The Racialization of White Man's Polygamy

Abstract

This paper offers a genealogy of anti-polygamy sentiment in North America, elucidating certain racist and nationalist formations that are implicit in the historical valorization and enforcement of heterosexual monogamy. It tracks the white supremacist and heteronormative logic that conditions the widespread disdain toward polygamy, and that renders it fundamentally different from familial configurations that are associated with national identity. Relating political and philosophical doctrines to the archival documentation and insights of contemporary legal and cultural historians of anti-polygamy sentiment, it elucidates the racial Anglo-Saxonism of Hegel's ruminations on marriage and on the state, and highlights its reverberation within the political philosophy that justified the criminalization of polygamy and its supporting institutions in the nineteenth century and in contemporary immigration policy and same-sex marriage advocacy in Canada and the United States.As we know, the question of whether the state should recognize the civil marital status of same-sex couples has given rise to ongoing homophobic fearmongering, vitriolic anti-gay rhetoric, and notoriously regressive legislative tactics. In the United States, these include what is frequently cast as a ''historically unprecedented'' move to constitutionalize sex discrimination through a series of four proposed federal constitutional amendments between 2003 and 2008, and spate of ''defense of marriage'' acts seeking to prevent state courts from ruling that excluding gays and lesbians from marriage was unconstitutional. The homophobic outbursts have been expressed through costly campaigns that have found millions of fearful backers deeply invested in ''saving marriage'' from queers and expunging them from the sacred institutions and coddled relationships of ''our'' nation. They have also precipitated the rather ironic circumstance that has found feminist and LGBT equality advocates Hypatia vol. 25, no. 4 (Fall, 2010) r by Hypatia, Inc.

A contextualised historical account of changing judicial attitudes to polygamous marriage in the English courts

“…It is noteworthy that existing research highlights the nation state and its interests as a bar to legal recognition for polygamous marriage. Critiques of imperialism aid in confronting the use of national interests and Margaret Denike (2010) provides insight into this when she considers race and polygamous marriage in Canada and the US. She observes the historical connection between nationalist sentiments and marriage, noting that ‘anti-polygamy campaigns were deeply implicated in the alignment of normative sexual monogamy and racial Anglo-Saxonism within the imperial logic of the nation-state’ (Denike, 2010, p. 868).…”

“…Critiques of imperialism aid in confronting the use of national interests and Margaret Denike (2010) provides insight into this when she considers race and polygamous marriage in Canada and the US. She observes the historical connection between nationalist sentiments and marriage, noting that ‘anti-polygamy campaigns were deeply implicated in the alignment of normative sexual monogamy and racial Anglo-Saxonism within the imperial logic of the nation-state’ (Denike, 2010, p. 868). In charting racist and imperialist patterns of thought in these campaigns, she interrogates the denial of recognition for polygamous marriages and the preservation of a national monogamous identity.…”

Sincere but Naive: Methodological Queries Concerning the British Columbia Polygamy Reference Trial

“…In , anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan published his influential book Ancient Society in which he argued that all societies moved through the same stages of development, with polygamous marriages characteristic of the period of barbarism, and monogamy associated with civilization. The polygamy debates of that era considered monogamy as the foundation of White Christian civilization and partially responsible for the dominant position of the “West” within the world system (Cott :17; Denike :859; Gordon ).…”

Polygamy, State Racism, and the Return of Barbarism: The Coloniality of Evolutionary Psychology

“…In offering an analysis of the work evolutionary psychology does in the Polygamy Reference and its discursive traces in the Zero Tolerance Act, this paper contributes to scholarly literature in Canada that demonstrates the imbrication of colonial race-thinking in the legal treatment of polygamy (e.g., Carter, 2008;Denike, 2010Denike, , 2014Lenon, 2015;Rambukkana, 2015) and contributes a race-critical analysis of the regulation of polygamous marriage to socio-legal and political science literatures (Calder & Beaman, 2014;Campbell, 2013;Campbell et al, 2005;Gaucher, 2016Gaucher, , 2018. This paper's analysis of Canadian juridical and legislative (re)positionings on polygamy's harms brings Mignolo's (2016) opening epigraph to life: through the celebration of monogamous marriage, against the necessary foil of the "barbaric practice" of polygamy, modernity is made visible; it is announced, it is promoted, it is celebrated.…”