DO MULTIPLE WIVES COMPETE TO BE THE MOST LOVED? SISTER WIVES UPDATE - MISSY ON SECRETS VERSUS OPEN RELATIONSHIPS

I devoted a month to the Open Polygamy that is part of the Fundamentalist Mormon lifestyle. The modern Latter Day Saints no longer support the polygamy of the founders of their church. Many of the women who accept being co-wives have grown up in families in which their own mother was a "sister wife." When this lifestyle became the subject of reality television series, the world got a glimpse into the possibilities.  Was it better when it came to child care? Could any of the women expect to ever have the man to herself? What about sexuality?

Recently it came to light that the Sister Wives reality TV show's star Christine, who was the third wife of Cody Brown, left him and the arrangement after 25 years of it.  This Daily Mail article is one of a few that came out in that publication recently about the situation.

DAILY MAIL - SISTER WIVES- CHRISTINE LEFT - ROBYN 4th WIFE PREVAILS by Tracy Wright and Christine Rendon

The reason I focused on this example of an alternative lifestyle for MISTRESS MANIFESTO here is that we are exploring the lives of Mistresses who are often known to the Wives.  When a wife knows her husband has an ongoing relationship with another person, she often accepts that this is so, preferring to keep her marriage.  Sometimes she prevails and sometimes she doesn't.

Sometimes a person is not naturally monogamous. I recently met a man who told me that when he first met the woman who has been consistent in his life for near 50 years, meeting her when he was 16, he told her he could not be faithful.  She said it would not bother her if he had other women.  He told me that he had sex with other women along with being alcoholic and that when he quit drinking over 30 years ago, he stopped sleeping with other women. For other men who were not addicted or promiscuous, men who married and never thought they would, cheating is something else - a desire to love more than one person perhaps - or perhaps to move on out of the marriage or - well, there is no one reason.

While some people have Open Marriages in which one or both partners at various times also have other relationships. others are scandalized by their partner being sexually involved with someone else and see it as the reason for divorce.

I say relationship because while the stereotype is that it's "just" an affair, or only about sex, many of the couples who are -one or both- are married to someone else legally - do have significant and ongoing involvement with each other.  So while the Sister-Wives - Open Polygamy lifestyle is one in which everything is in the Open, Mistresses are often thought of as secret clandestine relationships - taboo - just plain wrong.

DO YOU HAVE A PARTNER WHO HAS ANOTHER RELATIONSHIP?

DID THE POLYGAMOUS MORMON MISSIONARIES FIND CONVERTS AMONG POLYAMOROUS HAWAIIANS?

Today the Mormons go by the name Latter Day Saints and their church is called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

SUNSTONE MAGAZINE POLYGAMY AND THE EARLY MORMON HAWAII MISSION by John J. Hammond, who was a college professor.  (There's even an audio to listen to at this link!)

A very interesting article about the history of Mormon missionaries coming into Hawaii really.

Here's an EXCERPT:

Although Mormon Church leaders and many members had been secretly practicing polygamy since at least the early 1940's, Apostle Orson Pratt had made that practice public on 29 August 1852.  The news circulated the world in non-Mormon newspapers and created something of a sensation in the Sandwich Islands.

In a 16 March 1843 letter to Brigham Young, Hammond reported that the news about polygamy 'Does not create half the excitement which I had anticipated; the people appear as if some unseen hand had prepared them for it.  The (Hawaiian) government officers were not at all surprised at it but told us we would be narrowly watched, and if we were caught marrying two women to one man, they would be down heavy upon us; we told them that was not what we were sent out for, but to preach the gospel and to live in subjection to the (secular government) powers that be and to uphold them.

And Another:

In April 1854, Mormon Elder B.F. Johnson, who had been converted to polygamy by Joseph Smith (the founder of Mormonism) in the early 1840's, wrote an essay defending it against scathing attacks that were appearing in Honolulu newspapers.  When he could not find a newspaper that would publish it, he arranged to have it printed in San Francisco in the form of a twenty-six-page pamphlet, entitled WHY THE LATTER DAY SAINSR MARRY A PLURALITY OF WIVES; A GLANCE AT SCRIPTURE AND REASON. He distributed four hundred copies throughout the Islands, and was thrilled with the attention they received. "For many days," he wrote, "there was general excitement throughout the city (Honolulu) and had a thunderbolt fallen at the feet of our enemies, it would not have made a greater sensation."

***

Did the Hawaiian's accept Mormon Christianity because they understood Polyamorous lifestyle?  This article suggests just the opposite. I consider that only allowing a man to have many wives, but not allowing women to have many husbands, might have irked some of the Hawaii women.

April 2014 is the month in which I featured SISTER WIVES (Modern Mormon Polygamous couples) so check that out in my archives if you're interested in the man-sharing lifestyle!

THOSE POLYGAMOUS HUSBAND-SHARING "SISTER WIVES" : SUBJECT OF THE MONTH

You may have watched Reality TV and seen Kody, Meri, Janelle, Christine, and Robyn Brown, or you may have heard media reports on the  Independent Fundamentalist Mormons who live in compounds in Utah.  (They're the sect that does not marry underage girls off to old Patriarchs.) 

Why talk about this at all at  MISTRESS MANIFESTO? 

Well, I wonder, do you like me see the similarities and differences between these women and mistresses of a more traditional type? 

Mistresses aren't always involved with legally married men. Sometimes they are kept by not legally married men or men who prefer to live unmarried. (And at this blog we also acknowledge that the relationships may not be heterosexual.) 

Who is or isn't a mistress these days is not so clear.

More than one wife has found out she was sharing her husband with a mistress or two, unless he asked her about bringing another woman into their lives in advance of doing so, and she maybe helped pick out the mistress, like Yoko Ono  may have when she suggested May Pang to John Lennon.  (May Pang was Mistress of the Month here at Mistress Manifesto two years ago in April 2012!)

The majority of us in the Western or First World are raised to believe that there is only one kind of marriage and that is the marriage of one man with one woman.  Any variation on that theme is considered to be wrong - bad - sinful.  Yet, divorced parents integrate their children into new families, and children take on having two fathers and two mothers.  While gay activists fight for the right to marry a member of the same sex, there are those who would like to see Polygamous marriages legal as well.  I think it will happen.

In Polygamous marriages of the Independent Fundamentalist Mormon (not to be confused with the Latter Day Saints), the first wife is the legal wife.  The other wives are married in their Church quite seriously and spiritually, but not legally, but with the full knowledge of the first and other wives. 

I do wonder how these extensive families can afford to have this lifestyle financially.  It seems that the men tend to own businesses or ranches or land and sometimes the women are also out working, supporting the family in a communal way.  There has been some controversy about how the state and federal governments determine benefits for a family of say five wives and 35 children, but there are those who say Polygamy could not be afforded without those state and federal government benefits, help with medical care, food, and other costs, because in most of these Plural Marriages there are very many children.

There are a couple books you might want to read about the subject and you can sort of try out the lifestyle vicariously and decide if maybe you should be moving to Utah and converting to the Fundamentalist Mormon Faith!

One of them is called "Becoming Sister Wives" by Kody, Meri, Janelle, Christine, and Robyn Brown.  (It's copyright 2012 and published by Gallery Books.)  Another is called "Love Three Times" by Joe, Alina, Vicki, and Valerie Darger with Brook Adams which is copyright 2011 and published by HarperOne. 

I've read both and am interested that the people involved in these marriages talk quite a bit about it as a "calling" and very spiritual.  (Mistresses are called "Home Wreckers" and considered to be Evil, even when they preserve marriages.) 

In the case of Kody Brown, he married his first wife Meri and they were together monogamously for three years before he married Janelle.  In the case of Joe Darger, he married Alina and Vicki the very same ceremony.

As for sex, well, sometimes a man who has a Mistress is not having sex with his wife any more and that's one of his reasons for having an affair, if not a Mistress.  The fact that the wife may not be interested in having sex anymore, but wants to continue as a wife in most other ways, may contribute to the fact that she understands and accepts the Mistress.  Is there jealousy?  Sometimes, maybe often or most of the time. 

If you believe that you should have the entire focus of your spouse, any romantic relationships outside the marriage are a problem for you. I used to think that the place to find a faithful, loyal man was in church but what about this church?

Sister Wives must also be having sex with the same man at the same time and, it seems, mostly without using contraception, sometimes helping each other deliver the babies.  Some of these Sister Wives have had children born in the same years. You may even be on a schedule to see your mutual husband, to have an evening of intimacy, and have to negotiate that with the other women when you need to do something else.  Unlike many wives whose husband are off seeing someone, as a Plural Wife, you may know exactly where he is and who with all the time!  Your children will all be co-siblings.  Your daughters will probably also seek Plural Marriage.

Here is a link for the LOVE THREE TIMES site! LOVETHREETIMES.COM

Here is a link to a Blog called SISTER WIVES! THESISTERWIVES.BLOGSPOT.COM

THINKING ABOUT THIS, I would like to say that psychologists, preachers, and most parents (especially mothers) try to instill the idea that a woman deserves so very much today, and if she herself does not expect and get that so very much, the next question is of her self esteem.  But we cannot all have our own way or everything we think we want or deserve.

Some mistresses have written books heavily invested in therapy and say that no woman with self respect or self esteem can become a Mistress.  I note that these books seem to blame the women so much more than the men!

Yet, not everyone can be the Number One Priority. 

There are even real Princesses, women of privilege from birth, among us who don't find themselves as Number One in their husband's esteem. More than other women, many married women feel themselves alone and neglected because their husband is married to his business.

Missy

C 2014 All Rights Reserved including International and Internet Rights
Missy Rapport / Mistress Manifesto