More Wives, More Problems
 
By Sarah Seltzer
RH Reality Check
Information and Analysis for Reproductive Health
Washington, D.C.
 
It's only natural that on HBO a drama about fundamentalist Mormon polygamy brims with a commentary on our culture at large. In fact, sometimes the religious framework of "Big Love" has seemed like a thin excuse to portray an unconventional family situation and play with ideas about gender, the American family, and power dynamics.

This season, though, the focus of the show has zoomed in closely on the religious aspects of the Henricksons' lives - a raid on the polygamist compound! A potential fourth wife to help the family attain celestial immortality! And even so, its relevance to American life, and American issues of gender and sexuality, seems ever more urgent.

Only five episodes in, "Big Love" has already tackled many of the sexual politics we see on the news and in our lives. The initial Mormon-prophet-on-trial arc is a clear echo of this summer's raid on the Texas FLDS compound and the Warren Jeffs case. The show posits communal coercion of arranged marriage of young women as tantamount to rape, but plays with the tricky ethics of the government interfering with citizens' private lives. "Big Love's" recently-introduced teen pregnancy plot is reminiscent of Bristol Palin, while its exploration of repressed homosexuality in religious settings inevitably links to the saga of Ted Haggard. And then there are further subplots: the family's "courting" of a fourth wife who's not ready to commit brings up the sexual double-standard, and Nikki, the most religious wife, secretly takes birth control pills while urging her sister-wives to procreate. It's the "reproductive choice for me, but not for thee" phenomenon.

On "Big Love," we see life through the eyes of a family that is conservative in nearly every way: they believe in modesty, chastity outside of marriage and "family values." But the show's creators - incidentally, a gay couple who ventured deep into polygamist territory for research - clearly have an enlightened and liberal view of human sexuality.

"Big Love"s characters are all deeply sexual beings. The women in the Hendrickson household all love and crave sex for their own satisfaction as well as their husband's. The show's teenagers are blooming, flush with hormones and naturally curious. While no one in their world can be openly gay, many characters experience same-sex desire, sometimes clear, sometimes ambiguous, but always painful to repress.

Furthermore, the show's writers delineate the Henricksons, who are polygamist and communal by "choice," from their relatives on the Juniper Creek compound, whose lives are strictly regimented by a patriarchal prophet and a cruel set of rules. We wouldn't want to see Bill Henrickson arrested or his family forcibly broken up. But we long to see the young girls on the compound, whose pictures are put in a "joy book" for men to browse, vindicated by the law.

At the same time as "Big Love" depicts the Henricksons living a life of their choosing, though, it does not shy away from the problematic existence Bill has set up on his suburban street. Bill, who grew up in Juniper Creek and was thrown out - as young boys often are - believes that he has defined his life in opposition to his childhood home. But has he? In many ways, Bill has set himself up to be as a more modern version of "the prophet," with three wives that act like the children to his father figure. He even lives on a mini-compound of three houses surrounding a pool. Everything in the Henrickson family orbits around his star, and like the prophet of Juniper Creek himself, Bill has no problems manipulating his wives against each other and laying down his fatherly authority when he feels it's necessary.

Meanwhile, his wives find their designated lives as alternating baby-makers fulfilling only in theory - hence conservative Nikki popping birth control pills on the sly and all of them longing for careers. And the damage done to the children, particularly the older ones, is stunning. Sarah sleeps with her boyfriend without protection because she was taught to be "chaste" rather than safe, while Ben, after feeling humiliated when he loses his virginity with a long-term girlfriend, decides to follow in dad's footsteps and live "the principle" by planning to take multiple wives. His mother, who claims to be happy with her lifestyle, is horrified.

So this patriarchy-by-choice has left its participants thoroughly messed up in ways it won't be easy to fix - even Bill struggles in vain to be a decent human being. But there is one primary appeal to the world of "Big Love," which is the family's communal values. It's fascinating that the women are willing to share a partner, to share kids, to love each other as sisters. Their intertwined lives are so different from the isolation of our modern existence.

And as much as we see the unhappiness inherent in their family units, there is also unhappiness when those units are broken. When Bill's business partner Don, also a polygamist, sees two of his wives run away (it's hinted that they may be having an affair with each other) he breaks down over having limited recourse to track down and see his kids--in part because of the harassment polygamists face in the business and legal world. This scene evokes the struggles gay couples face when their bonds are not legal. Of course, the situations are not morally parallel, and the show doesn't want them to be: Don's polygamous relationship was far from egalitarian and his misery also arises from feeling pathetically "unmanned" by the loss of his extra wives. But while the ultimate sympathy lies with the escaped wives, "Big Love" also shows us the pain of any family bond going unrecognized by the law.

Don, too, is a victim of the system that he perpetrates, and the previews hint that Bill may be headed for a comeuppance too. Like patriarchy in general, polygamy can hurt all involved. That's the humanity at the core of "Big Love" - the show truly lives up to its name by being pro-love, pro-sex and anti-authority. It demonstrates the way fluid and strong human desires chafe against containment by externally imposed rules: private or public, our rules or theirs. As the season progresses it will be fascinating to see what happens to Bill's universe as some of the younger female characters - Sarah, Bill's younger wives and young women on the compound - continue coming to terms with those needs and desires and begin to question whether they are being met by Bill and their "alternative" lifestyle.
 
rhrealitycheck.org
Originally published February 20, 2009
 
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