We've moved again! We'll be more active now, we promise!
We're still together, the three of us, but five years older! You can find us at http://blog.intentionalfamily.org
blog.intentionalfamily.org is our new home. It's scope is wider, embracing several kinds of intentional family, including polygamy. The first few entries set the stage, for your reading pleasure. In later entries (still to be written), we'll give you a detailed update on our marriage and continue to discuss modern polygamy. So come join us, and hang in there! We'd love to see you again!
Sincerely, and with love,
Martin, Karen and Lisa
We're moving on! Don't panic, we didn't fall apart! Our polygamous family is as strong and happy as ever! You can follow our adventures in our next blog post, five years from now.
We accomplished what we set out to do-- to show the world that consensual polygamy, divorced from religion and devoid of child brides, welfare fraud, and other crime, is a viable lifestyle choice. It's not for everyone, but when it works, it works very very well.
By reading through our blog, you can find entries on the pros and cons of polygamy, the nitty gritty of living together, thoughts on jealousy, alternating legal marriage, the biological and demographic facets of polygamy, and other related topics.
Thanks for being our audience for so long! Keep your eyes on the horizon, and don't look back!
Sincerely, and with love,
Martin, Karen and Lisa.
It's in the news, so it must be true. Men who live in polygamous cultures live 12% longer than men who don't. Virpi Lummaa, an ecologist at the University of Sheffield, suggested that after accounting for socioeconomic differences, men aged over 60 from 140 countries that practice polygamy to varying degrees lived on average 12% longer than men from 49 mostly monogamous nations.Actually, this is quite an innovative and careful study, and factors out the gross national product of the culture, the "grandfather" effect, and other variables. You can read more at Study suggests polygamy may lead to a longer life.Chris Wilson, an evolutionary anthropologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, believes the care and attention of several wives who depend on the social status of their ageing husband could explain everything. "It doesn't surprise me that men in those societies live longer than men in monogamous societies, where they become widowed and have nobody to care for them."
We recently contributed two articles to the online magazine Orato.com. Orato is Latin for "I speak". You can read the articles by following the links below. Why Polygamy? I'm Glad You AskedTo quote Indiana Jones: “Archeology is the study of fact, not truth.” I might add that on the way to fact, you’ll find a great deal of conjecture. Are we humans polygamous by nature? My wives and I certainly think so, so I set about reading up on the subject. Where to start? I don’t think polygamy is mentioned in the Dead Sea scrolls, or in the five books of Confucius, the sixth of which is lost forever. But you can find it in the Old Testament, and in the Human Relations Area Files, a marvelous record of explorers and their first encounters with previously undiscovered tribes. By these accounts, polygamy is apparently an integral part of the human condition. [ We continue by talking about the sociobiological, biological, demographic, mythical, and economical perspective of polygamy. The photo is a cross-section of a chromosome, courtesy of US Dept. of Energy Genomics. ] My Wives and IMy wives and I lead pretty normal lives, so I don’t see what the big fuss is about polygamy. I put my pants on one leg at a time, toe first, like every other man I know. I go to work to put food on the table, and come home each night to my wives, who bring me my slippers, one slipper each. Actually, they don’t, but we do sit together and ask about how the day went, and what the kids are up to. [ We continue by describing our family in more detail, how it works, how and why we got together, and so forth. ]
Blaine Robinson has written a detailed report on the history, religion, and politics of polygamy. You can read it at http://www.blainerobison.com/concerns/polygamy.htm. Blaine drills down on Jewish, biblical, Catholic, Protestant, American and world polygamy. His section on answering the usual objections to polygamy (It's illegal, it's harmful, it's immoral) is an especially good read. Here's Blaine's opening paragraph: Polygamy has become a hot topic in America due to the various lawsuits challenging state constitutional bans on the practice and the growing numbers of polygamous families in the United States. Some Christian conservatives have joined with secularists to attack polygamy as an aberrant and immoral behavior, lumping polygamists in with homosexuals. This article represents my own investigation of polygamy in its historical, biblical, and contemporary context to help Christians better understand the issue.
From the much acclaimed American Experience and FrontLine series comes and history and documentary of the Mormon faith. From their web page-- AMERICAN EXPERIENCE and FRONTLINE, two of PBS' most acclaimed series, join forces to present The Mormons, a new documentary series about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In two, two-hour episodes, filmmaker Helen Whitney ( John Paul II: The Millennial Pope and Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero) explores both the history and the current reality of the Mormon faith. You can watch this series online for free at http://www.pbs.org/mormons/view/or you can buy the DVD at http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=2657899Three chapters might by of particular interest to you: The Origins of Polygamy -- 1843 The Renunciation of Polygamy -- 1890 Those Who Still Practice Polygamy
 We were contacted last month by an English film company that produces documentaries for the BBC. After several email exchanges, followed by several lengthy phone conversations, we agreed to be filmed. For photos, see our Facebook album.
This is the first time we've ever agreed to be on film. We've turned down Dateline NBC, the Tyra Banks show, and others programs as being too sensational. BBC explained that they wanted to shoot a documentary, and not a news story. That meant they weren't going to seek out contrasting point of views, but rather intended to tell our story to the world. "Ok," we agreed, "let's go for it!" The director, Ian, arrived from England, and the film crew from San Francisco. We'd never seen so many lights and sound equipment (but only one camera). The film crew holed up in a nearby town, but it seemed as if they were with us day and night, or at least 12 hours a day for three days. The schedule was intensive-- change clothes, change location, get miked, setup lights, camera rolling, answer a lot of difficult questions, have some fun, and start all over again. And again. You can see my stepsons (right) taking their part in the film. The BBC is a class act. They got permission from boutiques in Kirkland to film us shopping, and rented an entire dance studio to film us dancing. That was a trip! After shopping, we were to count to five, then exit the shop, turn right, hold hands, and walk down the street a block or so. The camera was set up outside in a parking space. We had to repeat this "take" about twelve times! Sometime we turned the wrong way (or at least one of us did), and once an entire busload of seniors emptied out in front of us, many of them gawking at the cameras. And just when we thought the coast was finally clear, a motorized wheelchair zipped by and almost collided with us. We felt the filming went very well, and are dying to see the results. The film is currently being edited in England, and should air February 6th or so. Sorry, but it will not be broadcast in the United States, a condition we insisted on. We'll tell you more about the program as soon as we've had a chance to see it ourselves. Would we do it again? Yes! But not quite yet. It was a lot of fun, and it's great to feel special and appreciated-- and to believe that we're playing a part to change the world by letting people know that for some relationships, consensual polygamy is a real and viable and a fine alternative to monogamy.
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