Thursday, March 06, 2008

One thing I don't get about Big Love

In Big Love, polygamy seems to be against the law - like the Hendricksons and the co-worker's family, not even the people on the compound.

But how can that be illegal? Like I understand that the marriages aren't sanctioned by law, but how can it be OMG-afraid-of-the-police-illegal? So a man gets married and has children, then has children with two other women and provides for them all. That simply cannot be against the law.

2 comments:

Fran said...

That simply cannot be against the law.

Polygamy itself *is* against the law in the U.S. (and in Canada, btw) but more often the enforcement focuses on other crimes, such as child abuse (since many wives in these relationships are underage, at least at the start) and fraud.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygamy#Legal_situation

I suspect if the police saw signs of polygamy or if it was reported to them, they would be compelled to investigate and that's why the Big Love characters fear the police finding out.

impudent strumpet said...

I can't see how that's at all enforceable though. Legally, there's only one marriage and there were no attempts to get the other marriages state-sanctioned (unless that happened while I was in the bathroom). In the eyes of the law, he's a married man who's slutting around and sprogging everywhere and then paying child support. The only thing that makes it polygamy is that consenting adults act like it is behind closed doors. But on those grounds, a D/s relationship that uses the word slave would also be illegal on the grounds that slavery is illegal.