Volume 37, Issue 2, Fall 2009
Global Gender Justice
Thom Brooks
Pages 109-122
The Problem with Polygamy
Polygamy is a hotly contested practice and open to widespread misunderstandings. This practice is defined as a relationship between either one husband and multiple wives or one wife and multiple husbands. Today, “polygamy” almost exclusively takes the form of one husband with multiple wives. In this article, my focus will center on limited defenses of polygamy offered recently by Chesire Calhoun and Martha Nussbaum. I will argue that these defenses are unconvincing. The problem with polygamy is primarily that it is a structurally inegalitarian practice in both theory and fact. Polygamy should be opposed for this reason.