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Subject Area: Law
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

§ 189.: Polygamy prohibited—Marriage confined to monogamy.— - Christopher G. Tiedeman, A Treatise on State and Federal Control of Persons and Property in the United States considered from both a Civil and Criminal Standpoint, vol. 2 [1900]

Edition used:

A Treatise on State and Federal Control of Persons and Property in the United States considered from both a Civil and Criminal Standpoint (St. Louis: The F.H. Thomas Law Book Co., 1900). Vol. 2.

Part of: A Treatise on State and Federal Control of Persons and Property in the United States considered from both a Civil and Criminal Standpoint, 2 vols.

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§ 189.

Polygamy prohibited—Marriage confined to monogamy.—

While voicing the universal moral sentiment of a higher civilization, the laws against polygamy likewise furnish to society a protection against the evils arising from the degradation of its females and the procreation of more children than one man is able to support. In monogamy, it is often difficult for the husband and father to provide the proper means of support for the offspring of his only wife; and in polygamy the difficulty would be greatly increased, if the system did not make plodding slaves of the women. There can be no question that the system of polygamy brings about a moral degradation of the women, treating them as mere animals, designed simply to gratify the animal passions of the man who owns them. The wife of a many-wived husband cannot feel for him the noble and ennobling sentiment of love in its higher phase, for the relation she bears to him is anything but ennobling. Then, again, it is estimated, with a reasonable show of accuracy, that the population of the world is nearly equally divided between the two sexes, the adult female predominating to a small extent. If polygamy were legalized, the logical consequence would be that a proportion of men, the number increasing in proportion to the average number of wives to each married man, would be prevented from entering into the marriage state; because through competition a wife had become a luxury, if one could be procured at all, and such men would seek the gratification of their sexual desires in illicit concubinage. Polyandry is and must be the invariable complement of polygyny.

But, at this late day, it is not necessary to point out the evils of polygamy, for the accumulated experience of the oriental world confirms the injurious character of the system which the moral consciousness of the occidental world had discovered, as if by inspiration. So generally and naturally is the evil character of polygamy recognized, that the leading American authority on the law of marriage, without any qualification or preliminary explanation, defines marriage to be “the civil status of one man and one woman united in law for life, for the discharge, to each other and the community, of the duties legally incumbent on those whose association is founded on the distinction of sex.1 There can be no doubt as to the constitutionality of laws against polygamy, under the general constitutional provisions; but of late the right of government to prohibit and punish polygamy in cases, where its practice is commanded, or at least sanctioned by one’s religion, is questioned on the ground that it is a violation of religious liberty, and hence contravenes the constitutional provision, relating to religious liberty. The question has been raised under the United States statutes, which relate to the practice of polygamy among the Mormons of Utah. It has been held by the Supreme Court of the United States that the constitutional guaranty of religious liberty does not extend its protection to the crimes committed under the sanction of religion.2

[1]1 Bishop Mar. & Div., § 3.

[2]See Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145.