The YFZ Ranch story, originally centered on child abuse, has reopened a Pandora’s box of confusion and misinformation about the legal and moral issues surrounding polygyny, polyandry and polygamy.
In the strict legal sense, polygamy is illegal in the United States. Yet enforcement has become touchy because of challenges based on Constitutional equal protection.
When the courts said it was alright for two consenting adults to live together (as if married) under a “contract” other than one of marriage, they opened the door, some argue, for a man and multiple women to also live together under a slightly different “contract”. And following that line of reasoning, a woman would likewise be able to take multiple “husbands” under a “contract”. The fine point in this argument is that, as long as the participants don’t call their arrangement “marriage” and don’t apply for a marriage license (or call themselves husband and wife), they shouldn’t be prosecuted for polygamy.
The YFG Ranch story has rekindled the debate. I doubt we’ll ever accept polygamy in the U.S. — it doesn’t fit well with our culture and history — but unless we take some legal position against “what” is being done and stop dancing around what it’s “called,” cults like this one will continue to spring up under the guises of religion and equal protection.