It’s so weird to me when people will point to like, literal polygamist cults, and treat them as evidence that polygamy should be illegal.
“But this cult leader married and raped a 12 year old!” My dude, my guy – if he had had zero wives instead of several dozen, it would still have been wrong for him to marry and rape a 12 year old. Monogamy would not have made this actual child rape any better, literally at all. You get that, right????
And... not for nothing, but do you really think that laws against polygamy make those victims any safer? If you were being raped and abused by your husband, which society do you think you’d have a better chance of escaping in: one where you could simply go to the authorities and get a divorce, or one in which the act of coming forwards and even just admitting that you were in an abusive polygamist marriage could be grounds for you and all of your spouses to face legal prosecution and potentially lose custody of your children? Who do you think can better afford to “just leave”: the woman who is legally married to (and therefore, legally able to divorce) a man and 50+ sister wives, or the woman who is legally considered an unwed mother, and whose rights to any continued contact with her non-biological children hinge entirely on her ability to stay in the good graces of their father?
Let’s talk about extremely unhealthy and abusive poly relationships, actually. Let’s talk about how anti-polygamy laws force these relationships into the shadows, and keep victims from accessing vital services. Let’s talk about how when the FLDS was busted for child rape, and discovered to be keeping multiple pregnant children within their compound, the media covered it as though the biggest issue was the polygamy, and the FLDS was able to successfully pivot the story to one of “religious persecution against plural marriage” rather than one of horrific child sexual exploitation. Let’s talk about that.