Contemporary debates

Abstract

Abstract: ‘Contemporary debates’ opens with a government raid on the residents of the Arizona town of Short Creek in 1953. They were practicing polygamy as members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an organization that had separated from the Mormon Church over their continued devotion to polygamy. In many such situations, the revival of so-called traditional polygamy has been connected with religious fundamentalism and limits on women’s public participation, as is also the case among some Muslims in Saudi Arabia. Yet there have also been “campaigns for monogamy” among Muslims in places like Malaysia. At the same time, there has been pressure on monogamy from US left-wing critics, who question married monogamy as the correct or only path for domestic organization. There is a liberal, even libertarian, celebration of “poly,” especially polyamory, in Western liberal democracies.