Thank you all for the kind responses to my call for teaching resources on the topics of feminist ethics and polygamy.  Several of you have indicated that you would be interested in the results, so I have pasted a list of sources below.  Please feel free to add this list.  I am also interested in your thoughts about this topic.  I have been following the development of an underground railroad in Arizona that helps young women escape from the polygamous community of Colorado City, but the recent intervention in El Dorado, Texas has me conflicted.   I question whether polygamy, or more specifically polygyny, is inherently wrong from a feminist perspective, but am more willing to affirm that the disparity in the ratio of men to women is conducive to a host of other more objectionable practices such as child marriage, forced marriage, reduced epistemic and social autonomy, incest, etc., especially when coupled with the isolation and patriarchal epistemic manipulation that characterizes these particular communities.  However, these are problems that can arise in non-polygamous marriages, and I struggle to "apprentice" myself to the perspective of these women.  While authorities would hopefully investigate any charge of child rape, the power to take away children is a grave one that is often leveraged against "deviant"  and vulnerable women.  Our society is also inconsistent in not as vehemently condemning the practice of non-marital polygamous co-habitation, and ignoring the rampant level of child abuse, child rape, child porn, child murder, etc. in the so called "normal" society. What do the rest of you think about the Texas intervention and subsequent return of most of the children?  Cheers, Maureen
 
 

Esland, David and Nussbaum, Martha.  (ed.s) Sex Preference, and Family:  Essays on 

            Law and Nature (New York:  Oxford University Press) 1997.

Galston, William.  Public Matters:  Politics, Policy, and Religion in the 21st Century.  

            (Boulder, CO:  Rowman & Littlefield Publishers) 2005.

Joseph, Elizabeth.  "My Husband's Nine Wives".  NY Times, Op-ed, May 23, 1991, A31

-------------"Polygamy Now!" From a speech given at the Utah Chapter of National 

            Organization of Women.  Printed in Harper's Magazine.  Feb. 1998, 26-28.

Solomon, Dorothy Allred.  Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk:  Growing Up in 

            Polygamy.  (New York:  WW Norton & Co.) 2003.

Song, Sarah.  Justice, Gender, and the Politics of Multiculturalism.  (New York, 

            Cambridge University Press) 2007.

Warenski, Mary.  Patriarchs and Politics:  The Plight of Mormon Women.  (San 

            Francisco:  McGraw Publishers.

Nancy Rosenblum's "Democratic Sex: Reynolds v. US" in Nussbaum and Estlund's _Sex Preference and the Family: Essays on Law and Nature

 

Cheshire Calhoun, Who's Afraid of Polygamous Marriage? Lessons for Same-Sex Marriage
Advocacy from the History of Polygamy, 42 SAN DIEGO L. REV. 1023 (2005) 

 

a segment of NPR's This American Life on polygamy.

 

URL: http://thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=99

 

EPISODE 99: I enjoy Being a Girl, Sort Of

 


Women of Principle: Female Networking in Contemporary Mormon Polygyny 


By Janet Bennion 

 

Corvino, J. "Homosexuality and the PIB Argument."

 
 
 
Maureen Sander-Staudt Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Dept. of Integrative Studies
Arizona State University
PO Box 37100 Mail Code 3051
(602) 543-6507
fax (602) 543-6004