Police Investigating Sister Wives Stars for Felony Bigamy

[sinkingfeeling]

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20429667,00.html?hpt=T2

The stars of TLC's new show Sister Wives are under police investigation in Utah for a possible charge of felony bigamy.

Police in Lehi, Utah, said Monday they began looking into salesman Kody Brown and his four wives before the show premiered Sunday.

Police acknowledged that publicity over the show's announcement prompted the case. Bigamy is a third-degree felony in Utah but is rarely investigated.

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I wondered why this wasn't happening. Also wondered why these people decided to 'come out' about their private living arrangement on TV.

[XemaSab]

1. If he's only married to one wife

how can it be bigamy?

[sinkingfeeling]

2. He's married to four women.

[XemaSab]

3. Not legally

n/t

[Xithras]

4. He's only legally married to one.

The other three are legally live-in girlfriends.

Which brings up an interesting question. If a man lives with four women, but never marries any of them civilly or in a church, does that count as bigamy?

[Dr. Strange]

5. The only thing I can think of is if they try to claim the rest are common-law marriages.

But I've never heard of that approach being used in a bigamy case.

[frogmarch]

6. putative marriage

Some states count putative marriages as valid marriages in such cases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putative_marriage

snip:

A putative marriage is an apparently valid marriage, entered into in good faith on the part of at least one of the partners, but that is legally invalid due to a technical impediment, such as a preexistent marriage on the part of one of the partners. Unlike someone in a common-law, statutory, or ceremonial marriage, a putative spouse is not legally married. Instead, a putative spouse believes himself or herself to be married in good faith and is given legal rights as a result of this person's reliance upon this good-faith belief.

Putative marriages exist in both Catholic canon law and in various civil laws, though the rules may vary. In some jurisdictions, putative marriages are a matter of case law rather than legislation. In many jurisdictions, under civil law, the marriage becomes valid if the impediment is removed. If it is not removed, the innocent spouse, at least, is often entitled to the protections of a divorce for division of property and child custody.

[jobycom]

12. But that only applies if the person believes they are legally married.

Like, say, a husband marries someone but is still married to a previous spouse. The marriage is invalid, but some states treat it as a valid marriage in terms of benefits so that the fooled partner can claim property under divorce proceedings. It's only considered a valid marriage if one of the partners had some reason to believe it was married, and the validity ends as soon as the partner finds out that the marriage wasn't valid.

So, say a man has never filed for divorce and marries a second wife. Through no fault of the second wife, the marriage is invalid, but in terms of benefits and property rights, the marriage is considered legally valid until she finds out that she isn't really married. Then she can be protected under divorce law, has a claim to any of the property they acquired during the marriage, etc.

That wouldn't apply here. Either he performed the proper paperwork and procedures to marry all four of the women, in which case he's a bigamist and they are not entitled to putative wife benefits because they were all aware that he had other wives, or only one (or none) of them are legally married and it's just a group living arrangement.

As I understand it, anyway. Which isn't much.

[Suich]

7. I've only seen the previews,

but that show gives me the creeps!

:thumbsdown: :thumbsdown:

[Redstone]

8. Why the hell should bigamy be illegal anyway?

YOu all know that I'm a STRONG proponent of gay marriage, and I'm being serious here: If people want to have more than one wife or husband, why should the government care?

Not that I'd want more than one wife; I wouldn'thave the strength to keep up bidness with two women anymore - especially if one is Mrs R; she keeps me plenty busy, if you know what I mean and I bet you do.

Redstone

[petronius]

9. I always thought bigamy laws were more concerned with situations where

the duplicated spouses were unaware of each other - the bigamist was committing a fraud.

But between consenting adults I'm perfectly fine with any arrangement people choose to enter into it. The only objection I can think of - the only reason the state may have a say in limiting marriages to pairs - is that our tax and legal structure may not be able to handle the complexities of multiple spouses. But I don't really know if that's even the case.

Of course, I also suspect the number of people truly wanting a poly marriage would be pretty small...

[wickerwoman]

13. It shouldn't be criminalized, but it's too impractical to make it legal.

Imagine if you could confer spousal benefits like VA benefits or green cards on an unlimited number of people.

Personally, I'd be happy to set up a little business marrying Chinese guys for $15,000 a pop but I imagine the government would eventually start to take a dim view of it.

[jobycom]

15. Historically, for a lot of reasons.

The Catholic Church decided long ago that marriage was between couples, and a large part of our marital law comes directly or indirectly from them. I'm not sure why Catholics settled on monogamy, though--the Old Testament is full of polygynous marriages. Maybe Hebrew law had changed or Roman law only allowed one wife, I don't remember.

But there are other reasons. In polygynous marriages, women are often not treated equally, and are often treated as property or slaves. This was more of an issue before the recent era when a woman finally got the rights to divorce, to own property, to have a career, etc. Islam, for instance, forbids a man to have more than four wives (limiting it from pre-Islamic Arabia) as long as all wives can be treated equally, and then later claims that it is impossible for a man to treat all wives equally, so those two verses have been used by some Muslim countries to ban polygyny, and even where it's legal have been used to discourage it for most people. So polygamy laws, even in the Middle Ages, were meant to prevent abuses.

And of course there are a lot of legal benefits married couples get that individuals don't, specifically because of child-rearing issues. As someone else said, citizen or residency rights can be based on marriages, and tax codes are based on marriages. Allowing polygyny would allow too many people to marry into complex marriages to escape taxation.

To change that would get complicated. If they allowed a man to marry three women, who would have legal guardianship and financial responsibility over the children? All three wives, or just one? There are arguments both ways--if all three, then one of the other wives could gain custody, and if only the actual mother had custody (with the husband), then the other wives would be limited when it came to parental consent for health care or school-related issues. Then there are immigration issues, and medical insurance issues (should an employer pay for three wives? Should the employer of one of the wives pay for the other two, and their children?).

I can't imagine we'll get around to fine-tuning such legislation anytime soon. I think the current system is fine, as long as they don't go after people with other arrangements who aren't technically filing for marriage. I don't see any issues of human rights abuses involved. There are just way too many things to solve first.

[Redstone]

17. But remember, I vote that women should be able to have more than one

husband, as well. Equal rights for all.

Redstone

[jobycom]

22. Covered that in post 16.

:)

[zipplewrath]

19. For all the reasons they care at all

The legal institution of marriage is in essence a marriage "contract". It is a form of a domestic partnership, involving issues of property as well as child custody. The laws that govern these issues presume a union of only two entities. It's not there should be anything "legally" wrong with bigamy in and of itself, but the laws of the land are not compatible with that arrangement and it makes it very difficult for anyone but one of the "wives" to receive the protections that spouses normally have.

And our paternity and maternity laws also struggle with this question.

For example, in our state (Florida) the husband is the "legal" father/parent of any child that his wife bears while they are married. Period. I don't care how many paternity tests you conduct, or how involved he was, or who the biological father is. The law only recognizes him as the father and you have to go through all the same steps to deny him paternal rights that you would for any father. Which means you have to establish a reason to deny him those rights that would stand up for an actual biological father.

To be quite honest, if I wanted to be a polygamist, I wouldn't marry any of them. That's actually less confusing and would allow you to establish any of them as "common law" wives if it became necessary.

[hobbit709]

10. Can you imagine the uproar

If a woman decided to have four husbands. If some people believe they can have multiple wives then it's only fair that women could have multiple husbands.

[jobycom]

16. I met a woman who lived with two lovers once.

Just an online conversation, really. I imagine it's a little less common than whatever the guy in the show is doing, but not a lot more uncommon. There would probably be an uproar, but this show is on the air in the first place to create an uproar.

And for the fun of it, there have been cultures that allowed women to marry more than one husband. It usually depends on the property traditions and the child-rearing customs, as well as population issues. In ancient Arabia, for instance, some tribes treated marriage as a form of alliance. A man could marry multiple wives in other tribes, and each of the wives could have multiple husbands. The multiple marriages created relationships between different tribes that helped decrease property right tensions, creating a common heir for both tribes. The children were expected to be raised by the mother and supported by her father and the rest of the tribe, as opposed to the wife and kids becoming the responsibility of the husband. There was also a shortage of kids, and this freed up breeding stock, to put it crudely, so that men and women could produce without as many constraints. (In Europe in some places and times with population shortages it was considered best for a girl to wait until she was pregnant to marry, to prove that a marriage would be fertile, so as not to lose breeding opportunities on infertile couples).

Marriage is not as universal as people nowadays pretend it is. Anthropologists and historians have a hard time even classifying what arrangements to call marriage and which not to in ancient cultures. The rough description is any relationship which forms an artificial kin group, whether for property or child rights, or something else. The closer you get to our modern idea of marriage, the less often you find such relationships in other cultures.

More useless trivia. :)

[Redstone]

18. Of COURSE, that would be fair. I'd advocate for equal rights for all.

Again, not that I, personally, would want to have more than one wife, nor would I want to be one of several husbands. But that's just me. If others want to do differently, they should be able to.

Redstone

[KT2000]

11. Saw that show last week

and I feel like I need yet another shower.
That guy - Ewwwwwww

[jobycom]

14. I guess they are investigating to see the status of the marriage and the safety of the children.

The former I would think would be simple--just see if he filed for more than one marriage license, or if they are just living together. There are other ways to marry, in some regions. A common law marriage statute could declare them married under some circumstances, depending on the state, even if they didn't file the paperwork, but I don't see how that would apply if he was legally married to one of them already, since no other marriages would be valid.

As for the kids, they have to make sure they aren't being abused and are all being cared for. Non-traditional family situations always make officials worry about abuse. There could be a marital issue there, too, if, say, the children of one mother lists them as married and claims benefits for them being married on school records or medical records, for instance. I don't know, but I would think that could bring up a bigamy accusation, since he is trying to claim marital benefits for more than one wife. On the other hand, it would be easier to just declare fraud in that case--claim they aren't married but were defrauding the government or insurance company by claiming they were.

So I imagine there are a lot of things for the police to check out. I just hope they don't try to create charges out of gray areas. Either they are married legally with a certificate, or they aren't. Either they are committing fraud or they aren't. Either the kids are endangered or being abused, or they aren't. The police have to investigate, but they don't have to find a crime.

As for why they "came out--" I'd guess money. Probably a little bit of fame. And maybe even a desire for understanding, or for stating their beliefs to the world instead of hiding, to try to make people accept them. The same things most people want, I suppose.

Honestly, they creep me out, and I have no idea what makes people want to watch shows like that, but if they aren't doing anyone any harm, more power to them, and let them be. But waving it in front of a camera knowing that it's going to create a controversy seems selfish considering the kids.

[Old Troop]

20. I know it's illegal, but what's the harm in having multiple spouses?

[AngryAmish]

21. Steve Garvey and Shawn Kemp should go into hiding