Polygamy Essay

The Polygamy Debate

Prateeksha Ravi

University of Waterloo

The Polygamy Debate

Polygamy involves the marriage of more than one spouse at the same time. It is more of an umbrella term with narrower categories such as polygyny where a man is married to more than one wife at a time or polyandry where a woman is married to more than one husband at a time. However, it is more commonly characterized as a system of polygyny where men take multiple wives. The Criminal Code of Canada criminalized polygamy under section 293, sentencing offenders to a five-year prison term if they entered into or consented to a conjugal union with more than one person at the same time (Lak, 2009). Polygamy has been criminalized for over a century now and yet, law enforcement agencies have been hesitant to apply these laws out of fear that it may be challenged in the court as unacceptable based on the rights guaranteed by the Charter (Ahmed, 2014, p.5). This paper is going to argue that polygamy should be criminalized and outline the reasons why, explain how the polygamy laws protect people from harm and explain why there is a limited interpretation of marriage because of these laws.  

Firstly, some key factors significantly influenced the criminalization of polygamy in Canada. The prohibition of polygamy was influenced heavily by the American socio-legal and political development in the 19th century to suppress a minority religious group called the Mormons (Ahmed, 2014, p.7).  More than depriving Mormons of practicing their religion, this criminal provision was imposed because the harms associated with the practice outweighed the religious reasons (Ahmed, 2014, p.7). Largely practiced in Bountiful, British Columbia, polygamy is a fundamental tenet of Mormonism; however it is condemned by the common law definition of marriage in Canada which is based on monogamy. Many of the concerns about polygamy are based on the inherent inequality in a relationship and the representation of a patriarchal family form (Beaman, 2014, p.3). In fact, the legal acceptance of polygamy is enough to hinder women’s equality, even if they are not actually in a polygamous marriage because the constant uncertainty as to whether a husband will marry again forces a woman to live under that insecurity throughout her marriage (Campbell, 2005, p.10).  With polygamy, there are issues that may arise where a husband may marry a second wife without informing the first. Even if there were consent, there may still be a concern that the first wife was coerced into accepting the subsequent wife, which results in lack of support and resources offered to the first wife (Campbell, 2005, p.36) .

As Fowler explained, polygamy was seen as being dangerous, promiscuous, non-white and unchristian because it went against Canada’s values of human dignity and equality between men, women and the rule of law (Fowler, 2012, p.107). For example, Bountiful saw many cases of adolescent females well below the legal age of consent being trafficked between United States and Canada to marry older men. Such actions represented a clear challenge to the nature of Canada’s values and undermined the structure of the nation, as we know it. Along the same lines, the criminalization of polygamy is also justified because of the harm induced because of women and young girls sometimes coerced into consenting to marriage without a choice. Related, was also the issue of immigration of polygamous American Mormon families who were prosecuted by the U.S. government, so criminalization also aided in discouraging polygamous immigrant families into Canada unless they were in a monogamous relationship (Bala Aff. p.10).