Sisterwives & submission?: gender power dynamics in polygynist marriages

Polygamy has caught national attention. Most of it has focused on court proceedings against the FLDS Church's alleged child sexual abuse practices, and TV shows like Big Love and Sisterwives. Both present polar opposite perspectives on the practice, but what do we really know about the practice? My own research on the Apostolic United Brethren, a fundamen talist Mormon sect centered outside Salt Lake City, suggests that stereotypes of polygamy as oppressive to women and of polygamist women as inherently submissive are misinformed. While Mormon fundamentalist polygamy does embody gendered practices, the subjects I interviewed were able to provide both costs and benefits to the practice as well as practical concerns related to gender and polygamy. Rather than strictly authoritarian, therefore, their perspective on authority is more closely aligned with authoritative structures-a moderated patriarchal system that granted men some benefits, but counterbalanced them with powers granted to women. I also found that polygamist families could be described as going through three stages of development depending upon their methods of managing the time and resources of the husband and the level of the wives' emotional security.