The most frustrating thing I experience in listening to the media talk about polygamy is how they reference the lifestyle according to mainstream society. If a man has more than one wife it has to be for the sex, if women all wear similar looking clothes they see it as a fashion, albeit an out-dated fashion. I read one article recently that called the FLDS women’s hairstyles Elvis prairie up-do. I understand that we can only comprehend the unfamiliar against the backdrop of our own familiar lives. But for the women of the FLDS to be compared to a heathen like Elvis is enough to send them all running to their mirrors to make alterations.

I hear people say all the time, “I don’t know how those people can live like that.” It may come as a surprise to some, that the polygamists, looking out of their gated communities and the windows of their homes at the rest of the world, say in complete wonderment, “I don’t know how those people can live like that.” While society considers polygamy a cult, polygamists consider much of society in the same light. The only difference between the two is polygamists do not have the curiosity about the rest of the world and that may only be due to the disparity in population. There is boldness in numbers. What the polygamists lack in numbers they make up for in importance. The only thing that can combat the inequality is a belief that they are the chosen, the few elect in a vast sea of ordinary. I heard it stated once from a member of one of the polygamous groups when asked about the necessity of all the other billions of human beings on the planet that their purpose for being here was to perform as stage props, implying but not outright stating, that they were the stars of the show.

That is not to say all polygamists feel this way. I would venture to say that there are only small handfuls that think of themselves to that extreme but there is an underlying belief of exemption because they believe that their lifestyle is a higher form of living. Intended or not there is a sense of elitism for it seems to be built into the structure of polygamist beliefs.  Isolation is necessary to maintain an elitist viewpoint. Being different demands that you are either better or worse than others, with being better than others the preferred option.

There is a common misunderstanding that all polygamists are alike but there are so many different viewpoints that it is hard to pin down anything definitive. Among the wide variety of beliefs among polygamists there is only a single, common thread-the belief in the plurality of wives. There are many different factions and they all agree on this point, polygamy. But that is where the connection ends. Some embrace mainstream society quite readily in their dress, their homes and all the other benefits that it offers, while others find the appearance of the outside world utterly repelling, shunning TV, radio, politics and current affairs. You will also find everything in between these two extremes. Some polygamists are open-minded, thoughtful and educated; others are friendly, curious, and deeply spiritual. Yet others are self-important, opinionated, narrow minded, socially retarded or backwards. But then you will find all these sorts of people everywhere.

So why are the labels necessary? I think as human beings we label others to help us identify ourselves. It provides us with a sense of security, like a turtle that pulls itself into a shell for safety and protection, the label serves such a purpose. But the label is damaging as well, as it prevents expansion of the mind and of making meaningful connections with others.

The polygamists hold the gap between themselves and everyone else including the other polygamous factions, because being different shrinks the world to a manageable size. It takes a very broad minded person to be all inclusive. We all need to distinguish ourselves from others, being different allow us to see ourselves more clearly. But the differences often become an impassable gap that grows wider as we grow narrower.

Can our differences then also be our sameness? We are born in need of an identity and we spend our lives distinguishing ourselves from others; us from them, me from you but that very gap is what makes us the same. We all need the same things, we all feel the same feelings and we would each respond like the other if we walked in their shoes. Polygamy is misunderstood because it is easier to identify what is different instead of what is the same. I make the claim that it is because of our differences that we are the same. Honoring differences creates unity, harmony and ultimately the connection we all crave. Even polygamists.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 9th, 2008 at 11:15 am and is filed under polygamy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.