Polygamy: Polygyny, Polyandry, and Polyamory

by Daniel Young, Holly Holt (Narrator), Sarah Young

Among consenting adults, family should be a matter of choice and the configuration thereof should be the choice of the family members. There are between 50,000 and 100,000 families in the U.S. living in polygamy today. Recently, these numbers began to climb rapidly as certain Christian, Islamic, and secular groups seek ways to live according to their convictions, in spite of federal and state laws. The growth is accelerating at a surprising rate. Yet, there are few resources and little information to help those seeking happiness in this way of life. This book is a primer for those wishing to seek fulfillment outside the confines of monogamy. As people search for and find their own happiness, the population practicing polygamy will soon grow large enough to have a voice loud enough to change the laws of the land from within. Polygamy may be the next movement in the search for individual freedom and happiness.

The act of having more than one spouse. A husband having more than one wife or wife having more than one husband is called polygamy. Polygamy is a general term and exists in three specific polygyny, polyandry, and polyamory. When a man has multiple simultaneous wives, the state is specifically called polygyny. You will also hear the term, “Plural Marriage” or “Celestial Marriage” used by the FLDS church when one husband has several wives. When a woman has multiple simultaneous husbands it is specifically called polyandry. Group marriage, where the family unit consists of multiple husbands and multiple wives, is specifically called polyamory. This book will look at polygamy, its forms, functions, history, logistics, strengths and pitfalls.

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First published May 9, 2013

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

For the Scifi fiction author: Daniel Young - Daniel^^Young (2 spaces)

Reviews

[Logan Stecher · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book attempts to remedy and provide understanding on a topic that often has negative stereotypes or a negative image within many societies of the world, especially in first world countries like the USA. While the authors really strive to "normalize" polygamy, they unfortunately have a glaring weakpoint which is no real citations. In a world where information is constantly produced, discovered and learned, it is critical to understand where information comes from to track its validity. Not only does this book fail to produce in-text citations, but it does not even have a works cited page(s) often found at the end. While the current statistics in the book may not seem unbelievable now, it is important to note the time of the originally published works (via year) as facts and figures change overtime and thus future readers may find believable statistics to become unbelievable as the world changes.

In addition to this problamatic format, the book largely focuses on the religious influences on polygamy and vice versa. While I'd say it is fair between the three Abrahamic religions, it poorly refers to other world religions, especially polytheistic ones. Furthermore, a majority of the book feels like it greatly focuses on polygamy's ties with religion while briefly mentioning its ties with atheism lifestyles and barely, if at all, polygamy's ties with non-religious/non-athiesm aspects of life.

Lastly the book needlessly fills its pages with copy/pasted text from religious books like the Bible to express small points. Many pages become filled with these ancient verses that don't contribute much to the point or argument of what is trying to be made in that section.

I find it unfortunate to have to find these issues as I do think the world needs to be more open-minded on the topic and understand how it could have many advantages. One example of an advantage is having 3+ incomes in a single household that exists within a consistently crashing economy. While it may not be for everybody, we should all seek to "normalize" polygamy when it is done safely and fairly.

[C. Varn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat dry.

A defense of fairly traditional polygamy and some discussion of other practices. Factual if not exactly scholarly, I don't really understand why it mentions polyamory in the subtitle.

[Lettie Bopape]

in want to read it.