I'm confused about the exact definition of polygamy as its enforced by law. I'm assuming a smart person will not legally register more than one marriage with the state (if they do register more than one, that's an easy to define form of polygamy). I would assume polygamy is defined something like this:

• One man living in a residence with multiple women
• That one man having sexual relations with all of the women
• That one man potentially having children with the multiple women

So here's the thing, isn't that basically what you'd get if you had a particularly wild rental house in college with poor birth control? Could the guy in that house at college be charge with polygamy? Where does legal promiscuity end and official polygamy begin?

(I'll ignore the separate philosophical question of whether it's hypocritical to make it legal in some places to cheat on your wife and get a woman pregnant but illegal to live with the two women happily at the same time)

Actually, there have been people who have had marriage liscences with multiple partners. Sometimes they use different names.

To the best of my (little) knowlege, Polygamy as it is practiced has a number of cult like properties that your colege dorm would not.

Inquality of power between men and women (all property is owned by "the community" which means a few men). Extremely large social and finanicial pressure on very young women for them to "marry" old men. A general lack of education, exposure to other ways of thinking, and an "us vs. them" mind set. Extremely large social and finanicial pressure to not leave the community, etc.

In the wild rental house the women in question were free to enter and are free to leave. That doesn't appear to be the case with Polygamy.

AJdelosReyes CA-USA:

Polygamy (one man two or more women as husband and wives) and its counterpart, polyandry (one woman two or more men as wife and husbands) are legal and/or moral concepts and prescriptions. They have got to do with postering a way of life centered on monogamy (one man, one woman or one husband, one wife) and enforced by secular and/or religious laws. As such, they really have little to do with preventing multiple sexual partners. Likewise, as such, there is no hypocrazy in the cases you cited which deal with sexual promiscuity and not with the practice of having two or more spouses. You see, this has got to do with marriages as legal arrangements whether by (or both) legislation, social convention/tradition, or religious dicta.

Concern by society is also due to the felt need to protect a family arrangement (one spouse-couple) as the base of an enduring, peaceful, viable communal life. Indeed, historically, only where there is a very wide difference between the numbers of the members of the sexes (male:female ratio) has affected communities/societies turn to polygamy/polyandry as the case may be. The conclusion drawn is that monogamous marriage should not only be the norm (enforced) because of religious and/or social legislation but also due to its role in the survival (hence, biological reason) of human societies.

Now them, really, even only with one husband/father married to one wife/mother, there is already so much tension and conflict at home, one must wonder what would it be with two (nagging?) wives/mothers or two (strutting macho) husbands/fathers!

The question of "faithfulness" to monogamous marriage vows, that is really to say, sexual exclusivity between spouses, is another story, much more "romantic" and for that, more "amorphous." (Almost a pun, that.)
.

I guess the area that intrigues me is the technical, legal definition of polygamy. I think most intelligent people would be able to figure out whether a given situation is polygamy based on common sense, but it seems to me it would be very difficult to actually write a good, non-discriminatory law that properly declares a difference between promiscuous cohabitation and actual polygamy (obviously lawmakers couldn't just write a law banning cohabitation between Mormons in Utah and Arizona). I think, once upon a time, cohabitation laws would have indirectly banned polygamy, but they would also ban common male/female roommate situations.

Sorry about the double post, I figured I'd clarify with an example.

1. Let's say I'm a married man with wife and children (and we all share a house). That's legal.
   
2. Now I start having an affair with another woman who lives elsewhere. In most states, that's legal.
   
3. Now I hire a live-in nanny. That's legal.
4. Now I start having a secret affair with that nanny. Is that polygamy? I doubt it.
   
5. Now my wife finds out about it, but she's amazingly ok with it. Is it now polygamy?
6. Now my kids find out. Does that make it polygamy?
7. Now I declare "I'm a polygamist and in my church I'm married to both these women!". I suppose now it's illegal...
   

It's a very gray area that it would be hard to legislate well. If everything is legal until step #7, then any polygamist that could bear to keep silent would never be officially breaking the law...

Darn, almost forgot.

I see what you're getting at, but I think most polygamy prosecutions have operated on an "I know it when I see it" basis.

Essentially, it's not about law enforcement going around trying to figure out "Who's a polygamist? Lets arrest them!" Like you would enforce against other crimes. Law enforcement agencies basically have to make the decision to target an individual for it, after it has been brought to their attention.

The other concept here is "common law marraige" which is a totally subjective term, but can be applied to polygamists who don't register their marriages. In short, the answer to the question is that a judge and\or jury make the determination of what is polygamy.

Real people tend to not like this situation to the point that they'll only tollerate it if there's a massive power imbalance. Generally speaking 1-6 is probably not illegal because it tends to only happen in extreme cases. That coma-woman in Florida for example (Terri S-something).

And that power imbalance is where society tends to frown to the point where the law gets involved. Really weird sex is just frowned upon. Really weird sex at gun point is illegal. If the Church were less cult-like and didn't make it a point to control and prevent any possible way for the women in question to say 'no' IMHO they'd be ignored... but IMHO they also wouldn't survive very long because people would leave.

Uh, you've all gotten the definition of polygamy not quite right.

Polygamy is when either a man or a woman has multiple spouses.

PolyGYNY is when only the man may have multiple spouses

PolyANDRY is when only the woman may have multiple spouses.

PolyGAMY is an umbrella term that covers both polygyny and polyandry.

Polygamy is not synonymous with polygyny, even though it is the most common type.

I think you will find that there have not been any US prosecutions for polygamy for at least 50 years, probably in large part for the reasons expressed here -- how to make a legal distinction between a number of other sexual arrangements, including the stereotypical hippie commune.

In practice, those who clearly ARE polygamists usually legally marry each of their wives, and file for divorce before marrying the next. The "divorced" wives and their kids also often end up collecting welfare. Welfare fraud is one of the areas sometimes used to prosecute polygamists.