Category Archives: Polygamy

Top judge who upheld Canada's polygamy law announces he will be retiring  Vancouver Sun

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Top judge who upheld Canada's polygamy law announces he will be retiring - Vancouver Sun

Actor, Yul Edochie, on Wednesday tendered a public apology to his first wife, May, over his decision to marry another wife and fellow actress, Judy Austin.

The actor unveiled Judy as his second wife in April 2022, when he revealed that they both had a son together.

Eight months later, Yul decided to publicly apologise to his wife for his actions, as he stated that he meant no disrespect to her.

He said he had apologised to his first wife, with whom he has four children, countless times before now.

In his apology post, Edochie said, To my dear wife, Queen May Yul-Edochie. I acknowledge that I hurt you deeply and Ive apologised to you countless times.

I take the blame for my actions. I agree with you that polygamy shouldnt be forced on anyone. You never bargained for it from the beginning neither did I. But I guess life happens. You already know the whole story.

I didnt do it to disrespect you. I didnt do it to replace you, nor because I do not love you anymore, no. I have always loved you and always will.

Ive been a good husband and a wonderful father. Ive supported all your hustle from day one. I have been an exceptional father to our children to date, making sure they lack nothing and always there for everyone.

Out of 100, I have done 99 things right. Hating me because of one thing isnt the best. Nobody is perfect. Im not. Youre not. Nobody is, except God.

I assure you that nobody is trying to take your place. I have apologised to you countless times sincerely from my heart.

Im sorry. Ive always loved you and always will. Butuo nwanyi oma. We can live peacefully and happily.

Shortly after he announced his second marriage, May openly stated that her belief and faith did not permit polygamy.

Prior to his public apology, Yul had at several times boasted about his polygamous marriage, adding that the decision had brought him blessings.

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Polygamy: Yul Edochie publicly apologises to first wife

Ten former members of a Utah-based polygamist sect known as the Kingston Group are pursuing punitive damages against the organization after they say it subjected them to years of unpaid labor, sexual violence and human trafficking.

In a lawsuit filed earlier this month, the sects ex-members allege: It is largely through illegal marriage practices that the [Kingston Group] is able to unlawfully make girls and their children religious martyrs and traffic them for sexual and labor purposes.

The lawsuit contains explicit details of how Kingston Group leaders who also own and operate several businesses and schools in the suburbs of Utahs capital, Salt Lake City allegedly arrange incestuous and sometimes underage marriages between teenage girls and adult men with exalted status to produce hundreds of children.

The suit alleges episodes of rape aimed at forcing pregnancy, group members covering up years of sexual abuse and indoctrinating children in elementary school about plural marriage.

The plaintiffs attorney, Roger Hoole, declined to elaborate beyond his clients lawsuit or respond to requests for interviews with former group members.

In a response to the allegations against it, the Kingston Group also known officially as the Davis County Cooperative Society and internally as the Order said its current policy prohibits plural marriage for members under 18. They also claimed to believe that marriage is a personal choice that should not be coerced.

Members are encouraged to prayerfully seek guidance from their parents or through personal inspiration, but ultimately, the decision must be their own, the group said in its response to the lawsuit.

The group added: Once an individual has made a decision on who to marry, members are encouraged to seek the blessing of their parents, family and/or church leaders, but to say that one individual chooses or heavily influences who will marry who is entirely inaccurate.

Nine of the plaintiffs claim the Kingston Group made them begin working during their elementary or preschool days through their late teenage years. None of them received a paycheck, they allege.

In her complaint, Amanda Rae Grant claims she was assigned to work in her early teens at Advance Copy, where wedding announcements and invitations were printed, because wedding pictures of little girls marrying men in incestuous or plural marriages could not be printed at Walmart.

Another plaintiff, Jeremy Roberts, said he started working four hours a day year-round at a farm run by the Order when he was seven or eight. He allegedly was told that his hourly pay was $3.23.

By the time he was 12, Roberts said, he was working 12-hour shifts at a mine the Order ran.

The Kingston Group denied allegations that children worked for their businesses. The group also said that its business owners are strongly encouraged to follow all applicable laws when hiring, employing and compensating their employees.

The allegations facing the Kingston Group come after the state of Utah effectively decriminalized polygamy between consenting adults in 2020, making plural marriage an infraction similar in gravity to a speeding ticket. However, if a spouse is coerced or underage in a plural marriage in Utah, it becomes a felony.

It marked the latest chapter in Utahs long, complicated history with polygamy. To help Utah achieve statehood, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints issued a manifesto ending polygamy as a practice in 1890.

However, more than 130 years later, polygamist sects exist in close-knit settlements throughout the state, including the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), run by its imprisoned leader and convicted rapist Warren Jeffs.

Pro-polygamy groups estimate there are about 30,000 to 40,000 people in Utah who live in polygamist communities. The Kingston Group declined to confirm its membership numbers.

While the Kingston Group, founded in 1935, is not affilated with the FLDS, members practice a fundamentalist version of Mormonism that involves polygamy. Members are primarily born into the organization whose leader Paul Elden Kingston is known as the Man in the Watch Tower.

The lawsuit against the group is not the first time it has faced media scrutiny or legal peril. In August, the Utah state charter school board mandated that the Kingston Group-run charter school, Vanguard Academy, replace all nine members of its governing board after various and repeated violations.

Officials alleged that school leaders hired Kingston-connected businesses and paid them with taxpayer money, the Salt Lake City television news station KUTV reported.

Vanguard Academys leaders sued state charter school officials in response, and a judge issued a restraining order that kept the targeted governing board members in their positions. The school faces a three-month probation during which it is required to rectify its issues or face closure.

Meanwhile, in July 2019, four members of the Kingston family pleaded guilty to fraud charges after federal authorities established that an Order-run business Washakie Renewable Energy stole a half billion dollars worth of biodiesel tax credits and laundered it through shell companies.

The lawsuit cites Washakie Renewable Energy as an example of the groups many attempts to defraud the government.

At times, the Order has members forge and fabricate documents, often against their will, to further [their] self-interests, the lawsuit alleges.

The plaintiffs complaint added those practices facilitated so-called attempts by the Kingston Group to bleed the beast a term used in polygamous communities to describe how they can benefit by defrauding the government and its taxpayers.

The Kingston Group said the concept of bleeding the beast is abhorrent and was never a tenet of its organization.

The group argued that its values exact self-sufficiency and that per capita its members save or contribute more to their community than the average citizen does.

However, the fraud accusations confronting the Kingston Group extend well beyond Washakie and other Order-run businesses.

The lawsuit explains how the birth certificates of multiple plaintiffs failed to list their biological fathers, so those men could escape the legal consequences inherent to having multiple and often underage wives.

Two of the plaintiffs Michelle Afton Michaels, 22, and LaDonna Blaklyn Ruth Lancaster, 18 share the same father, Jesse Orvil Kingston, the lawsuit alleges. The suit alleges Kingston family members try to preserve their blood purity which they refer to as Pure Kingston Blood by marrying and procreating with other Kingstons.

The group has called the Pure Kingston Blood term fringe, unfamiliar, and somewhat offensive for its members, and it rejects any preference for any particular family or bloodline.

Jesse Orvil Kingston is not listed on either Michaels or Lancasters birth certificates, according to the lawsuit, which additionally accuses him of fathering more than 300 children with 14 wives.

The Guardian typically does not identify people who allege to be a victim of sexual violence, but the publicly available lawsuit identifies Michaels, Lancaster and other plaintiffs by name.

Amanda Rae Grant alleges her father is Verl Johnson, accusing him of marrying 17-year-old Lori Peterson and two others to produce 33 children.

Instead of being listed on her birth certificate, Grant says the document listed a fictitious father called Kyle Grant.

The lawsuit claims that Utah state officials went so far as to track down a man named Kyle Grant for the purposes of collecting child support payments, but they concluded he was not Amanda Rae Grants father.

This was told as a funny story in Amandas family, the lawsuit alleges.

The Kingston Group argued that it is parents prerogative to file birth records for their children how they choose within the bounds of the law.

This is especially true of the mother, who has the legal right to establish paternity or not to establish paternity at the time of filing, the Kingston Group said in a statement. The statement added that the group has not issued any specific guidance for members pertaining to birth certificates, or medical records, but encourages its members to follow the law.

One of the lawsuits more shocking allegations centers on claims from plaintiff Jenny Kingston, 25, that her parents sent her to a rehabilitation center named Lifeline for Youth for six months to punish her for resisting her marriage to Jacob Daniel Kingston Jr, the son of the Washakie energy companys boss.

She accuses Kingston Jr of physically overpowering and raping her to try to get her pregnant. Group members knew of the abuse, her complaint alleges, but did not report or stop it. Instead, she claims they used group money to get her in vitro fertilization treatment.

She later fled the group with her twin children.

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Utah polygamist sect accused of indoctrination, rape and child marriage ...

January 10, 2016 Posted by Admin

Across the globe, there are many forms of marriages that are being practiced by people that come from different backgrounds. These forms are monogamy and polygamy. Monogamy refers to the practice of having only one husband or wife at a time. On the other hand, Polygamy refers to the practice of having more than one husband or wife at a time. The key difference between monogamy and polygamy is that while in monogamy the individual has only one spouse, in polygamy there are more than one spouses at a time. Through this article let us examine the differences between these two practices with some examples.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, monogamy refers to the practice of having only one husband or wife at a time. This is the most familiar pattern of marriage for most of us. If we look at our day today society, monogamy seems to be the popular and more accepted form of marriage. In monogamy after choosing a partner, the individual lives with a single spouse throughout his lifetime. However, there is another concept known as serial monogamy. In this case, an individual lives with a single spouse at a time.

When we examine the concept of family, most sociological definitions take the idea of monogamy as the norm. To be more explicit, definitions of family highlight the existence of two adults who are in a monogamous relationship. For example, even in Murdocks definitions, it is clear that the various social, economical, sexual roles are performed by the two spouses. This is why we can state that monogamy is very well established in the present society. Further many societies have laws to uphold this practice.

Polygamy refers to the practice of having more than one husband or wife at a time. In the past polygamy was quite common in most societies. For examples, many kings had a number of queens during the ancient days, and this practice was considered as normal although now it is made illegal in most countries. When speaking of polygamy, there are two main types. They are,

Polygyny is when a man is married to more than one wife. Polyandry is when a woman is married to more than one husband. Although polygamy is practiced in certain parts of the world, there are different organizational bodies that are against this practice. When looking at this concept from a religious perspective, most religions do not approve of polygamy. Although it must be highlighted that Muslims are allowed to have more than one spouse.

Monogamy: Monogamy refers to the practice of having only one husband or wife at a time.

Polygamy: Polygamy refers to the practice of having more than one husband or wife at a time.

Monogamy: In monogamy there is only one spouse at a time.

Polygamy: In polygamy there is more than one spouse at a time.

Monogamy: Monogamy is now considered as the legal form of marriage.

Polygamy: Polygamy is considered to be illegal in most societies, although there are exceptions to this.

Monogamy: Monogamy is the popular practice of marriage.

Polygamy: Although polygamy was quite common in the past now it is only tolerated.

Image Courtesy:

1.Old marriage at Plac Kaszubski by Starscream Own work. [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Commons

2.Mormon Family (Russells Polygamy in Low Life) by Charles Roscoe Savage [Public Domain] via Commons

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Difference Between Monogamy and Polygamy

Take out the polygamy and the Browns of Sister Wives are just another messed up family  Toronto Star

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Take out the polygamy and the Browns of Sister Wives are just another messed up family - Toronto Star

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Family Research Council President Tony Perkins has denounced a New York judge's ruling that nonmonogamous relationships should be treated equally to marriage under the eyes of the law.

Last month, Judge Karen May Bacdayan of the New York City Civil Court ruled in the case of West 49th St., LLC v O'Neill that the time has arrived for non-monogamous relationships to be given legal recognition.

Bacdayan argued that the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage while revolutionary, nevertheless still adhered to the majoritarian, societal view that only two people can have a family-like relationship.

Why then, except for the very real possibility of implicit majoritarian animus, is the limitation of two persons inserted into the definition of a family-like relationship for the purposes of receiving the same protections from eviction accorded to legally formalized or blood relationships? Bacdayan wrote in her decision.

In a commentary published by The Washington Stand on Tuesday, Perkins said the decision showed that conservatives' claims about a same-sex marriage slippery slope were correct.

The media laughed off the conservative movements concerns about the slippery slope when Democrats pushed to sexualize the military 20 years ago, Perkins wrote.

Now, almost two decades later, with American parents in the fight of their lives over transgenderism and judges paving the way for plural marriage, it unfortunately proves we were right.

Perkins also pointed to a recent Gallup poll that found 23% of respondents believed polygamy was morally acceptable, well above what it was a generation ago.

And why not? If love and consent are all that define a relationship, then proponents of incest, pedophilia, and group marriage can follow the LGBT playbook all the way to validity, Perkins added. The Left has been quick to say that polygamy isnt the next gay marriage. But who could possibly take them seriously?

During the debate over same-sex marriage legalization, conservative politicians and activists argued that if same-sex marriage was legalized, polygamy would follow soon after.

In his dissent in the 2015 ruling Obergefell v. Hodges, Chief Justice John Roberts argued that the reasoning behind the majority opinion legalizing gay marriage could be argued in favor of a fundamental right to plural marriage.

If a same-sex couple has the constitutional right to marry because their children would otherwise suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser why wouldnt the same reasoning apply to a family of three or more persons raising children? Roberts wrote.

In 2014, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups finalized a ruling in which he struck down part of Utahs ban on polygamy, though he stopped short of declaring polygamy a constitutional right.

At issue was whether Kody Brown, star of the reality TV series "Sister Wives," could be married to four women at once. Brown argued that the state ban violated his religious freedom.

Brown and his family belonged to a small Mormon denomination that, unlike the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, still practices plural marriage.

Waddoups ruled that Brown could marry a fourth time while cohabitating with his three wives, but those other marriages would not receive official legal recognition.

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Tony Perkins slams New York courts pro-polygamy ruling | Politics News

1. Polygamist leader had at least 20 wives, mostly minors, documents say  NPR
2. Arrested polygamous leader had 20 wives including some minors, FBI says  PBS NewsHour
3. 3 of polygamous "prophet" leader's 20 wives charged with kidnapping: "These women have proven that they will stop at nothing"  CBS News
4. Arizona polygamy case linked to Lincoln  KLKN
5. Polygamist leader and 'self-proclaimed prophet' had 20 wives, including minors, affidavit alleges  ABC News
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Polygamist leader had at least 20 wives, mostly minors, documents say - NPR

Polyandry is a marital arrangement in which a woman has several husbands. In Tibet, those husbands are often brothers; "fraternal polyandry". Concern over which children are fathered by which brother falls on the wife alone. She may or may not say who the father is because she does not wish to create conflict in the family or is unsure who the biological father is.[1] Historically the social system compelled marriage within a social class.

When the People's Republic of China annexed Tibet, political systems in many regions of Tibet remained unchanged until, between 1959 and 1960, political reforms changed the land ownership and taxation systems.[2]

Since 1981, the Tibet Autonomous Region government no longer permits new polyandric marriages under family law. Even though it is currently illegal, after collective farming was phased out and the farmed land reverted in the form of long-term leases to individual families, polyandry in Tibet is de facto the norm in rural areas.[citation needed]

As elucidated further below, the primary reason for polyandrous marriage among Tibetans appears to be economic: to prevent land, herds, and other assets from being divided and/or to increase the amount of labor available to support the family.

The Tibetan social organization under Lhasa control from the 17th century on was quasi-feudal, in that arable land was divided and owned by aristocratic families, religious organizations, and the central government and the population was subject to those district divisions. The population was further divided into social classes:

These wealthier family units hereditarily owned estates leased from their district authority, complete with land titles. In Goldstein's research about the Gyantse district specifically, he found them owning typically from 20 acres (81,000m2) to 300 acres (1.2km2) of land each. Their primary civil responsibility was to pay taxes (tre-ba and khral-pa means "taxpayer"), and to supply corve services that included both human and animal labor to their district authority.[5] According to Goldstein, the entire family structure and marriage system were subordinated to serve the land and corporate family unit.

The family structure and marriage system of tre-ba were characterized by two fundamental principles:

A "stem family" is one in which a married child is inextricably linked to his natal family in a common household. The "mono-marital principle" dictates that for each and every generation, one and only one marriage is permitted collectively among all the male siblings, and the children born out of this marriage are members of the family unit who have full legal rights.

The family organization was based on these two patterns to avoid the partitioning of their estates. A generation with two or more conjugal families was seen as unstable because it could produce serious conflicts that could divide their corporate family land. As a matter of fact, Tibetan inheritance rules of family land, mainly based on agnatic links, did provide for each generation to partition the land between brothers, but this was ignored to prevent the estate unit from being threatened. Polygamous marriage, therefore arose as a solution to this potential threat.

To elucidate, consider a family with two or more sons. Tibetan inheritance rules gave all males of the family, the right to claim a part of the family estate, so if each son took a different bride, there would be different conjugal families, and this would lead to the partitioning of the land among the different sons' families. To avoid this situation, the solution was a fraternal polyandrous marriage, where the brothers would share a bride. Bi-fraternal polyandrous marriages were more common than tri-fraternal or quadri-fraternal polyandry, because the latter forms of marriage were often characterized by severe familial tensions (reference missing). Different mechanisms were employed to reduce the number of sons within a household, such as making one son a celibate monk, or sending away a son to become an adoptive bridegroom to a family without male children.

Another kind of marriage, although uncommon, is the "polygynous marriage". In a family where all the children were female, sisterly polygynous marriage represented the most common choice. In traditional inheritance rules, only males had rights over the land, but where there were no males to inherit them, the daughters had the right over the corporations land. To maintain the familial estate unit, the daughters would share a bridegroom who will move matrilocally (as opposed to the patrilocal principle where the brides move into the husband's family) and become a member of his wife's family.

Bigenerational polygamy was present as an application of the mono-marital principle. Consider a family in which the mother died before the son was married. If the widower remarried another woman, two conjugal families would have been created, leading to the eventual partition of the estate. Bigenerational polyandry, whereby the father shared a wife with his son, was therefore the solution to avoid this problem. Conversely, when a woman with no male offspring was widowed, she would share a husband with her daughter ("bigenerational polygyny"), thus avoiding land partitioning (reference missing).

In these mono-marital stem families, the family head, who had a dominant role in the family, was called trong bey abo (or simply abo). The abo who managed the property and resources of the family unit, was always a male, and almost invariably the oldest male of the elder generation in power. Sometimes, a younger brother would assume the abo role when the eldest male retired.

In taxpayer families, polyandrous and monogamist marriage were the more common forms of marriage, while much less widespread was the polygynous marriage. Bigenerational forms of polyandry were, however, very rare.

The householder class (du-jung or dud-chung-ba[5]) comprised peasants who held only small plots of land that were legally and literally "individual" possessions. Land inheritance rules were different from taxpayer families, determined by the district authority and not strictly hereditary to the family unit.

The householder family structure unlike the taxpayer families lacked the single marriage per generation requirement to avoid land parceling. When a son married he often established a new household and split off from the original family unit. If taxpayer sons married that created succession for the family corporation and bound them to the estate for patrimonial and land reasons. Householder marriages did not incur that responsibility, and they generally married for love and were more often monogamist. The small number of polyandry cases within the householder class were limited to only the wealthier families.

The landless peasants (mi-bo) were not obligated to and did not have any heritable rights to land. Like the householders, they tended to have less polyandry than the taxpayer families.

As has been seen, fraternal polyandry was a form of marriage that was prevalent among the tre-ba class. Traditionally, marriages were arranged by the parents, often when the children were still very young. As tre-ba marriages were decided for patrimonial reasons, the brides' and bridegrooms' personal preferences were of no consequence. In polyandrous conjugal family, the eldest brother was, more often than not, the dominant person in the household. All the other brothers, however, shared the work equally, and had the right to sexual relations with their common wife, who had to treat them equally.

All children were treated equally, and a "father" was not allowed to show any favoritism, even if he knew who his biological children really were, as biological paternity was not regarded as important. Similarly, the children considered all their uncles as their fathers, and a child avoided treating members of the elder generation differently, even if they knew who their biological father was. The children would usually only address the eldest surviving husband as "father".[7]

Divorce was quite simple. If one of the brothers in a polyandrous marriage felt displeased, he only had to leave the household. Polyandrous marriages were often characterized by tensions and clashes for a variety of different reasons. For example, conflicts might arise because a younger brother wanted to contest the authority of his eldest brother; sometimes, sexual favoritism might occur, generating tension among the male partners in the marriage, especially so when there were significant age differences among the brothers.

Polyandry declined rapidly in the first decade after the establishment of Tibet Autonomous Region, and was banned during the Cultural Revolution as part of the "Four Olds". However, it regained popularity in the 1980s as the policies relaxed and the people's commune system broke down. A 1988 survey by the Tibet University throughout Tibet found that 13.3% of families were polyandric, and 1.7% were polygynous.[8] Currently, polyandry is present in all Tibetan areas, but particularly common in some rural regions of Tsang and Kham that are faced with extreme living conditions.[9] A 2008 study of several villages in Xigaze and Qamdo prefectures found that 20-50% of the families were polyandric, with the majority having two husbands. For some remote settlements, the number was as high as 90%.[10] Polyandry is very rare among urban residents or non-agricultural households. Representatives of an American charity working in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, from 1997 to 2010 observed polyandry still being practiced there.[11]

A regulation issued by government of Tibet Autonomous Region in 1981 approved all polygamous marriages before the date of implementation, but not those formed after the date, with no prosecution for violating the regulation. In practice, such a family would be registered as a monogamous family between the wife and the eldest husband.[12]

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Polyandry in Tibet - Wikipedia

1. Why is polygamy in the Vaticans synod document?  The Pillar
2. What does the synod document say about ordination of women, LGBTQ issues, and the liturgy?  Catholic News Agency
3. Enlarge the tent: Synod document sees desire for greater inclusion  Diocese of Scranton
4. Synod's Global Text Backs 'Radical Inclusion'  Church Militant
5. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Why is polygamy in the Vaticans synod document? - The Pillar

A man has sparked reactions on social media following his surprise car gifts to his two wives.

A short clip shared by @bcrworldwide on Instagram captured the beautiful moment that was witnessed by a handful of well-wishers.

After the ladies blindfolds were removed, a man could be seen spraying them money as they finally saw their cars.

A saxophonist played his instrument as people cheered the stunned new car owners. The grateful ladies went to their lanky husband and hugged him in appreciation.

The black whips were parked side by side and appeared to be of the same car type. The ladies stood beside their cars excitedly.

Watch the video below:

@janet_francisca_ said:

@sweetcreature305 said:

@ericmoore_mpr said:

@macaulayrume said:

@omaaperry said:

@jenniferjennynancy said:

@chidera6981 said:

Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that a Kenyan man had built identical houses for his two wives.

In the pictures that he shared on social media, the bungalows which are just a few metres away from each other have a similar design, from the roofs to the windows, exterior walls and porches.

He said the project was slowly taking shape and would be soon completed, leaving netizens in awe with his boldness at a time when polygamy was still a matter of contention among a section of Kenyans.

Source: Legit.ng

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"Chubby and Slim, Nice": Loving Man Wows His 2 Wives, Gifts Them New Cars on the Same Day in Cute Video - Legit.ng