Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast The Swing. In this podcast on iTunes, is it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know? I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant in the flesh. We're both wearing um robes
Speaker 1: and mustaches. Right, swinging swinging? Chuck as into swing? Yes,
Speaker 1: you have you ever heard of swinging? Yeah? I think
Speaker 1: I told the story once about the Atlanta Swingers Club
Speaker 1: was very close to well, no, it was just called
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Swingers Club. Well, it's pretty straight. I may
Speaker 1: have said this, but it was a long time ago.
Speaker 1: It was very close to my phone number growing up,
Speaker 1: and we used to get calls all the time for
Speaker 1: people seeking the Swingers Club. And being the Baptist family,
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, my mom basically made them
Speaker 1: seem like they were. It was the devil calling. I'm
Speaker 1: sure pretty funny. Yeah. So um, In this very special
Speaker 1: episode of Stuff you Should Know, we find out what
Speaker 1: fuel young Chuck Bryant's budding sexuality That turns out it
Speaker 1: was misplaced phone calls, the Swingers Club and continued sexual
Speaker 1: dysfunction because now that I'm adult, I'm like, they're just
Speaker 1: trying to have a good time. Yeah, hey man, it's
Speaker 1: not my deal. But you know, you don't want to
Speaker 1: say you don't want to put your hang ups on
Speaker 1: other people, right, Yeah, that's a drag. Well it depends, man. Um,
Speaker 1: we're talking today about polygamy, and there's a whole lot
Speaker 1: of people putting their hang ups on polygamists. They have
Speaker 1: a hard time here in the States, they do. But
Speaker 1: before we get into that, chuck um, before we get
Speaker 1: into the swinging this podcast around. Yes, um, well, let's
Speaker 1: get some administrative details out of the way. Yes, very
Speaker 1: important an announcement. This is like that. I know you're
Speaker 1: tired of hearing about it if you don't live in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: But this is the last Southeast one of the last
Speaker 1: chances we'll have to say. We're having our Trivia night
Speaker 1: in Atlanta October. It's a Wednesday block out from six
Speaker 1: pm two about eleven pm. Yes, you're going to show
Speaker 1: up to work on Thursday. Not on all four cylinders,
Speaker 1: depending on how many cylinders you have, um, but you're
Speaker 1: going to have had a great time the night before. Why, Chuck,
Speaker 1: what's going to have happened on Wednesday October? We're gonna
Speaker 1: play bar trivia and we're gonna have daily shows. John
Speaker 1: Hodgman sitting beside us, Yes, Onion editor in chief, Joe
Speaker 1: Randazzo and uh Aquitine Hunger for Sunce squid Billy's co
Speaker 1: creator Dave Willis Willis nice, Yes, and plus us and
Speaker 1: our families and Jerry, will your mom be there? Yeah?
Speaker 1: How adorable? And I hope my brother is your dad coming?
Speaker 1: I don't know. He finally went out and bought an
Speaker 1: iPod to listen to what his son was doing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't think he's turned the thing on yet, and
Speaker 1: this is months ago. I think my mom will be
Speaker 1: didn't he show you the iPod? I bet him at
Speaker 1: my birthday play? Yeah? Yeah he did. He's like, look
Speaker 1: and you're like, what is that? Right? And it was
Speaker 1: a nano even if he said it's an iPod, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I'm surprised you don't know that you're in it. So
Speaker 1: that's what's going on Wednesday October to night before Tuesday,
Speaker 1: October twelve, Our buddies and de facto house band, The
Speaker 1: Henry Clay people are playing a show at the Drunken
Speaker 1: Unicorn on East Ponds, and we're gonna be there, and
Speaker 1: Jerry's gonna be there, and hopefully a couple of our
Speaker 1: buddies coming in from out of town Randazo, maybe Hodgman.
Speaker 1: We'll see and uh see some rock and roll and
Speaker 1: hang out with the band. They're cool guys. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like two nights of fun in a row. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: going to be a fun week. Yes. Yeah, So that's
Speaker 1: what's going on this October twelve in preparation of Halloween.
Speaker 1: Now back too, look at me? Yes, all right, so
Speaker 1: let's um get back to polygamy Chuck. Remember Warren Jeff's Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for this article, because I didn't really have an
Speaker 1: intro except for mention of Big Love, which I've never
Speaker 1: seen of you. You know, I watched Big Love initially
Speaker 1: and bailed on it, not because it was bad, it
Speaker 1: just didn't have the time. But I've heard it's really good. Sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well it's acclaimed series hbos. You can't go wrong with
Speaker 1: Mr Bill Paxson. That kys a class act. But back
Speaker 1: to Warren Jeff's Yeah, not to be confused with Bill Paxton.
Speaker 1: Bill Paxson plays a polygamist on tv UM Warren Jeff's
Speaker 1: is a polygamist in real life. Right at the very
Speaker 1: least he is. Uh. He's been indicted for allegedly fostering uh,
Speaker 1: the marriage between a fourteen year old and a seventeen
Speaker 1: year old. Right, fourteen year old and her nineteen year
Speaker 1: old cousin. Yes, some would call him a peederist, Josh,
Speaker 1: and not just a polygamist. He couldn't be a pederist
Speaker 1: unless he is a homosexual. Because Petter asked, you refer
Speaker 1: specifically to the child realistation of boys. I didn't know that. Well,
Speaker 1: then he would be a child molester. Then, in many
Speaker 1: people's eyes, allegedly Chuck allegedly allegedly allegedly. Well, he's in
Speaker 1: jail for it, he's convicted of it. He has not
Speaker 1: been convicted. He goes to he goes to trial in November. Well,
Speaker 1: he was found what was he found guilty of? Then
Speaker 1: apparently they're they're having a hearing to find out if
Speaker 1: he's one and the same as the person they were
Speaker 1: looking for. No, no, no, that's in Texas. He's been
Speaker 1: in jail for the uh. He was sentenced to two
Speaker 1: consecutive prison terms of five years following his two thousand
Speaker 1: seven conviction in Utah. Now there's new charges in Texas well.
Speaker 1: They're trying to get him extra out into Texas and uh,
Speaker 1: he much more serious charges were thrown out. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: Texas has a much more serious charges. So they threw
Speaker 1: out even more charges in Arizona. This guy charges all
Speaker 1: over the place, and so he is in jail in
Speaker 1: Utah and they the governor signed an extradition weren't send
Speaker 1: him to Texas in mid August, and but they denied it.
Speaker 1: So they're it's they're waiting on a court ordered extradition basically,
Speaker 1: and that may bring him five to nine nine years
Speaker 1: that he and up to ten tho dollar five assaulted
Speaker 1: a child under seventeen. Yeah, so that makes much child molester.
Speaker 1: He's got a lot of stuff against him. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: just say allegedly all over the place because i have
Speaker 1: to I have to admit I'm not percent of what
Speaker 1: he's been charged with or convicted of. Okay, Um, but
Speaker 1: get having charges all over the place is nothing new
Speaker 1: for polygamists. Uh. Jeff's is the leader of a UM
Speaker 1: sect of Mormonism called fundamentalist Mormons. Um, we should say
Speaker 1: that the Church of Latter day Saints, the Mormons, although
Speaker 1: UM frequently associated with polygamy, haven't really done so since
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. We'll get into um, the Mormons in
Speaker 1: in there there there polygamist lifestyle later. But I think
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to say that, you know, Jeff's
Speaker 1: is not representative of the Mormon Church as a whole. No,
Speaker 1: not at all. You know, UM, let's the basis. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's talk about polygamy. What is it? There's like I
Speaker 1: think people have a give the definition of polygamy chock well.
Speaker 1: Before the definition, let me just say that most Westerners
Speaker 1: don't identify with anything but in monogamy. But culturally, worldwide
Speaker 1: and in history, monogamy is in in in the minority. Actually, actually,
Speaker 1: polygamous society is outnumbered by the hundreds monogamous societies. And
Speaker 1: monogamy appears to be a Christian hang up because if
Speaker 1: you go to um areas before the Christians got there,
Speaker 1: pretty much everybody historically was polygamus right then the Christians
Speaker 1: arrived and all of a sudden, there's monogamy everywhere. Rights
Speaker 1: you know that yes, and among mammals as well, humans
Speaker 1: are as monogamists are in the vast minority. Only about
Speaker 1: three to five percent of all mammals engage in monogamy.
Speaker 1: The rest are polygamus. Right, So definition wise, I believe
Speaker 1: it's polygamy is more than one spouse po gani is
Speaker 1: more than one wife correct, Yes, So polygamy doesn't attach
Speaker 1: gender or legality to it, it's just right. And then Paulyandry, yes,
Speaker 1: um is a woman having more than one husband, which
Speaker 1: Jerry beforehand. It's not like women can have more than
Speaker 1: one husband, especially if you are a member of the
Speaker 1: Nimba people and Nepaul. Yeah, women there have and I
Speaker 1: just think this is like a sitcom waiting to happen.
Speaker 1: Women there have to marry all the brothers of a family. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so if you marry one brother, you get Darryl and Darryl.
Speaker 1: If you marry Larry, you get Daryl and Darryl as well.
Speaker 1: And it makes sense in a way for them because,
Speaker 1: uh it allows them to pull their resources as a
Speaker 1: family hold onto family land, uh take care of their children. Well,
Speaker 1: it's very culturally specific, right, because the these this group
Speaker 1: of people, there's about um members of the Niambian culture. UM.
Speaker 1: And they simply don't have enough land for each man
Speaker 1: to go out on his own form a homestead in
Speaker 1: a family. So it's it's very culturally bound. The reasons
Speaker 1: for this UM and apparently it's fairly beneficial. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of consolidation of family's bloodline and resources. Um. All
Speaker 1: of the brothers have access sexual access to the woman,
Speaker 1: to the wife, right, we should That's something you're gonna hear.
Speaker 1: A lot of sexual access, which means you you can
Speaker 1: get it on. They have access to getting sexual access.
Speaker 1: Each brother does. But they said they do allow them
Speaker 1: to specify, like you were the father of this child. Right,
Speaker 1: they differentiate who's the father of which children? But they
Speaker 1: all yeah, they all um contribute to caregiving child. Um.
Speaker 1: And also it's hierarchical. Hierarchical. I was wondering how like
Speaker 1: who chose the wife right, um, And it's the oldest
Speaker 1: brother and he's definitely the dominant husband. You know, if
Speaker 1: I would rewrite the rules though, if I was a tribesman,
Speaker 1: I would say we should go with like the best
Speaker 1: looking brother of the brother who has the most game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so we can all get the most attractive life
Speaker 1: it has if the oldest brother is like a real nudge.
Speaker 1: But that's what I'm saying, like they just in case
Speaker 1: the oldest brother is a nudge, he's still the dominant husband.
Speaker 1: Although I'll bet just sibling rivalry trans is pain cultural. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm sure that there there is like one that
Speaker 1: has game. Is like, I got more sexual access to
Speaker 1: her than Tony is a sitcom man, except it would
Speaker 1: be like they would americanize it. It would be like
Speaker 1: for American like guys from Brooklyn Brothers that would find
Speaker 1: this woman tribesman and bring her to America and I'll
Speaker 1: marry her. I could see Ed Burns doing that. I
Speaker 1: could do. Yeah, you'd make them Catholic though, So Chuck,
Speaker 1: that's the Nambian people. They are definitely a rarity, even
Speaker 1: even rarer the Amazon Zoe tribe. Right. Yeah, that's multiple everything, right,
Speaker 1: multiple husbands and wives at the same time. It's just
Speaker 1: basically like it's it's a free for all in the jungle.
Speaker 1: But it's not fair of us to make fun of that.
Speaker 1: We're just laughing because I'm not making fun of ye.
Speaker 1: That's their culture again. They think we're weird. Again, I
Speaker 1: think that, man, this is such a potential. This is
Speaker 1: just potential dynamite here. Yeah, but it's just different cultures.
Speaker 1: They see your dad and his nanopod. But it's not
Speaker 1: just that like there, there is there's some real there's
Speaker 1: very real social like as in society um and biological
Speaker 1: benefits to polygamy. But there's also some very um negative
Speaker 1: social and personal drawbacks to right. Yeah, we'll get to
Speaker 1: those two. Yeah, so well, what are we going to
Speaker 1: talk about? Oh? Yeah, who else does it? Well, we'll
Speaker 1: continue you with the nomenclature, just so you know. There's
Speaker 1: also a bigamy that just catches legality to polygamy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Bigamy is is the law. It's when a man illegally
Speaker 1: marries more than one woman and that is definitely illegal
Speaker 1: in the United States. Well, it's the practice of polygamy
Speaker 1: in a place where it's illegal illegal, Like no one, no,
Speaker 1: in the United States, you can't practice polygamy, except I
Speaker 1: think there's very small pockets in like Utah and Arizona
Speaker 1: where it's actually legal. Yeah. Colorado City, Arizona, I think,
Speaker 1: is one of like two places in the country where
Speaker 1: it's actually legal, but federally is still illegal, right, I
Speaker 1: I don't know, I have to say, but say, like
Speaker 1: in Georgia, if there's no such thing as polygamy, there's
Speaker 1: only biggam because polygamy is illegal. See yeah, okay, now
Speaker 1: I get it. I just fun to make sure. Uh.
Speaker 1: Biggest oftentimes are accidental bigamists, like they will marry before
Speaker 1: their divorce is complete. But there's also and they called
Speaker 1: it rare. It's not as rare as you think when
Speaker 1: the dude leads a double life and literally has two families.
Speaker 1: And uh, it's rare according to the population. But if
Speaker 1: you look up in Google new search, you'll find plenty
Speaker 1: of it. Or listened to the Grateful Dead song Friend
Speaker 1: of the Devil, that'll give you the right idea that'll
Speaker 1: get you on the troll. That's one of the few
Speaker 1: dead songs. I like it. It's a good one. I
Speaker 1: like easy Wind really, And uh, what is polyamory as
Speaker 1: being in love? That's just more than one person? That
Speaker 1: is just um. I don't get that communal familial living
Speaker 1: where everyone is everyone has sexual access to everybody else.
Speaker 1: There's not necessarily and usually isn't any marriage involved. Um.
Speaker 1: But it resembles like um a polygamist household in that
Speaker 1: there's like a group of people all contributing to the
Speaker 1: raising of children. And probably in most cases there would
Speaker 1: be a differentiation of whose kid is who's But it's
Speaker 1: like a mini taking a village to raise a child. Again,
Speaker 1: I don't know how good this is necessarily for child rearing. UM,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna make that call, but we can't say.
Speaker 1: There's a study in Malaysia that's emerging as brand new. UM.
Speaker 1: This thing was just published in July, UM and it's
Speaker 1: a very it's the groundbreaking study. Actually. UM Malaysia it
Speaker 1: allows polygamy among its Muslim um population because it's UM.
Speaker 1: It's Muslim law that you can have up to four
Speaker 1: wives as long as you can care for all of
Speaker 1: them equally and treat them all equally well. And apparently
Speaker 1: that's that's like what you're supposed to do. It's not
Speaker 1: always the case, but I think like a significant portion
Speaker 1: of the children in polygamous households in this Malaysian study, UM,
Speaker 1: there's something like people involved in the study and uh
Speaker 1: five hundred and twenty three of the children in the households,
Speaker 1: So like a signific if we get majority of the
Speaker 1: children said that they wouldn't engage in a polygamoust lifestyle
Speaker 1: even though they're Muslims, right once they marry. Interesting, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I don't know how much that will change as
Speaker 1: they get older though, especially as you know status is
Speaker 1: attached to it. Well, the article here said that westernization,
Speaker 1: like younger Muslims think polygamy is kind of old fashioned. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe that's something to do with it too, And I'm
Speaker 1: sorry I got that wrong. Five three children were involved
Speaker 1: in the study of them and said that they wouldn't
Speaker 1: engage in polygamy. That's overwhelming. So polygamy as the idea
Speaker 1: that a man is very successful and should spread his
Speaker 1: seed while he is on the earth because he is
Speaker 1: rich and successful to breed more young and rich and
Speaker 1: successful people, and that a lot of times has been
Speaker 1: endorsed when you have a minority of a population, like
Speaker 1: early Jewish doctrine were in favor of it. Right, it's
Speaker 1: a really um it's a really quick way to jump
Speaker 1: start your population, to to get your society going. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I was surprised. It said some Orthodox Jewish sex
Speaker 1: still advocate poly which I was impressed to find the
Speaker 1: confirmation of that. I saw that some gave it up recently,
Speaker 1: but I had trouble finding that I did too, except
Speaker 1: for here. And I think China did that too, because
Speaker 1: there Vietnam, oh, viet Well, Vietnam and China did it
Speaker 1: too under Confucianism. China did it under Confucianism. Vietnam did
Speaker 1: it for practical reasons. It's not legal in Vietnam, but
Speaker 1: it's widely practiced because the place is so ridiculously war
Speaker 1: torn that they actually need to restart their population as well. Um.
Speaker 1: So again, it does have a lot of advantages, specifically
Speaker 1: um polygyny. Right, yea, let's talk about why I took
Speaker 1: and again from this moment until we're not talking about
Speaker 1: it anymore. We're speaking biologically, impersonally, without any any social aspects. Biologically,
Speaker 1: polygamy makes uttering complete sense, especially if you subscribe to
Speaker 1: the Dawkins selfish gene idea. Right. What's that, Well, it's
Speaker 1: the it's the concept that we are merely vehicles for
Speaker 1: our genes that are driven to basically exists in immortality
Speaker 1: by passing its line down as frequently as possible. Okay, um,
Speaker 1: through polygamy, through polygyny, I should say polygyny. Sorry, I
Speaker 1: think you could probably say it both ways. I just
Speaker 1: think we're confusing people through polygyny with the g n
Speaker 1: um a man can well, a man can reproduce far
Speaker 1: more frequently. Healthy stallion could basically reproduce several times a
Speaker 1: day every day if he had sexual access to a
Speaker 1: lot of opulating women. Okay, thank you for that, man Um.
Speaker 1: A woman can only reproduce once every nine months after
Speaker 1: becoming pregnant, and she may have twins triplets naturally speaking,
Speaker 1: you know, um, octuplets are and uh the results that
Speaker 1: they're a product of of modern science of fertility drugs.
Speaker 1: But say you have twins, maybe triplets top usually Irish
Speaker 1: twins at the max. Okay, what is that? No Irish
Speaker 1: twins is when you have like two kids or nine
Speaker 1: months apart. Okay, I'm thinking of a Baker's dozen. So
Speaker 1: chuck um. So poly polygyny makes sense, and that if
Speaker 1: you want to, if you want to build up your population,
Speaker 1: a bunch have a bunch of ovulating women and guys
Speaker 1: to reproduce with them. Right, So it makes sense biologically,
Speaker 1: but socially it's a catastrophe. Right. Well, one thing is
Speaker 1: hard to talk about is actually statistics, because Mormon plural
Speaker 1: marriage is not the kind of thing that's documented to
Speaker 1: keep it very private and secret, so you can't go
Speaker 1: out and get a bunch of statistics on abuse. But
Speaker 1: the the stories that you hear in anecdotal evidence suggests
Speaker 1: that a lot of abuse happens, like girls that are
Speaker 1: fourteen years old getting married to men that are years old.
Speaker 1: That's that's definitely one dark part of the dark side
Speaker 1: of polygamy. Polygony specifically polygyny also um places men in
Speaker 1: a position of absolute authority just by even just by
Speaker 1: bestowing that possibility of the men. The man having more
Speaker 1: than one wife, but all those wives are devoted to
Speaker 1: the one man. He's automatically at the top of the
Speaker 1: hierarchy just by virtue of the arrangement, and just sociologically speaking,
Speaker 1: being put in that kind of situation would probably make
Speaker 1: you drunk with power just being an average person. A
Speaker 1: lot of men abuse that position, sure, and even if
Speaker 1: they don't want to abuse it. The women in a
Speaker 1: in a polygamous scenario, they don't have their subservient. They're
Speaker 1: so dependent, they don't have like the skills. Even if
Speaker 1: they do escape there their scenario, they don't have the
Speaker 1: skills to make it on their own because they've they've
Speaker 1: just been the subservient wife right the whole time. Right,
Speaker 1: that's no good. A lot of people who have moved
Speaker 1: on from polygamist um marriages usually use the word escape
Speaker 1: or often use the word escape they escaped from a
Speaker 1: polygamous marriage, not I got divorced or anything like that. UM.
Speaker 1: And then also just economically speaking, there's a division of
Speaker 1: one guy's paycheck over you know, however many wives and
Speaker 1: children he has. He may have more than one house,
Speaker 1: if he's if he's you know, doing pretty well for himself,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe he's an engineer or something. Um, but
Speaker 1: it's still one person's paycheck supporting all of these people.
Speaker 1: And you see that problem with currently. According to the
Speaker 1: article who wrote this one, Grabster Grabster wrote this one,
Speaker 1: he points out that UM Colorado City, Arizona, which is
Speaker 1: one of I think two places where you can be
Speaker 1: a polygamist um is basically single handedly puts a strain
Speaker 1: on the um welfare services of the state of Arizona.
Speaker 1: They're going broke. Yeah, UM. So that's that's another aspect
Speaker 1: of it, as well as the economics of it. And
Speaker 1: then apparently jealousy too. First wives, rather than being the
Speaker 1: dominant wife out of all of the other ones, are
Speaker 1: often just kind of left to the side, get younger
Speaker 1: and younger and younger. Is that right? Yeah, there's That's
Speaker 1: like a big plot line of the show, I know,
Speaker 1: is that some of the wives become jealous of each
Speaker 1: other and like a love triangle. Would I don't see
Speaker 1: how you couldn't, you know, even even among the most
Speaker 1: devoted polygamist families. I don't see how that couldn't happen,
Speaker 1: Like jealousy so ingrained. I'm the most non jealous person
Speaker 1: on the face of the earth, But that would even
Speaker 1: make me jealous, Yeah, I would think, yes, or maybe not,
Speaker 1: I think it would, so chuck um you ready, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the Mormons. All of you guys have been
Speaker 1: very good and patient. Thank you for waiting. Let's do Mormons. Man. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is a brief overview of Mormonism. We're not gonna
Speaker 1: maybe we could do a whole podcast one day on them.
Speaker 1: But it's a religion founded by Joseph Smith Jr. Early
Speaker 1: eight hundreds, and he claimed to have received messages, divine
Speaker 1: messages from an angel that directed him to golden plates
Speaker 1: that basically told the story that he translated to eventually
Speaker 1: become the Book of Mormon. So the Book of Mormon
Speaker 1: was written, and um, it does not contain specific info
Speaker 1: about polygamy, but supposedly he uh practice polygamy after receiving
Speaker 1: another personal divine message saying if you go out and
Speaker 1: have multiple wives, then you will be a king in heaven. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Basically to be a successful Mormon, you kind of had
Speaker 1: to practice polygamy. It was a directive from God, although
Speaker 1: again it says nothing about it in the Book of Mormon, right,
Speaker 1: nothing about it. There's a cool website, um called the
Speaker 1: Wives of Joseph Smith, and it chronicles they have thirty
Speaker 1: four by my account, um. But it has each name
Speaker 1: has like their age, whether they had a husband at
Speaker 1: the time they were married to Joseph Smith, um. And
Speaker 1: then there's like a link each one's hyper linked to
Speaker 1: a bio on them. It's very cool to make sure
Speaker 1: that these people, these women aren't forgotten because they were
Speaker 1: part of the founding establishment of Mormon. Right. Um, So
Speaker 1: he had thirty four. From what I could see, some
Speaker 1: of them were sisters and the youngest was fourteen. Right.
Speaker 1: One of his kids, Joseph Smith the third, was like
Speaker 1: one of the Malaysian Muslim kids, because when he came
Speaker 1: of eight, he was like, I am not practicing pa.
Speaker 1: I've seen it firsthand and I'm not doing it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's he's he made a separate sect, right. He
Speaker 1: branched off because he wanted to stay down with the Mormons.
Speaker 1: He just wasn't down with polygamy exactly. Uh. A guy
Speaker 1: who was down with polygamy was the successor to Joseph
Speaker 1: Smith Jr. The founder of the Church of Latter day Saints,
Speaker 1: a guy named Brigham Young the old notice as a
Speaker 1: university he does. Yeah, Brigham Young had even more children
Speaker 1: or even more wives. Apparently he had fifty five from
Speaker 1: what I understand UM and his were much more verifiable.
Speaker 1: Apparently Joseph Smith didn't ever publicly cop to polygamy. Brigham
Speaker 1: Young was like, check out the fifty five right, They're
Speaker 1: like hello, right, hello. By the mid eighteen hundreds, it
Speaker 1: was so prominently fifty five times you should said fifty
Speaker 1: five times. Um. In the mid eighteen hundreds, there were
Speaker 1: so many Mormons though, doing this that the Church, while
Speaker 1: they didn't officially like bring it into their literature. They
Speaker 1: did acknowledge it in an official announcement. Plural marriage, right,
Speaker 1: so you've got plural marriage. In eighteen fifty two. Four
Speaker 1: years later, something big happened. The Republican Party, a Lincoln's
Speaker 1: party at the time. I think he may have been
Speaker 1: an attorney still, but he was a log cabin Republican,
Speaker 1: right because he lived in a log cabin and right.
Speaker 1: But so Lincoln's party came up with their eighteen fifty
Speaker 1: six platform, and it was based largely upon ridding the
Speaker 1: United States of the twin relics of barbarism, Chuck. One
Speaker 1: was slavery, the other was polygamy. Right right up, there
Speaker 1: was slavery. Yeah, these were the twin evils that were
Speaker 1: basically keeping the United States backward from progressing forward. Um
Speaker 1: Supreme Court agreed, yeah, and that launched a what you
Speaker 1: could call an unconstitutional government assault on the religion of
Speaker 1: Mormonism because of polygamy. They want to quash it. Basically, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Utah try. Utah applied for statehood during this and they're like,
Speaker 1: not as long as you got polygamist, did you get
Speaker 1: rid of your polygamous Mormons? And we'll deal with you
Speaker 1: after that, Um, they criminalized cohabitation, right, what else? They
Speaker 1: prevented you from voting or holding office if you were
Speaker 1: a polygamist. That is so illegal, it's ridiculous, you know.
Speaker 1: And they actually froze church assets then even more illy
Speaker 1: confiscated their property. Yeah. So they really persecuted the Mormons
Speaker 1: based on polygamy um. And whether you agree with polygamy
Speaker 1: or not, the United States government and eventually the government
Speaker 1: and the state of you taught, really really went after
Speaker 1: them for their practice of polygamy. Well. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: why the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter day
Speaker 1: Saints they were having so many problems and they wanted
Speaker 1: statehood and all that that. They said, you know what, Uh,
Speaker 1: we've had another revelation and we're going to change that doctrine,
Speaker 1: So can we be a state now? Right? And they said, yes,
Speaker 1: you m b um. They set up specific laws there
Speaker 1: though that they didn't do in other states. If you
Speaker 1: were if you were um caught as far as the
Speaker 1: Mormons were concerned, after I think eight ninety when they
Speaker 1: said that they had that other revelation, Um, they said,
Speaker 1: if you were caught practicing plural marriage, you would be
Speaker 1: excommunicated from the church, and some people said, well, you
Speaker 1: know what, Um, you can't excommunicate us if we form
Speaker 1: our own sect. And that from that was born the
Speaker 1: Mormon fundamentalists, who still practiced to this day. Warren Jess
Speaker 1: as a Mormon fundamentalist, this group, and they believe that
Speaker 1: the Joseph Smith Jr. Had a divine revelation, and they
Speaker 1: believe that they will be kings in heaven if they
Speaker 1: had multiple wives. Right, So there's um, there's some defense
Speaker 1: to this among Mormon fundamentalists. One I don't buy it. No.
Speaker 1: One is that if you have more than one wife
Speaker 1: you are less likely to Philander. I don't buy it. No,
Speaker 1: that's just it would be more likely to Philander, wouldn't you.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean to me, and I've been
Speaker 1: around cheating and seen it and stuff like that. I
Speaker 1: think you're either you're going to do that or you're not.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if you're single, if you're married, if
Speaker 1: you're have three wives or one wife, you're either a
Speaker 1: cheater or you're not a cheater. But I think that
Speaker 1: I think that there is a I I think socially
Speaker 1: structurally that absolute power makes you more of an arrogant person.
Speaker 1: And I could see a person because cheating is a choice.
Speaker 1: Either do it or you don't. You make a decision
Speaker 1: not to do it, or you make the decision to
Speaker 1: do it. Right. Um, everybody wants to think. I think
Speaker 1: that you could, um make the case that so socially again, sociologically,
Speaker 1: somebody is um, somebody in that position could, I would say,
Speaker 1: be more likely to cheat. Uh, extra hands to care
Speaker 1: for children? Come on, everybody's got two hands, and you
Speaker 1: multiply that by eight, Why don't you got sixteen hands
Speaker 1: to care for you? But you multiply the six kids
Speaker 1: times eight wives and you have forty eight kids. So
Speaker 1: it's like you maybe if you didn't have those kids,
Speaker 1: you would need extra wives to care for them. Um.
Speaker 1: And also we should probably take a break here and
Speaker 1: say real quick, we're like, Chuck and I are both monogamists,
Speaker 1: right Chuck, Oh yeah, okay. So but at the same time,
Speaker 1: if there is a form of polygamy where it's not detrimental,
Speaker 1: I don't really see that in this article. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't have to each his own. It's the s
Speaker 1: Y s K motto. It's so long as it doesn't
Speaker 1: hurt somebody else, she should probably be the supplement to
Speaker 1: the S Y s K model, right, right, But it
Speaker 1: is illegal in these United States. Federally, there are several
Speaker 1: laws passing the eighteen hundreds. UH. State wise, there are
Speaker 1: only a handful of states that actually have specific laws.
Speaker 1: But Utah is one of them, and that was out
Speaker 1: of the deal I think specifically outlining yeah, when they
Speaker 1: were grand statehood and UH. They get around it though
Speaker 1: a lot of times because they don't officially marry more
Speaker 1: than one woman. They will live a married lifestyle. They
Speaker 1: and then they will have a ceremony. They just won't
Speaker 1: have like an official marriage certificate. Right, they'll have they'll
Speaker 1: be they'll be married by the church in the church's eyes. Right. Um.
Speaker 1: There are other ways to do this too. There's that
Speaker 1: whole cohabitation thing. It's pretty hard to prosecute. And uh
Speaker 1: until nineteen fifty three, polygamous families groups were um rated
Speaker 1: by the police routinely in the Utah and out west UH.
Speaker 1: And then in nineteen fifty three this one raid had
Speaker 1: um there's a backlash against it because the the media
Speaker 1: published pictures of children being sent off the foster homes
Speaker 1: wives being left without husbands, and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: sentiment turned a little bit again raids on polygamous families.
Speaker 1: So I think the rest of the United States is
Speaker 1: very confused on how to approach polygamy. So, okay, chuck
Speaker 1: anything else. I just do have one little funny thing
Speaker 1: about our our trivia night in Atlanta. I got nothing
Speaker 1: else on that. I do have one more thing there is, Um,
Speaker 1: there's been established a couple of things about the benefits
Speaker 1: of monogamy STDs. However, they've developed uh deter polygamy. Okay, right,
Speaker 1: and um there's actually a genetic, uh evolutionary basis to monogamy.
Speaker 1: You have more sexual access to one person. So you
Speaker 1: may be only be able to reproduce nine months at
Speaker 1: a time, but you can do it many many times
Speaker 1: during your reproductive years, and your um the caregiving for
Speaker 1: those children will probably be of higher quality because you're
Speaker 1: a cohe's a family unit. Okay, so that's my little thing.
Speaker 1: That's your last bit. Yeah, what do you have about
Speaker 1: our I forgot to mention this, but Matt Frederick of
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know. Fame came by
Speaker 1: and apparently there was a former nora ad h employee
Speaker 1: named Stanley Fulham, who claims that on October, the night
Speaker 1: of ar Trivia, in major cities over the United States,
Speaker 1: massive UFO fleets will be overhead sending us warnings about
Speaker 1: global warming. That's awesome, And I said, is this guy crackpot?
Speaker 1: And heard overheard Matt said he worked for nora ad
Speaker 1: Like that means like, there's no way you could be
Speaker 1: a crackpot. Of course, he said it with tone firmly
Speaker 1: in cheek. But I think that's just yet another reason
Speaker 1: come out October because we're on the roof of this
Speaker 1: joint and you will be able to see some UFOs
Speaker 1: that are broadcasting messages like warming sucks, save new the
Speaker 1: polar Bear kind of stuff. So I just think that's
Speaker 1: a LEO was right. So people are out there, they're like,
Speaker 1: I would want to come to that trivia, but I
Speaker 1: would love to come see a UFO overhead. That's like,
Speaker 1: we just doubled the number of people are going to
Speaker 1: be here. I think. So. Um. Actually it'll be that
Speaker 1: girl from say by the Bell the college years. I
Speaker 1: don't know that she had her big film break in
Speaker 1: Independence Day. She ran up to the top of the
Speaker 1: roof in l A and had that sign was cheering
Speaker 1: independence and then pal maybe she'll be at our trivia event,
Speaker 1: let's hope. So all right, if you have anything you
Speaker 1: want to let us know about. You know what, if
Speaker 1: you are a member of a polygamist, polyamorous, bigamist, or
Speaker 1: swinger family, Seriously, we're very curious. Is there anyway that
Speaker 1: polygamy can be beneficial to a family union? If you
Speaker 1: have personal experience with this kind of thing, send us
Speaker 1: an email, seriously, let us know. You can send it
Speaker 1: to stuff podcast. Wait a minute, chuck, wait, never been
Speaker 1: said anything about the search bar. We shouldn't even be
Speaker 1: here right now, you're ready? Okay? Um, If you want
Speaker 1: to know more about polygamy, uh, you can type that
Speaker 1: word in p O L Y G A M Y
Speaker 1: right into the swinging search bar swing and search bart
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Now, if you want to
Speaker 1: send us that email, you can send it to stuff
Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on
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