: a very it's the groundbreaking study. Actually. UM Malaysia it
14:24
Speaker 1: allows polygamy among its Muslim um population because it's UM.
14:31
Speaker 1: It's Muslim law that you can have up to four
14:35
Speaker 1: wives as long as you can care for all of
14:36
Speaker 1: them equally and treat them all equally well. And apparently
14:40
Speaker 1: that's that's like what you're supposed to do. It's not
14:42
Speaker 1: always the case, but I think like a significant portion
14:45
Speaker 1: of the children in polygamous households in this Malaysian study, UM,
14:50
Speaker 1: there's something like people involved in the study and uh
14:55
Speaker 1: five hundred and twenty three of the children in the households,
14:59
Speaker 1: So like a signific if we get majority of the
15:01
Speaker 1: children said that they wouldn't engage in a polygamoust lifestyle
15:05
Speaker 1: even though they're Muslims, right once they marry. Interesting, Yeah,
15:09
Speaker 1: so I don't know how much that will change as
15:12
Speaker 1: they get older though, especially as you know status is
15:15
Speaker 1: attached to it. Well, the article here said that westernization,
15:20
Speaker 1: like younger Muslims think polygamy is kind of old fashioned. Yeah,
15:24
Speaker 1: maybe that's something to do with it too, And I'm
15:27
Speaker 1: sorry I got that wrong. Five three children were involved
15:29
Speaker 1: in the study of them and said that they wouldn't
15:32
Speaker 1: engage in polygamy. That's overwhelming. So polygamy as the idea
15:36
Speaker 1: that a man is very successful and should spread his
15:41
Speaker 1: seed while he is on the earth because he is
15:44
Speaker 1: rich and successful to breed more young and rich and
15:47
Speaker 1: successful people, and that a lot of times has been
15:50
Speaker 1: endorsed when you have a minority of a population, like
15:55
Speaker 1: early Jewish doctrine were in favor of it. Right, it's
15:58
Speaker 1: a really um it's a really quick way to jump
16:01
Speaker 1: start your population, to to get your society going. Yeah,
16:06
Speaker 1: it's I was surprised. It said some Orthodox Jewish sex
16:08
Speaker 1: still advocate poly which I was impressed to find the
16:14
Speaker 1: confirmation of that. I saw that some gave it up recently,
16:18
Speaker 1: but I had trouble finding that I did too, except
16:22
Speaker 1: for here. And I think China did that too, because
16:27
Speaker 1: there Vietnam, oh, viet Well, Vietnam and China did it
16:30
Speaker 1: too under Confucianism. China did it under Confucianism. Vietnam did
16:34
Speaker 1: it for practical reasons. It's not legal in Vietnam, but
16:38
Speaker 1: it's widely practiced because the place is so ridiculously war
16:41
Speaker 1: torn that they actually need to restart their population as well. Um.
16:46
Speaker 1: So again, it does have a lot of advantages, specifically
16:52
Speaker 1: um polygyny. Right, yea, let's talk about why I took
16:56
Speaker 1: and again from this moment until we're not talking about
17:01
Speaker 1: it anymore. We're speaking biologically, impersonally, without any any social aspects. Biologically,
17:09
Speaker 1: polygamy makes uttering complete sense, especially if you subscribe to
17:13
Speaker 1: the Dawkins selfish gene idea. Right. What's that, Well, it's
17:18
Speaker 1: the it's the concept that we are merely vehicles for
17:21
Speaker 1: our genes that are driven to basically exists in immortality
17:27
Speaker 1: by passing its line down as frequently as possible. Okay, um,
17:32
Speaker 1: through polygamy, through polygyny, I should say polygyny. Sorry, I
17:38
Speaker 1: think you could probably say it both ways. I just
17:40
Speaker 1: think we're confusing people through polygyny with the g n
17:44
Speaker 1: um a man can well, a man can reproduce far
17:50
Speaker 1: more frequently. Healthy stallion could basically reproduce several times a
17:56
Speaker 1: day every day if he had sexual access to a
18:02
Speaker 1: lot of opulating women. Okay, thank you for that, man Um.
18:07
Speaker 1: A woman can only reproduce once every nine months after
18:12
Speaker 1: becoming pregnant, and she may have twins triplets naturally speaking,
18:17
Speaker 1: you know, um, octuplets are and uh the results that
18:21
Speaker 1: they're a product of of modern science of fertility drugs.
18:24
Speaker 1: But say you have twins, maybe triplets top usually Irish
18:28
Speaker 1: twins at the max. Okay, what is that? No Irish
18:32
Speaker 1: twins is when you have like two kids or nine
18:34
Speaker 1: months apart. Okay, I'm thinking of a Baker's dozen. So
18:39
Speaker 1: chuck um. So poly polygyny makes sense, and that if
18:43
Speaker 1: you want to, if you want to build up your population,
18:45
Speaker 1: a bunch have a bunch of ovulating women and guys
18:48
Speaker 1: to reproduce with them. Right, So it makes sense biologically,
18:52
Speaker 1: but socially it's a catastrophe. Right. Well, one thing is
18:58
Speaker 1: hard to talk about is actually statistics, because Mormon plural
19:03
Speaker 1: marriage is not the kind of thing that's documented to
19:05
Speaker 1: keep it very private and secret, so you can't go
19:08
Speaker 1: out and get a bunch of statistics on abuse. But
19:12
Speaker 1: the the stories that you hear in anecdotal evidence suggests
19:15
Speaker 1: that a lot of abuse happens, like girls that are
19:20
Speaker 1: fourteen years old getting married to men that are years old.
19:26
Speaker 1: That's that's definitely one dark part of the dark side
19:30
Speaker 1: of polygamy. Polygony specifically polygyny also um places men in
19:35
Speaker 1: a position of absolute authority just by even just by
19:40
Speaker 1: bestowing that possibility of the men. The man having more
19:44
Speaker 1: than one wife, but all those wives are devoted to
19:46
Speaker 1: the one man. He's automatically at the top of the
19:48
Speaker 1: hierarchy just by virtue of the arrangement, and just sociologically speaking,
19:53
Speaker 1: being put in that kind of situation would probably make
19:56
Speaker 1: you drunk with power just being an average person. A
20:00
Speaker 1: lot of men abuse that position, sure, and even if
20:02
Speaker 1: they don't want to abuse it. The women in a
20:04
Speaker 1: in a polygamous scenario, they don't have their subservient. They're
20:08
Speaker 1: so dependent, they don't have like the skills. Even if
20:12
Speaker 1: they do escape there their scenario, they don't have the
20:15
Speaker 1: skills to make it on their own because they've they've
20:17
Speaker 1: just been the subservient wife right the whole time. Right,
20:20
Speaker 1: that's no good. A lot of people who have moved
20:23
Speaker 1: on from polygamist um marriages usually use the word escape
20:28
Speaker 1: or often use the word escape they escaped from a
20:31
Speaker 1: polygamous marriage, not I got divorced or anything like that. UM.
20:35
Speaker 1: And then also just economically speaking, there's a division of
20:40
Speaker 1: one guy's paycheck over you know, however many wives and
20:45
Speaker 1: children he has. He may have more than one house,
20:48
Speaker 1: if he's if he's you know, doing pretty well for himself,
20:51
Speaker 1: you know, maybe he's an engineer or something. Um, but
20:54
Speaker 1: it's still one person's paycheck supporting all of these people.
20:58
Speaker 1: And you see that problem with currently. According to the
21:01
Speaker 1: article who wrote this one, Grabster Grabster wrote this one,
21:05
Speaker 1: he points out that UM Colorado City, Arizona, which is
21:09
Speaker 1: one of I think two places where you can be
21:12
Speaker 1: a polygamist um is basically single handedly puts a strain
21:19
Speaker 1: on the um welfare services of the state of Arizona.
21:23
Speaker 1: They're going broke. Yeah, UM. So that's that's another aspect
21:26
Speaker 1: of it, as well as the economics of it. And
21:30
Speaker 1: then apparently jealousy too. First wives, rather than being the
21:35
Speaker 1: dominant wife out of all of the other ones, are
21:38
Speaker 1: often just kind of left to the side, get younger
21:42
Speaker 1: and younger and younger. Is that right? Yeah, there's That's
21:44
Speaker 1: like a big plot line of the show, I know,
21:46
Speaker 1: is that some of the wives become jealous of each
21:48
Speaker 1: other and like a love triangle. Would I don't see
21:50
Speaker 1: how you couldn't, you know, even even among the most
21:54
Speaker 1: devoted polygamist families. I don't see how that couldn't happen,
21:59
Speaker 1: Like jealousy so ingrained. I'm the most non jealous person
22:03
Speaker 1: on the face of the earth, But that would even
22:05
Speaker 1: make me jealous, Yeah, I would think, yes, or maybe not,
22:10
Speaker 1: I think it would, so chuck um you ready, let's
22:14
Speaker 1: talk about the Mormons. All of you guys have been
22:16
Speaker 1: very good and patient. Thank you for waiting. Let's do Mormons. Man. Yes,
22:21
Speaker 1: this is a brief overview of Mormonism. We're not gonna
22:23
Speaker 1: maybe we could do a whole podcast one day on them.
22:26
Speaker 1: But it's a religion founded by Joseph Smith Jr. Early
22:30
Speaker 1: eight hundreds, and he claimed to have received messages, divine
22:34
Speaker 1: messages from an angel that directed him to golden plates
22:38
Speaker 1: that basically told the story that he translated to eventually
22:42
Speaker 1: become the Book of Mormon. So the Book of Mormon
22:44
Speaker 1: was written, and um, it does not contain specific info
22:48
Speaker 1: about polygamy, but supposedly he uh practice polygamy after receiving
22:54
Speaker 1: another personal divine message saying if you go out and
22:57
Speaker 1: have multiple wives, then you will be a king in heaven. Yeah.
23:02
Speaker 1: Basically to be a successful Mormon, you kind of had
23:05
Speaker 1: to practice polygamy. It was a directive from God, although
23:09
Speaker 1: again it says nothing about it in the Book of Mormon, right,
23:12
Speaker 1: nothing about it. There's a cool website, um called the
23:15
Speaker 1: Wives of Joseph Smith, and it chronicles they have thirty
23:20
Speaker 1: four by my account, um. But it has each name
23:23
Speaker 1: has like their age, whether they had a husband at
23:27
Speaker 1: the time they were married to Joseph Smith, um. And
23:30
Speaker 1: then there's like a link each one's hyper linked to
23:32
Speaker 1: a bio on them. It's very cool to make sure
23:34
Speaker 1: that these people, these women aren't forgotten because they were
23:38
Speaker 1: part of the founding establishment of Mormon. Right. Um, So
23:43
Speaker 1: he had thirty four. From what I could see, some
23:45
Speaker 1: of them were sisters and the youngest was fourteen. Right.
23:51
Speaker 1: One of his kids, Joseph Smith the third, was like
23:54
Speaker 1: one of the Malaysian Muslim kids, because when he came
23:57
Speaker 1: of eight, he was like, I am not practicing pa.
24:00
Speaker 1: I've seen it firsthand and I'm not doing it. Yeah,
24:02
Speaker 1: and he's he's he made a separate sect, right. He
24:04
Speaker 1: branched off because he wanted to stay down with the Mormons.
24:08
Speaker 1: He just wasn't down with polygamy exactly. Uh. A guy
24:11
Speaker 1: who was down with polygamy was the successor to Joseph
24:14
Speaker 1: Smith Jr. The founder of the Church of Latter day Saints,
24:19
Speaker 1: a guy named Brigham Young the old notice as a
24:21
Speaker 1: university he does. Yeah, Brigham Young had even more children
24:25
Speaker 1: or even more wives. Apparently he had fifty five from
24:28
Speaker 1: what I understand UM and his were much more verifiable.
24:33
Speaker 1: Apparently Joseph Smith didn't ever publicly cop to polygamy. Brigham
24:37
Speaker 1: Young was like, check out the fifty five right, They're
24:41
Speaker 1: like hello, right, hello. By the mid eighteen hundreds, it
24:46
Speaker 1: was so prominently fifty five times you should said fifty
24:49
Speaker 1: five times. Um. In the mid eighteen hundreds, there were
24:52
Speaker 1: so many Mormons though, doing this that the Church, while
24:54
Speaker 1: they didn't officially like bring it into their literature. They
24:58
Speaker 1: did acknowledge it in an official announcement. Plural marriage, right,
25:04
Speaker 1: so you've got plural marriage. In eighteen fifty two. Four
25:08
Speaker 1: years later, something big happened. The Republican Party, a Lincoln's
25:13
Speaker 1: party at the time. I think he may have been
25:14
Speaker 1: an attorney still, but he was a log cabin Republican,
25:20
Speaker 1: right because he lived in a log cabin and right.
25:24
Speaker 1: But so Lincoln's party came up with their eighteen fifty
25:27
Speaker 1: six platform, and it was based largely upon ridding the
25:31
Speaker 1: United States of the twin relics of barbarism, Chuck. One
25:35
Speaker 1: was slavery, the other was polygamy. Right right up, there
25:38
Speaker 1: was slavery. Yeah, these were the twin evils that were
25:41
Speaker 1: basically keeping the United States backward from progressing forward. Um
25:46
Speaker 1: Supreme Court agreed, yeah, and that launched a what you
25:50
Speaker 1: could call an unconstitutional government assault on the religion of
25:55
Speaker 1: Mormonism because of polygamy. They want to quash it. Basically, Yeah,
25:58
Speaker 1: Utah try. Utah applied for statehood during this and they're like,
26:01
Speaker 1: not as long as you got polygamist, did you get
26:03
Speaker 1: rid of your polygamous Mormons? And we'll deal with you
26:06
Speaker 1: after that, Um, they criminalized cohabitation, right, what else? They
26:13
Speaker 1: prevented you from voting or holding office if you were
26:16
Speaker 1: a polygamist. That is so illegal, it's ridiculous, you know.
26:19
Speaker 1: And they actually froze church assets then even more illy
26:23
Speaker 1: confiscated their property. Yeah. So they really persecuted the Mormons
26:27
Speaker 1: based on polygamy um. And whether you agree with polygamy
26:31
Speaker 1: or not, the United States government and eventually the government
26:35
Speaker 1: and the state of you taught, really really went after
26:38
Speaker 1: them for their practice of polygamy. Well. Yeah, and that's
26:42
Speaker 1: why the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter day
26:45
Speaker 1: Saints they were having so many problems and they wanted
26:48
Speaker 1: statehood and all that that. They said, you know what, Uh,
26:52
Speaker 1: we've had another revelation and we're going to change that doctrine,
26:56
Speaker 1: So can we be a state now? Right? And they said, yes,
26:59
Speaker 1: you m b um. They set up specific laws there
27:02
Speaker 1: though that they didn't do in other states. If you
27:05
Speaker 1: were if you were um caught as far as the
27:08
Speaker 1: Mormons were concerned, after I think eight ninety when they
27:12
Speaker 1: said that they had that other revelation, Um, they said,
27:15
Speaker 1: if you were caught practicing plural marriage, you would be
27:17
Speaker 1: excommunicated from the church, and some people said, well, you
27:21
Speaker 1: know what, Um, you can't excommunicate us if we form
27:24
Speaker 1: our own sect. And that from that was born the
27:27
Speaker 1: Mormon fundamentalists, who still practiced to this day. Warren Jess
27:31
Speaker 1: as a Mormon fundamentalist, this group, and they believe that
27:35
Speaker 1: the Joseph Smith Jr. Had a divine revelation, and they
27:38
Speaker 1: believe that they will be kings in heaven if they
27:40
Speaker 1: had multiple wives. Right, So there's um, there's some defense
27:44
Speaker 1: to this among Mormon fundamentalists. One I don't buy it. No.
27:49
Speaker 1: One is that if you have more than one wife
27:52
Speaker 1: you are less likely to Philander. I don't buy it. No,
27:57
Speaker 1: that's just it would be more likely to Philander, wouldn't you.
28:00
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean to me, and I've been
28:03
Speaker 1: around cheating and seen it and stuff like that. I
28:07
Speaker 1: think you're either you're going to do that or you're not.
28:10
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if you're single, if you're married, if
28:13
Speaker 1: you're have three wives or one wife, you're either a
28:16
Speaker 1: cheater or you're not a cheater. But I think that
28:19
Speaker 1: I think that there is a I I think socially
28:23
Speaker 1: structurally that absolute power makes you more of an arrogant person.
28:28
Speaker 1: And I could see a person because cheating is a choice.
28:32
Speaker 1: Either do it or you don't. You make a decision
28:34
Speaker 1: not to do it, or you make the decision to
28:36
Speaker 1: do it. Right. Um, everybody wants to think. I think
28:41
Speaker 1: that you could, um make the case that so socially again, sociologically,
28:48
Speaker 1: somebody is um, somebody in that position could, I would say,
28:53
Speaker 1: be more likely to cheat. Uh, extra hands to care
28:58
Speaker 1: for children? Come on, everybody's got two hands, and you
29:02
Speaker 1: multiply that by eight, Why don't you got sixteen hands
29:05
Speaker 1: to care for you? But you multiply the six kids
29:07
Speaker 1: times eight wives and you have forty eight kids. So
29:10
Speaker 1: it's like you maybe if you didn't have those kids,
29:13
Speaker 1: you would need extra wives to care for them. Um.
29:16
Speaker 1: And also we should probably take a break here and
29:18
Speaker 1: say real quick, we're like, Chuck and I are both monogamists,
29:23
Speaker 1: right Chuck, Oh yeah, okay. So but at the same time,
29:28
Speaker 1: if there is a form of polygamy where it's not detrimental,
29:33
Speaker 1: I don't really see that in this article. I don't.
29:36
Speaker 1: I don't have to each his own. It's the s
29:38
Speaker 1: Y s K motto. It's so long as it doesn't
29:41
Speaker 1: hurt somebody else, she should probably be the supplement to
29:43
Speaker 1: the S Y s K model, right, right, But it
29:46
Speaker 1: is illegal in these United States. Federally, there are several
29:50
Speaker 1: laws passing the eighteen hundreds. UH. State wise, there are
29:54
Speaker 1: only a handful of states that actually have specific laws.
29:57
Speaker 1: But Utah is one of them, and that was out
30:00
Speaker 1: of the deal I think specifically outlining yeah, when they
30:04
Speaker 1: were grand statehood and UH. They get around it though
30:07
Speaker 1: a lot of times because they don't officially marry more
30:11
Speaker 1: than one woman. They will live a married lifestyle. They
30:14
Speaker 1: and then they will have a ceremony. They just won't
30:16
Speaker 1: have like an official marriage certificate. Right, they'll have they'll
30:19
Speaker 1: be they'll be married by the church in the church's eyes. Right. Um.
30:23
Speaker 1: There are other ways to do this too. There's that
30:26
Speaker 1: whole cohabitation thing. It's pretty hard to prosecute. And uh
30:32
Speaker 1: until nineteen fifty three, polygamous families groups were um rated
30:39
Speaker 1: by the police routinely in the Utah and out west UH.
30:43
Speaker 1: And then in nineteen fifty three this one raid had
30:46
Speaker 1: um there's a backlash against it because the the media
30:51
Speaker 1: published pictures of children being sent off the foster homes
30:54
Speaker 1: wives being left without husbands, and all of a sudden
30:58
Speaker 1: sentiment turned a little bit again raids on polygamous families.
31:01
Speaker 1: So I think the rest of the United States is
31:05
Speaker 1: very confused on how to approach polygamy. So, okay, chuck
31:10
Speaker 1: anything else. I just do have one little funny thing
31:13
Speaker 1: about our our trivia night in Atlanta. I got nothing
31:18
Speaker 1: else on that. I do have one more thing there is, Um,
31:21
Speaker 1: there's been established a couple of things about the benefits
31:24
Speaker 1: of monogamy STDs. However, they've developed uh deter polygamy. Okay, right,
31:33
Speaker 1: and um there's actually a genetic, uh evolutionary basis to monogamy.
31:40
Speaker 1: You have more sexual access to one person. So you
31:44
Speaker 1: may be only be able to reproduce nine months at
31:47
Speaker 1: a time, but you can do it many many times
31:50
Speaker 1: during your reproductive years, and your um the caregiving for
31:56
Speaker 1: those children will probably be of higher quality because you're
31:59
Speaker 1: a cohe's a family unit. Okay, so that's my little thing.
32:04
Speaker 1: That's your last bit. Yeah, what do you have about
32:07
Speaker 1: our I forgot to mention this, but Matt Frederick of
32:10
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know. Fame came by
32:13
Speaker 1: and apparently there was a former nora ad h employee
32:18
Speaker 1: named Stanley Fulham, who claims that on October, the night
32:23
Speaker 1: of ar Trivia, in major cities over the United States,
32:27
Speaker 1: massive UFO fleets will be overhead sending us warnings about
32:32
Speaker 1: global warming. That's awesome, And I said, is this guy crackpot?
32:36
Speaker 1: And heard overheard Matt said he worked for nora ad
32:40
Speaker 1: Like that means like, there's no way you could be
32:41
Speaker 1: a crackpot. Of course, he said it with tone firmly
32:44
Speaker 1: in cheek. But I think that's just yet another reason
32:47
Speaker 1: come out October because we're on the roof of this
32:50
Speaker 1: joint and you will be able to see some UFOs
32:53
Speaker 1: that are broadcasting messages like warming sucks, save new the
32:57
Speaker 1: polar Bear kind of stuff. So I just think that's
32:59
Speaker 1: a LEO was right. So people are out there, they're like,
33:03
Speaker 1: I would want to come to that trivia, but I
33:04
Speaker 1: would love to come see a UFO overhead. That's like,
33:08
Speaker 1: we just doubled the number of people are going to
33:10
Speaker 1: be here. I think. So. Um. Actually it'll be that
33:13
Speaker 1: girl from say by the Bell the college years. I
33:16
Speaker 1: don't know that she had her big film break in
33:18
Speaker 1: Independence Day. She ran up to the top of the
33:21
Speaker 1: roof in l A and had that sign was cheering
33:25
Speaker 1: independence and then pal maybe she'll be at our trivia event,
33:29
Speaker 1: let's hope. So all right, if you have anything you
33:32
Speaker 1: want to let us know about. You know what, if
33:34
Speaker 1: you are a member of a polygamist, polyamorous, bigamist, or
33:39
Speaker 1: swinger family, Seriously, we're very curious. Is there anyway that
33:44
Speaker 1: polygamy can be beneficial to a family union? If you
33:49
Speaker 1: have personal experience with this kind of thing, send us
33:51
Speaker 1: an email, seriously, let us know. You can send it
33:55
Speaker 1: to stuff podcast. Wait a minute, chuck, wait, never been
34:00
Speaker 1: said anything about the search bar. We shouldn't even be
34:03
Speaker 1: here right now, you're ready? Okay? Um, If you want
34:07
Speaker 1: to know more about polygamy, uh, you can type that
34:10
Speaker 1: word in p O L Y G A M Y
34:14
Speaker 1: right into the swinging search bar swing and search bart
34:17
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Now, if you want to
34:19
Speaker 1: send us that email, you can send it to stuff
34:21
Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on
34:29
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff
34:32
Speaker 1: works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out
34:35
Speaker 1: our blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page.
34:41
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the Reinvented two thousand twelve camera,
34:44
Speaker 1: it's ready. Are you