|
I believe the standard view when Utah entered the union was that polygamy was an excuse for men to indulge their promiscuous desires by maintaining a harem of women who are socially repressed and sexually exploited. That, and some people say, "Icky."
As you say, it was not approached as an agreement between multiple, fully empowered individuals. Polygamy has generally been viewed as an excuse for promiscuity or else a result of the difference in power between the sexes. Most people do not look at, say, Saudi Arabia and see that as a model of how they want marriages to work in this country. This is a simple broken syllogism: men oppress women in [country x]; men marry multiple women in [country x]; therefore, polygamy is oppressive.
|