Glenda Simms, ContributorGAY MARRIAGES might have caused the majority culture of heterosexual, professed monogamous and legally married folk to put on their thinking caps and start asking questions about sexual practices and family forms that were usually featured in the pages of the National Geographic.
For instance, the issue of polygamy was seen as one of those backward, primitive traditions that needed to be rooted out of Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Benin and in those other Muslim societies that have been demonised as places where women are most undervalued. Such societies are not seen in the same light as the Western First World nations who would have the rest of the world believe that they are monogamous (gay or straight) and faithful and trustworthy in their private lives.
This façade of the state of the ideal family is being shaken in the Canadian society. At the beginning of 2005 the Parliament was debating whether or not to legalise same-sex marriage. In this debate, the most liberal and open minded of men and women across the political divide were very supportive of allowing same sex couples to marry and lead their lives with the same benefits of all the institutions that have been developed, designed and marketed by heterosexuals who have managed to convince everyone that marriage symbolises the highest point of the 'great life'.
In this euphoric atmosphere, many of the legal luminaries wondered aloud if the legalisation of gay marriages would cause serious legal and social problems in the future.
DIVISIVE
Chris Coble reported in an article carried in the Ottawa Citizen of January 20, 2005 that "just weeks before it introduces divisive same-sex marriage legislation, the federal government launched an urgent study into the legal and social ramification of Polygamy."
According to Coble the Paul Martin-led federal government of Canada was concerned that the legalisation of gay marriage "may lead to constitutional challenges from minority groups who claim polygamy as a religious right." This concern led the National Machinery for Women Status of Women Canada to launch "an urgent study into the legal and social ramification of polygamy". This study, according to Status of Women Research Director Zeynep Karman is motivated less by the same-sex debate and more by the reports of violence and abuse against women and girls in the polygamous religious cult in the community of Bountiful, British Columbia.
While it is a fact that the Canadian Charter of Rights ensures religious freedoms, it has become evident that the Government is being challenged in finding the legal framework that can protect women's equality rights while respecting the right of groups to practise their religion.
The most recent and high profile case of the presence of polygamy in Canada is that of the community of Bountiful in British Columbia. Writer Janet French reported in the June 12, 2004 edition of the Edmonton Journal that the underbelly of the polygamous cult of this community was brought to light at the American Family Foundation Conference on cults which was held in Edmonton.
POLYGAMY
At this gathering it was revealed that Canada's most notorious cult is a polygamous one in Bountiful. This colony was established by the "Utah based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints". This colony is an offshoot of the Mormon Church which was founded by North America's most celebrated polygamist.
In this place in beautiful British Columbia all kinds of atrocities against women and children were carried out in the name of God. According to French's report "former Bountiful resident Debbie Palmer escaped the group in 1988 after she was forced to become the sixth wife of a man in his 50s when she was 15". It was also revealed that the male elders of the community frequently forced the teenage daughters of their many wives to marry older men including their uncles. The male gurus of the cult of polygamy justified their abuse of young girls by brainwashing the members of the community that their way of life is protected by God.
In the name of God, the patriarchs of Bountiful isolated women and children and traded them "between men in the colony like property"; pulled young girls out of home-schooling and forced them to learn domestic chores in preparation for marriage to older pot-bellied men, and in general "break the will of all young children so that they will accept subservience to others throughout their lives."
French also reminds her readers that these religious based cults and practices justify all their actions on their interpretation of the bible.
This call for action against polygamy in Canada is to be noted as a benefit of the same sex marriage debate. In fact, it can be argued that polygamy has been accommodated for as long as human societies have been around.
In many societies polygamy is practised as part of the traditional practices that are hard to eradicate in spite of the modernising forces that define dramatic changes in the economy, in the use of technology and in greater access to educational opportunities by both boys and girls, women and men.
When the situation of women and girls is factored into the social analysis of the problems of society, the first, third and fourth worlds have a lot in common
In all societies, polygamy (legal and not so legal); the trafficking of women and girls to provide sexual services to older pot-bellied men; the rapes of children and the dismissal of women's voices are all but a few of the concerns of 'prime time'.
Here in Jamaica, we might never have to deal with same-sex marriages, but we have to stop our hypocritical denial of the polygamous nature of the society. Maybe the time will come for us to legalize that which is practised daily and nightly in rented spaces, purchased dwellings, hotel rooms, car seats and behind pimento trees under the glare of the stars and the 'blinkies'.
This search for many women to control, even when the men do not have the resources to maintain polygamy in its 'most ideal form', will be the next frontier of debate in so-called 'modern societies'.
Pandora must have been somebody's first wife. How else could she be privileged to store 'trouble in a box'?
Dr. Glenda Simms is the executive director of the Bureau of Women's Affairs. You can send your comments to infocus@gleanerjm.com
