Earlier: Utah Legislature Votes to Make Polygamy No Longer Punishable by Jail

From Pew Research Center:

Polygamy is rare around the world and mostly confined to a few regions

BY STEPHANIE KRAMER

DECEMBER 7, 2020

…In February, Utah passed a bill to reduce the penalties for adults who voluntarily live in polygamous relationships, making the practice an infraction, a low-level offense that is not punishable with jail time.…

A Pew Research Center report about living arrangements in 130 countries and territories published in 2019 analyzed the number of people residing in polygamous households, as well as other types of households. Here are some key findings from that report, and from a separate study of customs and laws around the world.

Only about 2% of the global population lives in polygamous households, and in the vast majority of countries, that share is under 0.5%. …

Polygamy is most often found in sub-Saharan Africa, where 11% of the population lives in arrangements that include more than one spouse. Polygamy is widespread in a cluster of countries in West and Central Africa, including Burkina Faso, (36%), Mali (34%) and Nigeria (28%). In these countries, polygamy is legal, at least to some extent. Muslims in Africa are more likely than Christians to live in this type of arrangement (25% vs. 3%), but in some countries, the practice also is widespread among adherents of folk religions and people who do not identify with a religion. For example, in Burkina Faso, 45% of people who practice folk religions, 40% of Muslims and 24% of Christians live in polygamous households. Chad is the only country in this analysis where Christians (21%) are more likely than Muslims (10%) to live in this type of arrangement.

Many of the countries that permit polygamy have Muslim majorities, and the practice is rare in many of them. Fewer than 1% of Muslim men live with more than one spouse in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran and Egypt – all countries where the practice is legal at least for Muslims.

In Muslim countries, whether polygamy is merely a luxury for the very rich or common depends upon whether women are expected to bring home the halal equivalent of bacon, as they are in sub-Saharan Africa, where most farm work is done by women with hoes. In economies where women are expected to feed their children, it’s not uncommon for some old devil to collect numerous wives (although not all of their children are necessarily his, but it’s her duty to feed them, so he doesn’t get to exercised about this question). In contrast, in countries with heavier soil where men do the plowing, few men can afford to maintain more than one wife and her children.

… Polyandry, which refers to wives having more than one husband, is even rarer than polygamy and mostly documented among small and relatively isolated communities around the world. …

One-in-five U.S. adults believe that polygamy is morally acceptable, a recent Gallup poll found. This share has almost tripled (from 7%) since the question was first asked in 2003, but is still among the least accepted behaviors Gallup asks about. Self-described liberals are much more likely than conservatives to see polygamy as morally acceptable (34% vs. 9%).

I don’t know if polygamy will be the Next Big Thing like transgendermania has been in recent years, but I could see it coming in the U.S. with white liberals getting themselves worked up over the sacred civil rights of African immigrants to bring over all their wives (breaking up families makes the Statue of Liberty cry). As Americans, polygamy is who we are. Think how shameful it was that one, of several reasons, why Harvard and the immigration service kicked Barack Obama Sr. out of the country was because they suspected him of being a polygamist.

Eventually, Silicon Valley weirdos and hip Mormons will get into demanding that polygamous African immigrant marriages will be legally recognized in America.