In the reading this week we look at the controversy surrounding polygamy in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Gordon spends an entire book outlining the struggle for power between the Mormon settlers in Utah and antipolygamists in the East, particularly in Congress. One of the arguments that she spends a considerable amount of time developing was the potential for state sanctioned polygamy to undermine the structure of the national government. The basis, in antipolygamists terms, was that women could not consent to being in a marriage with other wives, therefore polygamy underminded the marriage contract. Polygamists argued that consent of each additional wife was necessary, and that polygamy should be protected from persecution under the First Amendment. However, through various acts of Congress (notably the series of Edmunds Acts) and legal proceedings, the national government declared that they would not protect polygamy as a religious act.
Cott takes a similar approach, but a broader look at nonnormative marriage, including polygamy. She writes about the arguments that nonnormative marriages (that is monogamous marriages) underminded the moral content of the nation. Aside from polygamy, Cott includes a section on legislation against the publication of "obscene" material like birth control.
Together, Cott and Gordon paint a picture of the process of taking the public government into the private domestic realm of marriage. How does this reflect the changing atmosphere of the post Civil War period? Specifically, what do the arguments made by pro-womens' rights and antipolygamists advocates contain similar ideas and is this surprising. Would you expect that both sides are arguing that women cannot consent to polygamous marriages?
Furthermore, Mormons are framed as being "licentitious," does this make sense in terms of what we discussed last week? Antipolygamists viewed polygamy as an example of prostitution, but would this be true since Mormon tenets make polygamy a sacred union?
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Another thing you might want to keep in mind when you're reading, especially in the Cott, is whether or not the government should be able to regulate things connected to moral issues (spread of pornography, information about birth control, sale of abortefacients). In what ways do the politicians drafting the laws justify the laws they are creating and enforcing? What precedence was there for this, and do you think we can see evidence of this in legislation today?
Claire asks: "How does this reflect the changing atmosphere of the post Civil War period?"
Reconstruction - in the South and as Gordon argues, in the West, is all about nationalization and the creation of national standards, albeit one enforced by mostly northern Republicans.
After 1877: Whites in the North and South come together in the "romance of reunion" (as Gordon calls it, pg. 137). This culiminates, historians argue, in the imperialist moment in American history - the Spanish American War in 1898. The US intervenes on behalf of Cuban nationalists and Filipino nationalists against imperial Spain; the US then decides to stay, especially in the Philippines, because these people need the "light" of American civilization.
**I think Gordon offers a poignant argument when she discusses Congress's shift away from black rights in the South and toward the "problem" of polygamy in Utah in the early 1880s.
Where else do we see "family values" or political factions in favor of sexual purity draw away attention from other equally, perhaps even more relevent, political issues?
A second thought:
Are Americans defining themselves and their national identity via race, religion, AND monogamous marriage?
Does this move lead to restrictions on marriage or might it open an unexpected window for reforming marriage (the judge in Kansas who compares the liberty of American wives to those women who are "servants and slaves" of men in other lands. . .)
I think that religion and monogamy go hand-in-hand in this aspect. Much of the debates over polygamy had an aspect of "othering" in them, where someone would connect differences in culture and location in the world, and then argue that these differences made that culture, and all other aspects of it, were incorrect or somehow less than the "American" way (white Protestant). Monogamy is seen as the correct form of marriage because that is what is advocated in the Protestant churches, whereas polygamy, which comes from foreign nations with different religious beliefs, some of which seem very odd, and people are always afraid of that which they don't understand, is seen as also foreign and as something which needs to be kept out of the United States, a country founded on basic Protestant principles.
Licentitiousness in this case is a matter of perspective. From the perspective of antipolygamists, polygamy was closely linked to free love and prostitution, two concepts that personify licentiousness. Mormons on the other hand thought of polygamy as their sacred duty based on revelation. Women were expected to accept a polygamous life as part of their religion, shoulder the burdens, or "leave." However the polygamous lifestyle was only prevalent among the leaders of the church. "Celestial marriage" did not condone free love, but rather encouraged men to take more than one wife. Sex in the context of marriage would not generally be considered free love, but because these plural marriages were thought of as harems, the misconception amongst antipolygamists was made.
The "morality" of polygamy comes down to the different way in wich Joseph Smith's, testament is understood. For a poygamist who viewed the Book of Mormon as a part of the holy scripture, not following it meant going to hell. Antipolygamist were not willing to recognize nor tolerate this document as part of valid religious docrine.
This speak alot to the way in which religious freedom was viewed. The law had no obligation to protect religions based on tolerance especialy if they bordered on "extremism."
In the case of marrige especially legislators could justify antipolygamy laws as part of the regulation of a civil relationship based on the principles of a protestant nation. At this point Americans were defining themselves, in terms of this civil realationship and the meaning it brought to gender identity. I woud agree the same goes with race and reigion. But all of this is true specifically in the context of an infant government. The constitution being founded on the principles that value the separation of private and pubic spheres. In these grey areas there was a huge confusion on the role that should be taken by state and federal government. Especialy in deciding what was "private" (states or insitutions within it) and what was public (how states as a legislative body function unter the rules of constituion) .
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