What is the real crime?

So, the Government of BC has finally approved the filing of charges of polygamy against Winston Blackmore and James Oler who lead a group of fundamentalist Mormons in Southeastern BC. Whatever could they be thinking? They being the Attorney General of BC and his bureaucrats.

The law respecting polygamy in Canada is largely untested as it relates to the Canadian Bill of Rights and in this case will probably not survive appeals to the Supreme Court if indeed lower courts convict these men.

Polygamy is quite common in Canada if one looks at it from the point of view of the government which says that if a man is in a live-in relationship with a woman for one year, then they enjoy a common-law marriage relationship and she is protected by property and other considerations as though she was married to that man. This notwithstanding the reality that that man may still be legally married to another woman. Then there are those cases where a man and more than one woman or a woman and more than one man co-habit with all of the circumstances of marriage applying in their lives, though no formal ceremony has so recognized the relationship.

Speaking as one who has been married three times, admittedly sequentially rather than concurrently, I am amazed that folks can maintain relationships with multiple partners.

It seems to me that the heart of the Blackmore case, from a community point of view, is not the question of polygamy as much as the question of the extent to which fundamental decisions about a girl/woman's life are made by men who make those decisions from the authoritarian position that they hold within the structure of the church community.

Raising a girl to be a woman within a religious tradition where the very formation of her reasoning process is so controlled by the patriarchal/authoritarian worldview of men who believe they are carrying out the work of God in making their decisions is hardly a practice of the development of free will in that girl.

And then there are what I think of as the icky parts of this sect's practices. The marrying of teen aged girls to men in their forties and fifties and sixties. The senior wife, junior wife structuring of the family units. The apparent imperative to validate the new marriages by means of the young wife producing offspring as quickly as possible. The absolute lack of choice given to these young women in the decisions of these old men. Very icky.

So, what do I think that society should do to deal with such cases?

First and foremost, apply the law in Canada that delivers special sanctions against persons in positions of perceived authority who exploit younger people sexually. Usually this is applied in cases of teachers who engage in sexual conduct with teenagers, but it certainly would apply to religious leaders who do such or who facilitate marriages between older men and younger women. Secondly, communities should make known to organizations that engage in the domination and exploitation of youth that this is not appropriate conduct. Whether the avenue by which this might be done would be to cut off social and business relationships, or to campaign for education of potential victims of such behavior, or to set up organizations that provide a meaningful route of escape from the sect and support in leaving it, I don't know.

I am pretty certain that the answer is not to try to beat the problem with laws against polygamy.

I wonder how many of Mr. Blackmore's and his male co-adherents of his beliefs, wives have any meaningful concept of the Canadian view that women are equal to men, that choice is a right supposedly enjoyed by all in this country, that leaving the polygamous community will not result in damnation or social ostracizing in the real world or that the single greatest support that they can call on in the world outside their small community is that they are loved and valued as human beings rather than as objects representative of a mans supposed vigour or stature or holiness.