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Canada’s road to polygamous immigration
The current debate over whether it is right for a man to have more than one wife is centered on the polygamous commune in southeastern B.C. Here, outside the town of Creston in a place called Bountiful, a patriarchal society belonging to the Mormon splinter group called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has practiced what it preaches in notoriety for over 60 years.
Over the decades, despite media scrutiny, police reports, sexual abuse investigations and your government funding a school on the commune, politicians have dithered on what to do with the polygamists who are openly flouting the law.
Polygamy has been illegal in Canada since 1890, but successive B.C. governments did not want to upset the polygamous sect. They made some noise about it when in opposition, but fell silent when they got to power.
Now B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal wants to bring the polygamists to court to challenge a legal belief held by his predecessors; that the men from the Bountiful commune have a constitutional right to have multiple wives.
The move is lauded by those who see plural marriages as a violation of the equality of the sexes and chastised by others who feel the state has no place in the bedrooms of its citizens.
The polygamy challenge has also triggered a murmur of protest by new Canadians who feel any ban on multiple wives will violate their religion and traditionally held values.
The polygamy challenge has also triggered a murmur of protest by new Canadians who feel any ban on multiple wives will violate their religion and traditionally held values.
From Africa to India to East Asia and the Middle East, the practice of having more than one conjugal partner, either overtly or covertly, is a way of life. The Koran permits a Muslim man to have up to four wives and the Canadian Society of Muslims estimates there are several hundred Muslim men with multiple wives in Canada. It is common knowledge that many men from China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan keep concubines or mistresses.
In some South Asian cultures, men marry their sisters-in-law after their brothers die.
In Canada, the enforcement of the anti-polygamy law is at best schizophrenic. Immigration Canada has consistently denied applicants with multiple wives from China and Kuwait, while allowing groups of sister wives from the U.S. to stay in B.C. on humanitarian grounds.
Given the notion that the traditional held view of a monogamous relationship or “Christian” marriage has little relevance in an increasingly permissive, secular and multicultural Canada, Wally Oppal’s crusade against polygamy is likely to backfire.
While Canadians abhor gender inequality, coercion and other nastiness associated with polygamy, the Supreme Court will not deny the Charter of Rights to consenting adults.
The more likely scenario is that the men of Bountiful will emerge winners and martyrs in this test on polygamy. And then surely polygamous immigration will follow.
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