Polygamy is a suddenly a hot topic, gaining prominence in high profile TV  - HBO’s Big Love and reality show Sister Wives – as well as a Presidential candidate whose great-grandfather had five wives and 30 children.

Mitch Romney’s ancestor Miles P. Romney, a Brigham Young associate, founded a Mormon colony in Mexico in the 1880s after being forced to flee the US for – you guessed it – “practicing a polygamous lifestyle.”

Americans are alternately fascinated – when it’s Chloe Sevigny winning a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Mormon wife Nicki in Big Love – or repulsed – when it’s fundamentalist Mormon Warren Jeffs with his thing for under-age wives.

Plural Marriage Alienates Young Men

But a new study shows that despite what you see on reality TV, plural marriage isn’t very good for society.

Canadian research shows societies where one man has multiple wives have increased rates of rape, theft, murder, and substance abuse, caused by young low status males denied wives by older, wealthy men who hoard all the women.

University of British Columbia cultural anthropologist Joe Henrich says young men with no investment in family life tend to indulge in riskier behavior, or engage in crime to get wives – stealing to amass enough wealth to attract women, or kidnapping other men’s wives.

Women and Children Suffer Too

A Slate report on the study suggests polygamy doesn’t work too well for women and children either.

Having multiple wives is about power rather than sex; and because there are never enough women to go around, brothers and fathers control female relations lives as a “valuable commodity.”

Surveys of 69 polygamous cultures show home life is not exactly harmonious either. Despite the “sister-hood” claimed on reality TV, jealousy and conflict are common among the wives, the Canadian researchers report.

Monogamy “Works Better”

Children, too, appear to suffer in polygamous cultures. Children of poor men fared better than those of rich ones, studies of Mormon households showed, perhaps because they could afford fewer wives and had a more personal relationship with their off spring.

Men with lots of children and wives are spread too thin, and to make things worse, they’re compiling resources to attract their next wives instead of using it on their existing families, the report suggests.

In the Utah, social workers are dealing with increasing numbers of youths who’ve been exiled from Mormon communities for minor infringements like watching forbidden TV shows.

Time magazine reports the expulsions – some of them of teens as young as 13 – reduces the competition for wives for young girls, giving the old males a better chance of scoring teenage wives.

The Canadian study concludes that without considering any moral question, on grounds of social harmony and equity, monogamy appears to work better.

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About the author

Jenny W