October 5, 2010 • 34 mins
Polygamy, the practice of having multiple spouses, is mostly illegal in the United States but very common in other parts of the world. In this episode, Josh and Chuck discuss polygamy and touch on a host of related topics, from Mormonism to monogamy.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast The Swing. In this podcast on iTunes, is it? Yeah,
(00:23):
Stuff you Should Know? I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant in the flesh. We're both wearing um robes
and mustaches. Right, swinging swinging? Chuck as into swing? Yes,
you have you ever heard of swinging? Yeah? I think
I told the story once about the Atlanta Swingers Club
(00:45):
was very close to well, no, it was just called
the Atlanta Swingers Club. Well, it's pretty straight. I may
have said this, but it was a long time ago.
It was very close to my phone number growing up,
and we used to get calls all the time for
people seeking the Swingers Club. And being the Baptist family,
it was like, you know, my mom basically made them
(01:06):
seem like they were. It was the devil calling. I'm
sure pretty funny. Yeah. So um, In this very special
episode of Stuff you Should Know, we find out what
fuel young Chuck Bryant's budding sexuality That turns out it
was misplaced phone calls, the Swingers Club and continued sexual
dysfunction because now that I'm adult, I'm like, they're just
(01:27):
trying to have a good time. Yeah, hey man, it's
not my deal. But you know, you don't want to
say you don't want to put your hang ups on
other people, right, Yeah, that's a drag. Well it depends, man. Um,
we're talking today about polygamy, and there's a whole lot
of people putting their hang ups on polygamists. They have
a hard time here in the States, they do. But
before we get into that, chuck um, before we get
(01:50):
into the swinging this podcast around. Yes, um, well, let's
get some administrative details out of the way. Yes, very
important an announcement. This is like that. I know you're
tired of hearing about it if you don't live in Atlanta,
But this is the last Southeast one of the last
chances we'll have to say. We're having our Trivia night
in Atlanta October. It's a Wednesday block out from six
(02:11):
pm two about eleven pm. Yes, you're going to show
up to work on Thursday. Not on all four cylinders,
depending on how many cylinders you have, um, but you're
going to have had a great time the night before. Why, Chuck,
what's going to have happened on Wednesday October? We're gonna
play bar trivia and we're gonna have daily shows. John
(02:31):
Hodgman sitting beside us, Yes, Onion editor in chief, Joe
Randazzo and uh Aquitine Hunger for Sunce squid Billy's co
creator Dave Willis Willis nice, Yes, and plus us and
our families and Jerry, will your mom be there? Yeah?
How adorable? And I hope my brother is your dad coming?
I don't know. He finally went out and bought an
(02:52):
iPod to listen to what his son was doing. Yeah.
I don't think he's turned the thing on yet, and
this is months ago. I think my mom will be
didn't he show you the iPod? I bet him at
my birthday play? Yeah? Yeah he did. He's like, look
and you're like, what is that? Right? And it was
a nano even if he said it's an iPod, Chuck,
I'm surprised you don't know that you're in it. So
(03:13):
that's what's going on Wednesday October to night before Tuesday,
October twelve, Our buddies and de facto house band, The
Henry Clay people are playing a show at the Drunken
Unicorn on East Ponds, and we're gonna be there, and
Jerry's gonna be there, and hopefully a couple of our
buddies coming in from out of town Randazo, maybe Hodgman.
We'll see and uh see some rock and roll and
(03:35):
hang out with the band. They're cool guys. Yeah, it's
like two nights of fun in a row. Yes, it's
going to be a fun week. Yes. Yeah, So that's
what's going on this October twelve in preparation of Halloween.
Now back too, look at me? Yes, all right, so
let's um get back to polygamy Chuck. Remember Warren Jeff's Yeah,
(03:56):
thanks for this article, because I didn't really have an
intro except for mention of Big Love, which I've never
seen of you. You know, I watched Big Love initially
and bailed on it, not because it was bad, it
just didn't have the time. But I've heard it's really good. Sure. Yeah,
well it's acclaimed series hbos. You can't go wrong with
Mr Bill Paxson. That kys a class act. But back
(04:17):
to Warren Jeff's Yeah, not to be confused with Bill Paxton.
Bill Paxson plays a polygamist on tv UM Warren Jeff's
is a polygamist in real life. Right at the very
least he is. Uh. He's been indicted for allegedly fostering uh,
the marriage between a fourteen year old and a seventeen
(04:37):
year old. Right, fourteen year old and her nineteen year
old cousin. Yes, some would call him a peederist, Josh,
and not just a polygamist. He couldn't be a pederist
unless he is a homosexual. Because Petter asked, you refer
specifically to the child realistation of boys. I didn't know that. Well,
then he would be a child molester. Then, in many
people's eyes, allegedly Chuck allegedly allegedly allegedly. Well, he's in
(04:59):
jail for it, he's convicted of it. He has not
been convicted. He goes to he goes to trial in November. Well,
he was found what was he found guilty of? Then
apparently they're they're having a hearing to find out if
he's one and the same as the person they were
looking for. No, no, no, that's in Texas. He's been
in jail for the uh. He was sentenced to two
consecutive prison terms of five years following his two thousand
(05:22):
seven conviction in Utah. Now there's new charges in Texas well.
They're trying to get him extra out into Texas and uh,
he much more serious charges were thrown out. I'm sorry,
Texas has a much more serious charges. So they threw
out even more charges in Arizona. This guy charges all
over the place, and so he is in jail in
(05:44):
Utah and they the governor signed an extradition weren't send
him to Texas in mid August, and but they denied it.
So they're it's they're waiting on a court ordered extradition basically,
and that may bring him five to nine nine years
that he and up to ten tho dollar five assaulted
a child under seventeen. Yeah, so that makes much child molester.
(06:06):
He's got a lot of stuff against him. I'm gonna
just say allegedly all over the place because i have
to I have to admit I'm not percent of what
he's been charged with or convicted of. Okay, Um, but
get having charges all over the place is nothing new
for polygamists. Uh. Jeff's is the leader of a UM
(06:28):
sect of Mormonism called fundamentalist Mormons. Um, we should say
that the Church of Latter day Saints, the Mormons, although
UM frequently associated with polygamy, haven't really done so since
the nineteenth century. We'll get into um, the Mormons in
in there there there polygamist lifestyle later. But I think
(06:52):
I think it's fair to say that, you know, Jeff's
is not representative of the Mormon Church as a whole. No,
not at all. You know, UM, let's the basis. Okay,
let's talk about polygamy. What is it? There's like I
think people have a give the definition of polygamy chock well.
Before the definition, let me just say that most Westerners
don't identify with anything but in monogamy. But culturally, worldwide
(07:16):
and in history, monogamy is in in in the minority. Actually, actually,
polygamous society is outnumbered by the hundreds monogamous societies. And
monogamy appears to be a Christian hang up because if
you go to um areas before the Christians got there,
pretty much everybody historically was polygamus right then the Christians
(07:37):
arrived and all of a sudden, there's monogamy everywhere. Rights
you know that yes, and among mammals as well, humans
are as monogamists are in the vast minority. Only about
three to five percent of all mammals engage in monogamy.
The rest are polygamus. Right, So definition wise, I believe
(07:57):
it's polygamy is more than one spouse po gani is
more than one wife correct, Yes, So polygamy doesn't attach
gender or legality to it, it's just right. And then Paulyandry, yes,
um is a woman having more than one husband, which
Jerry beforehand. It's not like women can have more than
(08:20):
one husband, especially if you are a member of the
Nimba people and Nepaul. Yeah, women there have and I
just think this is like a sitcom waiting to happen.
Women there have to marry all the brothers of a family. Yeah,
so if you marry one brother, you get Darryl and Darryl.
If you marry Larry, you get Daryl and Darryl as well.
(08:42):
And it makes sense in a way for them because,
uh it allows them to pull their resources as a
family hold onto family land, uh take care of their children. Well,
it's very culturally specific, right, because the these this group
of people, there's about um members of the Niambian culture. UM.
And they simply don't have enough land for each man
(09:04):
to go out on his own form a homestead in
a family. So it's it's very culturally bound. The reasons
for this UM and apparently it's fairly beneficial. There's a
lot of consolidation of family's bloodline and resources. Um. All
of the brothers have access sexual access to the woman,
to the wife, right, we should That's something you're gonna hear.
(09:25):
A lot of sexual access, which means you you can
get it on. They have access to getting sexual access.
Each brother does. But they said they do allow them
to specify, like you were the father of this child. Right,
they differentiate who's the father of which children? But they
all yeah, they all um contribute to caregiving child. Um.
(09:49):
And also it's hierarchical. Hierarchical. I was wondering how like
who chose the wife right, um, And it's the oldest
brother and he's definitely the dominant husband. You know, if
I would rewrite the rules though, if I was a tribesman,
I would say we should go with like the best
looking brother of the brother who has the most game. Yeah,
(10:11):
it's so we can all get the most attractive life
it has if the oldest brother is like a real nudge.
But that's what I'm saying, like they just in case
the oldest brother is a nudge, he's still the dominant husband.
Although I'll bet just sibling rivalry trans is pain cultural. Yeah,
so I'm sure that there there is like one that
has game. Is like, I got more sexual access to
(10:32):
her than Tony is a sitcom man, except it would
be like they would americanize it. It would be like
for American like guys from Brooklyn Brothers that would find
this woman tribesman and bring her to America and I'll
marry her. I could see Ed Burns doing that. I
could do. Yeah, you'd make them Catholic though, So Chuck,
(10:52):
that's the Nambian people. They are definitely a rarity, even
even rarer the Amazon Zoe tribe. Right. Yeah, that's multiple everything, right,
multiple husbands and wives at the same time. It's just
basically like it's it's a free for all in the jungle.
But it's not fair of us to make fun of that.
(11:14):
We're just laughing because I'm not making fun of ye.
That's their culture again. They think we're weird. Again, I
think that, man, this is such a potential. This is
just potential dynamite here. Yeah, but it's just different cultures.
They see your dad and his nanopod. But it's not
just that like there, there is there's some real there's
(11:37):
very real social like as in society um and biological
benefits to polygamy. But there's also some very um negative
social and personal drawbacks to right. Yeah, we'll get to
those two. Yeah, so well, what are we going to
talk about? Oh? Yeah, who else does it? Well, we'll
(11:59):
continue you with the nomenclature, just so you know. There's
also a bigamy that just catches legality to polygamy. Yeah.
Bigamy is is the law. It's when a man illegally
marries more than one woman and that is definitely illegal
in the United States. Well, it's the practice of polygamy
in a place where it's illegal illegal, Like no one, no,
in the United States, you can't practice polygamy, except I
(12:22):
think there's very small pockets in like Utah and Arizona
where it's actually legal. Yeah. Colorado City, Arizona, I think,
is one of like two places in the country where
it's actually legal, but federally is still illegal, right, I
I don't know, I have to say, but say, like
in Georgia, if there's no such thing as polygamy, there's
only biggam because polygamy is illegal. See yeah, okay, now
(12:44):
I get it. I just fun to make sure. Uh.
Biggest oftentimes are accidental bigamists, like they will marry before
their divorce is complete. But there's also and they called
it rare. It's not as rare as you think when
the dude leads a double life and literally has two families.
And uh, it's rare according to the population. But if
(13:07):
you look up in Google new search, you'll find plenty
of it. Or listened to the Grateful Dead song Friend
of the Devil, that'll give you the right idea that'll
get you on the troll. That's one of the few
dead songs. I like it. It's a good one. I
like easy Wind really, And uh, what is polyamory as
being in love? That's just more than one person? That
(13:27):
is just um. I don't get that communal familial living
where everyone is everyone has sexual access to everybody else.
There's not necessarily and usually isn't any marriage involved. Um.
But it resembles like um a polygamist household in that
(13:48):
there's like a group of people all contributing to the
raising of children. And probably in most cases there would
be a differentiation of whose kid is who's But it's
like a mini taking a village to raise a child. Again,
I don't know how good this is necessarily for child rearing. UM,
(14:09):
we're not gonna make that call, but we can't say.
There's a study in Malaysia that's emerging as brand new. UM.
This thing was just published in July, UM and it's
a very it's the groundbreaking study. Actually. UM Malaysia it
allows polygamy among its Muslim um population because it's UM.
(14:31):
It's Muslim law that you can have up to four
wives as long as you can care for all of
them equally and treat them all equally well. And apparently
that's that's like what you're supposed to do. It's not
always the case, but I think like a significant portion
of the children in polygamous households in this Malaysian study, UM,
there's something like people involved in the study and uh
(14:55):
five hundred and twenty three of the children in the households,
So like a signific if we get majority of the
children said that they wouldn't engage in a polygamoust lifestyle
even though they're Muslims, right once they marry. Interesting, Yeah,
so I don't know how much that will change as
they get older though, especially as you know status is
(15:15):
attached to it. Well, the article here said that westernization,
like younger Muslims think polygamy is kind of old fashioned. Yeah,
maybe that's something to do with it too, And I'm
sorry I got that wrong. Five three children were involved
in the study of them and said that they wouldn't
engage in polygamy. That's overwhelming. So polygamy as the idea
(15:36):
that a man is very successful and should spread his
seed while he is on the earth because he is
rich and successful to breed more young and rich and
successful people, and that a lot of times has been
endorsed when you have a minority of a population, like
early Jewish doctrine were in favor of it. Right, it's
(15:58):
a really um it's a really quick way to jump
start your population, to to get your society going. Yeah,
it's I was surprised. It said some Orthodox Jewish sex
still advocate poly which I was impressed to find the
confirmation of that. I saw that some gave it up recently,
but I had trouble finding that I did too, except
(16:22):
for here. And I think China did that too, because
there Vietnam, oh, viet Well, Vietnam and China did it
too under Confucianism. China did it under Confucianism. Vietnam did
it for practical reasons. It's not legal in Vietnam, but
it's widely practiced because the place is so ridiculously war
torn that they actually need to restart their population as well. Um.
(16:46):
So again, it does have a lot of advantages, specifically
um polygyny. Right, yea, let's talk about why I took
and again from this moment until we're not talking about
it anymore. We're speaking biologically, impersonally, without any any social aspects. Biologically,
(17:09):
polygamy makes uttering complete sense, especially if you subscribe to
the Dawkins selfish gene idea. Right. What's that, Well, it's
the it's the concept that we are merely vehicles for
our genes that are driven to basically exists in immortality
by passing its line down as frequently as possible. Okay, um,
(17:32):
through polygamy, through polygyny, I should say polygyny. Sorry, I
think you could probably say it both ways. I just
think we're confusing people through polygyny with the g n
um a man can well, a man can reproduce far
more frequently. Healthy stallion could basically reproduce several times a
(17:56):
day every day if he had sexual access to a
lot of opulating women. Okay, thank you for that, man Um.
A woman can only reproduce once every nine months after
becoming pregnant, and she may have twins triplets naturally speaking,
(18:17):
you know, um, octuplets are and uh the results that
they're a product of of modern science of fertility drugs.
But say you have twins, maybe triplets top usually Irish
twins at the max. Okay, what is that? No Irish
twins is when you have like two kids or nine
months apart. Okay, I'm thinking of a Baker's dozen. So
(18:39):
chuck um. So poly polygyny makes sense, and that if
you want to, if you want to build up your population,
a bunch have a bunch of ovulating women and guys
to reproduce with them. Right, So it makes sense biologically,
but socially it's a catastrophe. Right. Well, one thing is
hard to talk about is actually statistics, because Mormon plural
(19:03):
marriage is not the kind of thing that's documented to
keep it very private and secret, so you can't go
out and get a bunch of statistics on abuse. But
the the stories that you hear in anecdotal evidence suggests
that a lot of abuse happens, like girls that are
fourteen years old getting married to men that are years old.
(19:26):
That's that's definitely one dark part of the dark side
of polygamy. Polygony specifically polygyny also um places men in
a position of absolute authority just by even just by
bestowing that possibility of the men. The man having more
than one wife, but all those wives are devoted to
(19:46):
the one man. He's automatically at the top of the
hierarchy just by virtue of the arrangement, and just sociologically speaking,
being put in that kind of situation would probably make
you drunk with power just being an average person. A
lot of men abuse that position, sure, and even if
they don't want to abuse it. The women in a
in a polygamous scenario, they don't have their subservient. They're
(20:08):
so dependent, they don't have like the skills. Even if
they do escape there their scenario, they don't have the
skills to make it on their own because they've they've
just been the subservient wife right the whole time. Right,
that's no good. A lot of people who have moved
on from polygamist um marriages usually use the word escape
(20:28):
or often use the word escape they escaped from a
polygamous marriage, not I got divorced or anything like that. UM.
And then also just economically speaking, there's a division of
one guy's paycheck over you know, however many wives and
children he has. He may have more than one house,
if he's if he's you know, doing pretty well for himself,
(20:51):
you know, maybe he's an engineer or something. Um, but
it's still one person's paycheck supporting all of these people.
And you see that problem with currently. According to the
article who wrote this one, Grabster Grabster wrote this one,
he points out that UM Colorado City, Arizona, which is
one of I think two places where you can be
(21:12):
a polygamist um is basically single handedly puts a strain
on the um welfare services of the state of Arizona.
They're going broke. Yeah, UM. So that's that's another aspect
of it, as well as the economics of it. And
then apparently jealousy too. First wives, rather than being the
(21:35):
dominant wife out of all of the other ones, are
often just kind of left to the side, get younger
and younger and younger. Is that right? Yeah, there's That's
like a big plot line of the show, I know,
is that some of the wives become jealous of each
other and like a love triangle. Would I don't see
how you couldn't, you know, even even among the most
devoted polygamist families. I don't see how that couldn't happen,
(21:59):
Like jealousy so ingrained. I'm the most non jealous person
on the face of the earth, But that would even
make me jealous, Yeah, I would think, yes, or maybe not,
I think it would, so chuck um you ready, let's
talk about the Mormons. All of you guys have been
very good and patient. Thank you for waiting. Let's do Mormons. Man. Yes,
(22:21):
this is a brief overview of Mormonism. We're not gonna
maybe we could do a whole podcast one day on them.
But it's a religion founded by Joseph Smith Jr. Early
eight hundreds, and he claimed to have received messages, divine
messages from an angel that directed him to golden plates
that basically told the story that he translated to eventually
(22:42):
become the Book of Mormon. So the Book of Mormon
was written, and um, it does not contain specific info
about polygamy, but supposedly he uh practice polygamy after receiving
another personal divine message saying if you go out and
have multiple wives, then you will be a king in heaven. Yeah.
(23:02):
Basically to be a successful Mormon, you kind of had
to practice polygamy. It was a directive from God, although
again it says nothing about it in the Book of Mormon, right,
nothing about it. There's a cool website, um called the
Wives of Joseph Smith, and it chronicles they have thirty
four by my account, um. But it has each name
(23:23):
has like their age, whether they had a husband at
the time they were married to Joseph Smith, um. And
then there's like a link each one's hyper linked to
a bio on them. It's very cool to make sure
that these people, these women aren't forgotten because they were
part of the founding establishment of Mormon. Right. Um, So
he had thirty four. From what I could see, some
(23:45):
of them were sisters and the youngest was fourteen. Right.
One of his kids, Joseph Smith the third, was like
one of the Malaysian Muslim kids, because when he came
of eight, he was like, I am not practicing pa.
I've seen it firsthand and I'm not doing it. Yeah,
and he's he's he made a separate sect, right. He
branched off because he wanted to stay down with the Mormons.
(24:08):
He just wasn't down with polygamy exactly. Uh. A guy
who was down with polygamy was the successor to Joseph
Smith Jr. The founder of the Church of Latter day Saints,
a guy named Brigham Young the old notice as a
university he does. Yeah, Brigham Young had even more children
or even more wives. Apparently he had fifty five from
(24:28):
what I understand UM and his were much more verifiable.
Apparently Joseph Smith didn't ever publicly cop to polygamy. Brigham
Young was like, check out the fifty five right, They're
like hello, right, hello. By the mid eighteen hundreds, it
was so prominently fifty five times you should said fifty
(24:49):
five times. Um. In the mid eighteen hundreds, there were
so many Mormons though, doing this that the Church, while
they didn't officially like bring it into their literature. They
did acknowledge it in an official announcement. Plural marriage, right,
so you've got plural marriage. In eighteen fifty two. Four
years later, something big happened. The Republican Party, a Lincoln's
(25:13):
party at the time. I think he may have been
an attorney still, but he was a log cabin Republican,
right because he lived in a log cabin and right.
But so Lincoln's party came up with their eighteen fifty
six platform, and it was based largely upon ridding the
United States of the twin relics of barbarism, Chuck. One
(25:35):
was slavery, the other was polygamy. Right right up, there
was slavery. Yeah, these were the twin evils that were
basically keeping the United States backward from progressing forward. Um
Supreme Court agreed, yeah, and that launched a what you
could call an unconstitutional government assault on the religion of
Mormonism because of polygamy. They want to quash it. Basically, Yeah,
(25:58):
Utah try. Utah applied for statehood during this and they're like,
not as long as you got polygamist, did you get
rid of your polygamous Mormons? And we'll deal with you
after that, Um, they criminalized cohabitation, right, what else? They
prevented you from voting or holding office if you were
a polygamist. That is so illegal, it's ridiculous, you know.
(26:19):
And they actually froze church assets then even more illy
confiscated their property. Yeah. So they really persecuted the Mormons
based on polygamy um. And whether you agree with polygamy
or not, the United States government and eventually the government
and the state of you taught, really really went after
them for their practice of polygamy. Well. Yeah, and that's
(26:42):
why the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter day
Saints they were having so many problems and they wanted
statehood and all that that. They said, you know what, Uh,
we've had another revelation and we're going to change that doctrine,
So can we be a state now? Right? And they said, yes,
you m b um. They set up specific laws there
though that they didn't do in other states. If you
(27:05):
were if you were um caught as far as the
Mormons were concerned, after I think eight ninety when they
said that they had that other revelation, Um, they said,
if you were caught practicing plural marriage, you would be
excommunicated from the church, and some people said, well, you
know what, Um, you can't excommunicate us if we form
our own sect. And that from that was born the
(27:27):
Mormon fundamentalists, who still practiced to this day. Warren Jess
as a Mormon fundamentalist, this group, and they believe that
the Joseph Smith Jr. Had a divine revelation, and they
believe that they will be kings in heaven if they
had multiple wives. Right, So there's um, there's some defense
to this among Mormon fundamentalists. One I don't buy it. No.
(27:49):
One is that if you have more than one wife
you are less likely to Philander. I don't buy it. No,
that's just it would be more likely to Philander, wouldn't you.
I don't know. I mean to me, and I've been
around cheating and seen it and stuff like that. I
think you're either you're going to do that or you're not.
(28:10):
It doesn't matter if you're single, if you're married, if
you're have three wives or one wife, you're either a
cheater or you're not a cheater. But I think that
I think that there is a I I think socially
structurally that absolute power makes you more of an arrogant person.
And I could see a person because cheating is a choice.
(28:32):
Either do it or you don't. You make a decision
not to do it, or you make the decision to
do it. Right. Um, everybody wants to think. I think
that you could, um make the case that so socially again, sociologically,
somebody is um, somebody in that position could, I would say,
(28:53):
be more likely to cheat. Uh, extra hands to care
for children? Come on, everybody's got two hands, and you
multiply that by eight, Why don't you got sixteen hands
to care for you? But you multiply the six kids
times eight wives and you have forty eight kids. So
it's like you maybe if you didn't have those kids,
you would need extra wives to care for them. Um.
(29:16):
And also we should probably take a break here and
say real quick, we're like, Chuck and I are both monogamists,
right Chuck, Oh yeah, okay. So but at the same time,
if there is a form of polygamy where it's not detrimental,
I don't really see that in this article. I don't.
I don't have to each his own. It's the s
(29:38):
Y s K motto. It's so long as it doesn't
hurt somebody else, she should probably be the supplement to
the S Y s K model, right, right, But it
is illegal in these United States. Federally, there are several
laws passing the eighteen hundreds. UH. State wise, there are
only a handful of states that actually have specific laws.
But Utah is one of them, and that was out
(30:00):
of the deal I think specifically outlining yeah, when they
were grand statehood and UH. They get around it though
a lot of times because they don't officially marry more
than one woman. They will live a married lifestyle. They
and then they will have a ceremony. They just won't
have like an official marriage certificate. Right, they'll have they'll
be they'll be married by the church in the church's eyes. Right. Um.
(30:23):
There are other ways to do this too. There's that
whole cohabitation thing. It's pretty hard to prosecute. And uh
until nineteen fifty three, polygamous families groups were um rated
by the police routinely in the Utah and out west UH.
And then in nineteen fifty three this one raid had
(30:46):
um there's a backlash against it because the the media
published pictures of children being sent off the foster homes
wives being left without husbands, and all of a sudden
sentiment turned a little bit again raids on polygamous families.
So I think the rest of the United States is
very confused on how to approach polygamy. So, okay, chuck
(31:10):
anything else. I just do have one little funny thing
about our our trivia night in Atlanta. I got nothing
else on that. I do have one more thing there is, Um,
there's been established a couple of things about the benefits
of monogamy STDs. However, they've developed uh deter polygamy. Okay, right,
(31:33):
and um there's actually a genetic, uh evolutionary basis to monogamy.
You have more sexual access to one person. So you
may be only be able to reproduce nine months at
a time, but you can do it many many times
during your reproductive years, and your um the caregiving for
(31:56):
those children will probably be of higher quality because you're
a cohe's a family unit. Okay, so that's my little thing.
That's your last bit. Yeah, what do you have about
our I forgot to mention this, but Matt Frederick of
stuff they don't want you to know. Fame came by
and apparently there was a former nora ad h employee
(32:18):
named Stanley Fulham, who claims that on October, the night
of ar Trivia, in major cities over the United States,
massive UFO fleets will be overhead sending us warnings about
global warming. That's awesome, And I said, is this guy crackpot?
And heard overheard Matt said he worked for nora ad
(32:40):
Like that means like, there's no way you could be
a crackpot. Of course, he said it with tone firmly
in cheek. But I think that's just yet another reason
come out October because we're on the roof of this
joint and you will be able to see some UFOs
that are broadcasting messages like warming sucks, save new the
polar Bear kind of stuff. So I just think that's
a LEO was right. So people are out there, they're like,
(33:03):
I would want to come to that trivia, but I
would love to come see a UFO overhead. That's like,
we just doubled the number of people are going to
be here. I think. So. Um. Actually it'll be that
girl from say by the Bell the college years. I
don't know that she had her big film break in
Independence Day. She ran up to the top of the
roof in l A and had that sign was cheering
(33:25):
independence and then pal maybe she'll be at our trivia event,
let's hope. So all right, if you have anything you
want to let us know about. You know what, if
you are a member of a polygamist, polyamorous, bigamist, or
swinger family, Seriously, we're very curious. Is there anyway that
polygamy can be beneficial to a family union? If you
(33:49):
have personal experience with this kind of thing, send us
an email, seriously, let us know. You can send it
to stuff podcast. Wait a minute, chuck, wait, never been
said anything about the search bar. We shouldn't even be
here right now, you're ready? Okay? Um, If you want
to know more about polygamy, uh, you can type that
(34:10):
word in p O L Y G A M Y
right into the swinging search bar swing and search bart
how stuff works dot com. Now, if you want to
send us that email, you can send it to stuff
podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff
(34:32):
works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out
our blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page.
Brought to you by the Reinvented two thousand twelve camera,
it's ready. Are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast The Swing. In this podcast on iTunes, is it? Yeah,
(00:23):
Stuff you Should Know? I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant in the flesh. We're both wearing um robes
and mustaches. Right, swinging swinging? Chuck as into swing? Yes,
you have you ever heard of swinging? Yeah? I think
I told the story once about the Atlanta Swingers Club
(00:45):
was very close to well, no, it was just called
the Atlanta Swingers Club. Well, it's pretty straight. I may
have said this, but it was a long time ago.
It was very close to my phone number growing up,
and we used to get calls all the time for
people seeking the Swingers Club. And being the Baptist family,
it was like, you know, my mom basically made them
(01:06):
seem like they were. It was the devil calling. I'm
sure pretty funny. Yeah. So um, In this very special
episode of Stuff you Should Know, we find out what
fuel young Chuck Bryant's budding sexuality That turns out it
was misplaced phone calls, the Swingers Club and continued sexual
dysfunction because now that I'm adult, I'm like, they're just
(01:27):
trying to have a good time. Yeah, hey man, it's
not my deal. But you know, you don't want to
say you don't want to put your hang ups on
other people, right, Yeah, that's a drag. Well it depends, man. Um,
we're talking today about polygamy, and there's a whole lot
of people putting their hang ups on polygamists. They have
a hard time here in the States, they do. But
before we get into that, chuck um, before we get
(01:50):
into the swinging this podcast around. Yes, um, well, let's
get some administrative details out of the way. Yes, very
important an announcement. This is like that. I know you're
tired of hearing about it if you don't live in Atlanta,
But this is the last Southeast one of the last
chances we'll have to say. We're having our Trivia night
in Atlanta October. It's a Wednesday block out from six
(02:11):
pm two about eleven pm. Yes, you're going to show
up to work on Thursday. Not on all four cylinders,
depending on how many cylinders you have, um, but you're
going to have had a great time the night before. Why, Chuck,
what's going to have happened on Wednesday October? We're gonna
play bar trivia and we're gonna have daily shows. John
(02:31):
Hodgman sitting beside us, Yes, Onion editor in chief, Joe
Randazzo and uh Aquitine Hunger for Sunce squid Billy's co
creator Dave Willis Willis nice, Yes, and plus us and
our families and Jerry, will your mom be there? Yeah?
How adorable? And I hope my brother is your dad coming?
I don't know. He finally went out and bought an
(02:52):
iPod to listen to what his son was doing. Yeah.
I don't think he's turned the thing on yet, and
this is months ago. I think my mom will be
didn't he show you the iPod? I bet him at
my birthday play? Yeah? Yeah he did. He's like, look
and you're like, what is that? Right? And it was
a nano even if he said it's an iPod, Chuck,
I'm surprised you don't know that you're in it. So
(03:13):
that's what's going on Wednesday October to night before Tuesday,
October twelve, Our buddies and de facto house band, The
Henry Clay people are playing a show at the Drunken
Unicorn on East Ponds, and we're gonna be there, and
Jerry's gonna be there, and hopefully a couple of our
buddies coming in from out of town Randazo, maybe Hodgman.
We'll see and uh see some rock and roll and
(03:35):
hang out with the band. They're cool guys. Yeah, it's
like two nights of fun in a row. Yes, it's
going to be a fun week. Yes. Yeah, So that's
what's going on this October twelve in preparation of Halloween.
Now back too, look at me? Yes, all right, so
let's um get back to polygamy Chuck. Remember Warren Jeff's Yeah,
(03:56):
thanks for this article, because I didn't really have an
intro except for mention of Big Love, which I've never
seen of you. You know, I watched Big Love initially
and bailed on it, not because it was bad, it
just didn't have the time. But I've heard it's really good. Sure. Yeah,
well it's acclaimed series hbos. You can't go wrong with
Mr Bill Paxson. That kys a class act. But back
(04:17):
to Warren Jeff's Yeah, not to be confused with Bill Paxton.
Bill Paxson plays a polygamist on tv UM Warren Jeff's
is a polygamist in real life. Right at the very
least he is. Uh. He's been indicted for allegedly fostering uh,
the marriage between a fourteen year old and a seventeen
(04:37):
year old. Right, fourteen year old and her nineteen year
old cousin. Yes, some would call him a peederist, Josh,
and not just a polygamist. He couldn't be a pederist
unless he is a homosexual. Because Petter asked, you refer
specifically to the child realistation of boys. I didn't know that. Well,
then he would be a child molester. Then, in many
people's eyes, allegedly Chuck allegedly allegedly allegedly. Well, he's in
(04:59):
jail for it, he's convicted of it. He has not
been convicted. He goes to he goes to trial in November. Well,
he was found what was he found guilty of? Then
apparently they're they're having a hearing to find out if
he's one and the same as the person they were
looking for. No, no, no, that's in Texas. He's been
in jail for the uh. He was sentenced to two
consecutive prison terms of five years following his two thousand
(05:22):
seven conviction in Utah. Now there's new charges in Texas well.
They're trying to get him extra out into Texas and uh,
he much more serious charges were thrown out. I'm sorry,
Texas has a much more serious charges. So they threw
out even more charges in Arizona. This guy charges all
over the place, and so he is in jail in
(05:44):
Utah and they the governor signed an extradition weren't send
him to Texas in mid August, and but they denied it.
So they're it's they're waiting on a court ordered extradition basically,
and that may bring him five to nine nine years
that he and up to ten tho dollar five assaulted
a child under seventeen. Yeah, so that makes much child molester.
(06:06):
He's got a lot of stuff against him. I'm gonna
just say allegedly all over the place because i have
to I have to admit I'm not percent of what
he's been charged with or convicted of. Okay, Um, but
get having charges all over the place is nothing new
for polygamists. Uh. Jeff's is the leader of a UM
(06:28):
sect of Mormonism called fundamentalist Mormons. Um, we should say
that the Church of Latter day Saints, the Mormons, although
UM frequently associated with polygamy, haven't really done so since
the nineteenth century. We'll get into um, the Mormons in
in there there there polygamist lifestyle later. But I think
(06:52):
I think it's fair to say that, you know, Jeff's
is not representative of the Mormon Church as a whole. No,
not at all. You know, UM, let's the basis. Okay,
let's talk about polygamy. What is it? There's like I
think people have a give the definition of polygamy chock well.
Before the definition, let me just say that most Westerners
don't identify with anything but in monogamy. But culturally, worldwide
(07:16):
and in history, monogamy is in in in the minority. Actually, actually,
polygamous society is outnumbered by the hundreds monogamous societies. And
monogamy appears to be a Christian hang up because if
you go to um areas before the Christians got there,
pretty much everybody historically was polygamus right then the Christians
(07:37):
arrived and all of a sudden, there's monogamy everywhere. Rights
you know that yes, and among mammals as well, humans
are as monogamists are in the vast minority. Only about
three to five percent of all mammals engage in monogamy.
The rest are polygamus. Right, So definition wise, I believe
(07:57):
it's polygamy is more than one spouse po gani is
more than one wife correct, Yes, So polygamy doesn't attach
gender or legality to it, it's just right. And then Paulyandry, yes,
um is a woman having more than one husband, which
Jerry beforehand. It's not like women can have more than
(08:20):
one husband, especially if you are a member of the
Nimba people and Nepaul. Yeah, women there have and I
just think this is like a sitcom waiting to happen.
Women there have to marry all the brothers of a family. Yeah,
so if you marry one brother, you get Darryl and Darryl.
If you marry Larry, you get Daryl and Darryl as well.
(08:42):
And it makes sense in a way for them because,
uh it allows them to pull their resources as a
family hold onto family land, uh take care of their children. Well,
it's very culturally specific, right, because the these this group
of people, there's about um members of the Niambian culture. UM.
And they simply don't have enough land for each man
(09:04):
to go out on his own form a homestead in
a family. So it's it's very culturally bound. The reasons
for this UM and apparently it's fairly beneficial. There's a
lot of consolidation of family's bloodline and resources. Um. All
of the brothers have access sexual access to the woman,
to the wife, right, we should That's something you're gonna hear.
(09:25):
A lot of sexual access, which means you you can
get it on. They have access to getting sexual access.
Each brother does. But they said they do allow them
to specify, like you were the father of this child. Right,
they differentiate who's the father of which children? But they
all yeah, they all um contribute to caregiving child. Um.
(09:49):
And also it's hierarchical. Hierarchical. I was wondering how like
who chose the wife right, um, And it's the oldest
brother and he's definitely the dominant husband. You know, if
I would rewrite the rules though, if I was a tribesman,
I would say we should go with like the best
looking brother of the brother who has the most game. Yeah,
(10:11):
it's so we can all get the most attractive life
it has if the oldest brother is like a real nudge.
But that's what I'm saying, like they just in case
the oldest brother is a nudge, he's still the dominant husband.
Although I'll bet just sibling rivalry trans is pain cultural. Yeah,
so I'm sure that there there is like one that
has game. Is like, I got more sexual access to
(10:32):
her than Tony is a sitcom man, except it would
be like they would americanize it. It would be like
for American like guys from Brooklyn Brothers that would find
this woman tribesman and bring her to America and I'll
marry her. I could see Ed Burns doing that. I
could do. Yeah, you'd make them Catholic though, So Chuck,
(10:52):
that's the Nambian people. They are definitely a rarity, even
even rarer the Amazon Zoe tribe. Right. Yeah, that's multiple everything, right,
multiple husbands and wives at the same time. It's just
basically like it's it's a free for all in the jungle.
But it's not fair of us to make fun of that.
(11:14):
We're just laughing because I'm not making fun of ye.
That's their culture again. They think we're weird. Again, I
think that, man, this is such a potential. This is
just potential dynamite here. Yeah, but it's just different cultures.
They see your dad and his nanopod. But it's not
just that like there, there is there's some real there's
(11:37):
very real social like as in society um and biological
benefits to polygamy. But there's also some very um negative
social and personal drawbacks to right. Yeah, we'll get to
those two. Yeah, so well, what are we going to
talk about? Oh? Yeah, who else does it? Well, we'll
(11:59):
continue you with the nomenclature, just so you know. There's
also a bigamy that just catches legality to polygamy. Yeah.
Bigamy is is the law. It's when a man illegally
marries more than one woman and that is definitely illegal
in the United States. Well, it's the practice of polygamy
in a place where it's illegal illegal, Like no one, no,
in the United States, you can't practice polygamy, except I
(12:22):
think there's very small pockets in like Utah and Arizona
where it's actually legal. Yeah. Colorado City, Arizona, I think,
is one of like two places in the country where
it's actually legal, but federally is still illegal, right, I
I don't know, I have to say, but say, like
in Georgia, if there's no such thing as polygamy, there's
only biggam because polygamy is illegal. See yeah, okay, now
(12:44):
I get it. I just fun to make sure. Uh.
Biggest oftentimes are accidental bigamists, like they will marry before
their divorce is complete. But there's also and they called
it rare. It's not as rare as you think when
the dude leads a double life and literally has two families.
And uh, it's rare according to the population. But if
(13:07):
you look up in Google new search, you'll find plenty
of it. Or listened to the Grateful Dead song Friend
of the Devil, that'll give you the right idea that'll
get you on the troll. That's one of the few
dead songs. I like it. It's a good one. I
like easy Wind really, And uh, what is polyamory as
being in love? That's just more than one person? That
(13:27):
is just um. I don't get that communal familial living
where everyone is everyone has sexual access to everybody else.
There's not necessarily and usually isn't any marriage involved. Um.
But it resembles like um a polygamist household in that
(13:48):
there's like a group of people all contributing to the
raising of children. And probably in most cases there would
be a differentiation of whose kid is who's But it's
like a mini taking a village to raise a child. Again,
I don't know how good this is necessarily for child rearing. UM,
(14:09):
we're not gonna make that call, but we can't say.
There's a study in Malaysia that's emerging as brand new. UM.
This thing was just published in July, UM and it's
a very it's the groundbreaking study. Actually. UM Malaysia it
allows polygamy among its Muslim um population because it's UM.
(14:31):
It's Muslim law that you can have up to four
wives as long as you can care for all of
them equally and treat them all equally well. And apparently
that's that's like what you're supposed to do. It's not
always the case, but I think like a significant portion
of the children in polygamous households in this Malaysian study, UM,
there's something like people involved in the study and uh
(14:55):
five hundred and twenty three of the children in the households,
So like a signific if we get majority of the
children said that they wouldn't engage in a polygamoust lifestyle
even though they're Muslims, right once they marry. Interesting, Yeah,
so I don't know how much that will change as
they get older though, especially as you know status is
(15:15):
attached to it. Well, the article here said that westernization,
like younger Muslims think polygamy is kind of old fashioned. Yeah,
maybe that's something to do with it too, And I'm
sorry I got that wrong. Five three children were involved
in the study of them and said that they wouldn't
engage in polygamy. That's overwhelming. So polygamy as the idea
(15:36):
that a man is very successful and should spread his
seed while he is on the earth because he is
rich and successful to breed more young and rich and
successful people, and that a lot of times has been
endorsed when you have a minority of a population, like
early Jewish doctrine were in favor of it. Right, it's
(15:58):
a really um it's a really quick way to jump
start your population, to to get your society going. Yeah,
it's I was surprised. It said some Orthodox Jewish sex
still advocate poly which I was impressed to find the
confirmation of that. I saw that some gave it up recently,
but I had trouble finding that I did too, except
(16:22):
for here. And I think China did that too, because
there Vietnam, oh, viet Well, Vietnam and China did it
too under Confucianism. China did it under Confucianism. Vietnam did
it for practical reasons. It's not legal in Vietnam, but
it's widely practiced because the place is so ridiculously war
torn that they actually need to restart their population as well. Um.
(16:46):
So again, it does have a lot of advantages, specifically
um polygyny. Right, yea, let's talk about why I took
and again from this moment until we're not talking about
it anymore. We're speaking biologically, impersonally, without any any social aspects. Biologically,
(17:09):
polygamy makes uttering complete sense, especially if you subscribe to
the Dawkins selfish gene idea. Right. What's that, Well, it's
the it's the concept that we are merely vehicles for
our genes that are driven to basically exists in immortality
by passing its line down as frequently as possible. Okay, um,
(17:32):
through polygamy, through polygyny, I should say polygyny. Sorry, I
think you could probably say it both ways. I just
think we're confusing people through polygyny with the g n
um a man can well, a man can reproduce far
more frequently. Healthy stallion could basically reproduce several times a
(17:56):
day every day if he had sexual access to a
lot of opulating women. Okay, thank you for that, man Um.
A woman can only reproduce once every nine months after
becoming pregnant, and she may have twins triplets naturally speaking,
(18:17):
you know, um, octuplets are and uh the results that
they're a product of of modern science of fertility drugs.
But say you have twins, maybe triplets top usually Irish
twins at the max. Okay, what is that? No Irish
twins is when you have like two kids or nine
months apart. Okay, I'm thinking of a Baker's dozen. So
(18:39):
chuck um. So poly polygyny makes sense, and that if
you want to, if you want to build up your population,
a bunch have a bunch of ovulating women and guys
to reproduce with them. Right, So it makes sense biologically,
but socially it's a catastrophe. Right. Well, one thing is
hard to talk about is actually statistics, because Mormon plural
(19:03):
marriage is not the kind of thing that's documented to
keep it very private and secret, so you can't go
out and get a bunch of statistics on abuse. But
the the stories that you hear in anecdotal evidence suggests
that a lot of abuse happens, like girls that are
fourteen years old getting married to men that are years old.
(19:26):
That's that's definitely one dark part of the dark side
of polygamy. Polygony specifically polygyny also um places men in
a position of absolute authority just by even just by
bestowing that possibility of the men. The man having more
than one wife, but all those wives are devoted to
(19:46):
the one man. He's automatically at the top of the
hierarchy just by virtue of the arrangement, and just sociologically speaking,
being put in that kind of situation would probably make
you drunk with power just being an average person. A
lot of men abuse that position, sure, and even if
they don't want to abuse it. The women in a
in a polygamous scenario, they don't have their subservient. They're
(20:08):
so dependent, they don't have like the skills. Even if
they do escape there their scenario, they don't have the
skills to make it on their own because they've they've
just been the subservient wife right the whole time. Right,
that's no good. A lot of people who have moved
on from polygamist um marriages usually use the word escape
(20:28):
or often use the word escape they escaped from a
polygamous marriage, not I got divorced or anything like that. UM.
And then also just economically speaking, there's a division of
one guy's paycheck over you know, however many wives and
children he has. He may have more than one house,
if he's if he's you know, doing pretty well for himself,
(20:51):
you know, maybe he's an engineer or something. Um, but
it's still one person's paycheck supporting all of these people.
And you see that problem with currently. According to the
article who wrote this one, Grabster Grabster wrote this one,
he points out that UM Colorado City, Arizona, which is
one of I think two places where you can be
(21:12):
a polygamist um is basically single handedly puts a strain
on the um welfare services of the state of Arizona.
They're going broke. Yeah, UM. So that's that's another aspect
of it, as well as the economics of it. And
then apparently jealousy too. First wives, rather than being the
(21:35):
dominant wife out of all of the other ones, are
often just kind of left to the side, get younger
and younger and younger. Is that right? Yeah, there's That's
like a big plot line of the show, I know,
is that some of the wives become jealous of each
other and like a love triangle. Would I don't see
how you couldn't, you know, even even among the most
devoted polygamist families. I don't see how that couldn't happen,
(21:59):
Like jealousy so ingrained. I'm the most non jealous person
on the face of the earth, But that would even
make me jealous, Yeah, I would think, yes, or maybe not,
I think it would, so chuck um you ready, let's
talk about the Mormons. All of you guys have been
very good and patient. Thank you for waiting. Let's do Mormons. Man. Yes,
(22:21):
this is a brief overview of Mormonism. We're not gonna
maybe we could do a whole podcast one day on them.
But it's a religion founded by Joseph Smith Jr. Early
eight hundreds, and he claimed to have received messages, divine
messages from an angel that directed him to golden plates
that basically told the story that he translated to eventually
(22:42):
become the Book of Mormon. So the Book of Mormon
was written, and um, it does not contain specific info
about polygamy, but supposedly he uh practice polygamy after receiving
another personal divine message saying if you go out and
have multiple wives, then you will be a king in heaven. Yeah.
(23:02):
Basically to be a successful Mormon, you kind of had
to practice polygamy. It was a directive from God, although
again it says nothing about it in the Book of Mormon, right,
nothing about it. There's a cool website, um called the
Wives of Joseph Smith, and it chronicles they have thirty
four by my account, um. But it has each name
(23:23):
has like their age, whether they had a husband at
the time they were married to Joseph Smith, um. And
then there's like a link each one's hyper linked to
a bio on them. It's very cool to make sure
that these people, these women aren't forgotten because they were
part of the founding establishment of Mormon. Right. Um, So
he had thirty four. From what I could see, some
(23:45):
of them were sisters and the youngest was fourteen. Right.
One of his kids, Joseph Smith the third, was like
one of the Malaysian Muslim kids, because when he came
of eight, he was like, I am not practicing pa.
I've seen it firsthand and I'm not doing it. Yeah,
and he's he's he made a separate sect, right. He
branched off because he wanted to stay down with the Mormons.
(24:08):
He just wasn't down with polygamy exactly. Uh. A guy
who was down with polygamy was the successor to Joseph
Smith Jr. The founder of the Church of Latter day Saints,
a guy named Brigham Young the old notice as a
university he does. Yeah, Brigham Young had even more children
or even more wives. Apparently he had fifty five from
(24:28):
what I understand UM and his were much more verifiable.
Apparently Joseph Smith didn't ever publicly cop to polygamy. Brigham
Young was like, check out the fifty five right, They're
like hello, right, hello. By the mid eighteen hundreds, it
was so prominently fifty five times you should said fifty
(24:49):
five times. Um. In the mid eighteen hundreds, there were
so many Mormons though, doing this that the Church, while
they didn't officially like bring it into their literature. They
did acknowledge it in an official announcement. Plural marriage, right,
so you've got plural marriage. In eighteen fifty two. Four
years later, something big happened. The Republican Party, a Lincoln's
(25:13):
party at the time. I think he may have been
an attorney still, but he was a log cabin Republican,
right because he lived in a log cabin and right.
But so Lincoln's party came up with their eighteen fifty
six platform, and it was based largely upon ridding the
United States of the twin relics of barbarism, Chuck. One
(25:35):
was slavery, the other was polygamy. Right right up, there
was slavery. Yeah, these were the twin evils that were
basically keeping the United States backward from progressing forward. Um
Supreme Court agreed, yeah, and that launched a what you
could call an unconstitutional government assault on the religion of
Mormonism because of polygamy. They want to quash it. Basically, Yeah,
(25:58):
Utah try. Utah applied for statehood during this and they're like,
not as long as you got polygamist, did you get
rid of your polygamous Mormons? And we'll deal with you
after that, Um, they criminalized cohabitation, right, what else? They
prevented you from voting or holding office if you were
a polygamist. That is so illegal, it's ridiculous, you know.
(26:19):
And they actually froze church assets then even more illy
confiscated their property. Yeah. So they really persecuted the Mormons
based on polygamy um. And whether you agree with polygamy
or not, the United States government and eventually the government
and the state of you taught, really really went after
them for their practice of polygamy. Well. Yeah, and that's
(26:42):
why the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter day
Saints they were having so many problems and they wanted
statehood and all that that. They said, you know what, Uh,
we've had another revelation and we're going to change that doctrine,
So can we be a state now? Right? And they said, yes,
you m b um. They set up specific laws there
though that they didn't do in other states. If you
(27:05):
were if you were um caught as far as the
Mormons were concerned, after I think eight ninety when they
said that they had that other revelation, Um, they said,
if you were caught practicing plural marriage, you would be
excommunicated from the church, and some people said, well, you
know what, Um, you can't excommunicate us if we form
our own sect. And that from that was born the
(27:27):
Mormon fundamentalists, who still practiced to this day. Warren Jess
as a Mormon fundamentalist, this group, and they believe that
the Joseph Smith Jr. Had a divine revelation, and they
believe that they will be kings in heaven if they
had multiple wives. Right, So there's um, there's some defense
to this among Mormon fundamentalists. One I don't buy it. No.
(27:49):
One is that if you have more than one wife
you are less likely to Philander. I don't buy it. No,
that's just it would be more likely to Philander, wouldn't you.
I don't know. I mean to me, and I've been
around cheating and seen it and stuff like that. I
think you're either you're going to do that or you're not.
(28:10):
It doesn't matter if you're single, if you're married, if
you're have three wives or one wife, you're either a
cheater or you're not a cheater. But I think that
I think that there is a I I think socially
structurally that absolute power makes you more of an arrogant person.
And I could see a person because cheating is a choice.
(28:32):
Either do it or you don't. You make a decision
not to do it, or you make the decision to
do it. Right. Um, everybody wants to think. I think
that you could, um make the case that so socially again, sociologically,
somebody is um, somebody in that position could, I would say,
(28:53):
be more likely to cheat. Uh, extra hands to care
for children? Come on, everybody's got two hands, and you
multiply that by eight, Why don't you got sixteen hands
to care for you? But you multiply the six kids
times eight wives and you have forty eight kids. So
it's like you maybe if you didn't have those kids,
you would need extra wives to care for them. Um.
(29:16):
And also we should probably take a break here and
say real quick, we're like, Chuck and I are both monogamists,
right Chuck, Oh yeah, okay. So but at the same time,
if there is a form of polygamy where it's not detrimental,
I don't really see that in this article. I don't.
I don't have to each his own. It's the s
(29:38):
Y s K motto. It's so long as it doesn't
hurt somebody else, she should probably be the supplement to
the S Y s K model, right, right, But it
is illegal in these United States. Federally, there are several
laws passing the eighteen hundreds. UH. State wise, there are
only a handful of states that actually have specific laws.
But Utah is one of them, and that was out
(30:00):
of the deal I think specifically outlining yeah, when they
were grand statehood and UH. They get around it though
a lot of times because they don't officially marry more
than one woman. They will live a married lifestyle. They
and then they will have a ceremony. They just won't
have like an official marriage certificate. Right, they'll have they'll
be they'll be married by the church in the church's eyes. Right. Um.
(30:23):
There are other ways to do this too. There's that
whole cohabitation thing. It's pretty hard to prosecute. And uh
until nineteen fifty three, polygamous families groups were um rated
by the police routinely in the Utah and out west UH.
And then in nineteen fifty three this one raid had
(30:46):
um there's a backlash against it because the the media
published pictures of children being sent off the foster homes
wives being left without husbands, and all of a sudden
sentiment turned a little bit again raids on polygamous families.
So I think the rest of the United States is
very confused on how to approach polygamy. So, okay, chuck
(31:10):
anything else. I just do have one little funny thing
about our our trivia night in Atlanta. I got nothing
else on that. I do have one more thing there is, Um,
there's been established a couple of things about the benefits
of monogamy STDs. However, they've developed uh deter polygamy. Okay, right,
(31:33):
and um there's actually a genetic, uh evolutionary basis to monogamy.
You have more sexual access to one person. So you
may be only be able to reproduce nine months at
a time, but you can do it many many times
during your reproductive years, and your um the caregiving for
(31:56):
those children will probably be of higher quality because you're
a cohe's a family unit. Okay, so that's my little thing.
That's your last bit. Yeah, what do you have about
our I forgot to mention this, but Matt Frederick of
stuff they don't want you to know. Fame came by
and apparently there was a former nora ad h employee
(32:18):
named Stanley Fulham, who claims that on October, the night
of ar Trivia, in major cities over the United States,
massive UFO fleets will be overhead sending us warnings about
global warming. That's awesome, And I said, is this guy crackpot?
And heard overheard Matt said he worked for nora ad
(32:40):
Like that means like, there's no way you could be
a crackpot. Of course, he said it with tone firmly
in cheek. But I think that's just yet another reason
come out October because we're on the roof of this
joint and you will be able to see some UFOs
that are broadcasting messages like warming sucks, save new the
polar Bear kind of stuff. So I just think that's
a LEO was right. So people are out there, they're like,
(33:03):
I would want to come to that trivia, but I
would love to come see a UFO overhead. That's like,
we just doubled the number of people are going to
be here. I think. So. Um. Actually it'll be that
girl from say by the Bell the college years. I
don't know that she had her big film break in
Independence Day. She ran up to the top of the
roof in l A and had that sign was cheering
(33:25):
independence and then pal maybe she'll be at our trivia event,
let's hope. So all right, if you have anything you
want to let us know about. You know what, if
you are a member of a polygamist, polyamorous, bigamist, or
swinger family, Seriously, we're very curious. Is there anyway that
polygamy can be beneficial to a family union? If you
(33:49):
have personal experience with this kind of thing, send us
an email, seriously, let us know. You can send it
to stuff podcast. Wait a minute, chuck, wait, never been
said anything about the search bar. We shouldn't even be
here right now, you're ready? Okay? Um, If you want
to know more about polygamy, uh, you can type that
(34:10):
word in p O L Y G A M Y
right into the swinging search bar swing and search bart
how stuff works dot com. Now, if you want to
send us that email, you can send it to stuff
podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff
(34:32):
works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out
our blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page.
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