Have you ever watched Sister Wives on The Learning Channel (TLC)? I’ll admit, I’m a regular viewer. I don’t watch it because I believe in their lifestyle. I actually don’t agree with it. Likewise, I don’t watch it to ridicule them. I watch it because I think they’re lovely people (from what we see each week) and I don’t understand how they choose to live, but different lifestyles and cultures intrigue me.
I can certainly see the appeal of a built-in support system they have as sister wives. What mother wouldn’t enjoy having three trusted babysitters available to help at a moment’s notice within very close proximity to your home? As well, who wouldn’t love having three close confidants who love and protect your children and whose children you love and protect? What I don’t understand and never will, is the the willingness to share a husband.
The Kody Brown family has been raised (all or most) in a world of polygamy. Plural marriage is what they’ve grown up with, witnessed, and have chosen for themselves in their adult lives. Maybe monogamous marriage where one does not happily share their spouse is so foreign to them that they can’t understand how or why someone would want that. I certainly don’t condemn them. I could see myself being friends with any one of the wives. Meri is self-sacrificing (far too, if you ask me) and selfless. In fact, having been the first and only legal wife for nearly 25 years, this season she divorced Kody so he could legally marry Robyn (#4) and possibly adopt her children from her previous marriage. While this smacked of a whole lot of omitted details, like why they wouldn’t pursue terminating Robyn’s ex’s parental rights first to see if adoption was even a viable option for Kody before taking such a drastic step as divorce, it looked like a very strange and painful process.
These women admittedly butt heads…with Kody and with each other. But at the end of the proverbial day, they maintain that they all love each other and are able to work through their differences and are wholly committed…to their husband and their sister wives. “Their” husband and that whole concept is what makes me so uncomfortable. The thought that my husband was sharing intimate time with one other woman, much less three others, would devastate me. And if he did it, rest assured he wouldn’t be welcomed home. But yet they willingly choose to share their husband and only see him on a rotating basis. This raises a lot of logistical questions like how anniversaries and birthdays are handled as well as special activities with each wife’s children, taking separate vacations, and I’m sure, all sort of issues in between. How do 24 children have enough quality time with 1 father? How can there be enough of one man to go around with four wives and two dozen children? Further, how can there be enough money to support four households?
Perhaps this is too personal. After all, I don’t have to share with anyone how I manage my time and finances. But then again, I don’t choose to invite cameras and a television series into my home and my life. Though it isn’t always hearts and flowers, they figure it out and they surely seem to overall make it work. These women truly appear to share a love and devotion for each sister wife and though they clash at times, really do want the best for each other, and have a deep love for each wife’s children. And they’re not inhuman. They admittedly have jealousy and a self-imposed “rule” that Kody doesn’t show affection to any one wife if another wife is present.
This is why they grow on you. This and because they all bring something unique to the table: fun, self-sacrifice, chutzpah, brains, nothing timid about them. They’re just good women even if they’re in a situation I can’t understand and that honestly, makes me sad in some respects. Although I can never comprehend why each wife wouldn’t want one man for herself–why she wouldn’t much prefer to have her husband home every night with her and not lay in bed at night trying hard not to think about the fact that her husband is in bed with another woman and that he’ll be with two others for two nights before he gets back to her house again. Why wouldn’t she want a man who’s fully committed to her and only her, legally, emotionally, and physically? Why wouldn’t she want all decisions for her and her children not to be made in a collective community where three other women get opinions?
They believe plural marriage will bring them closer to God and as a Christian, I don’t agree with them on this one. But really, I don’t have to. It’s not for me to judge them. As much as their husband sharing (and why aren’t there Husband Brothers, by the way?) saddens and puzzles me, I do respect them as human beings. They have great kids who have hopes and dreams as all our children do. The wives have their own aspirations and we’ve seen many of them play out in the show. While I don’t believe I will ever be able to get my head around their life choice and I would never under any circumstance want to be a sister wife, I can respect the fact that they’re God’s creations just like I am and also just like me, I don’t want to be picked apart for how I believe. All in all, women should build each other up and not tear them down. We all have differences, be they color, beliefs or simply the way we do day-to-day things. Maybe we don’t agree with everybody’s everything, but we can be supportive friends.
How about you? Could you be a sister wife? Why or why not? Could you be a husband with multiple wives? Join the conversation!
