Big Love

If you don't have HBO and haven't seen the show Big Love, you're missing out. I watch this show with awe and amazement curious as to how someone could choose such a lifestyle. The premise is a family that changed their lives and adopted the covenant of plural marriage...meaning there are three wives and one husband. Thoughts of mysogny and sexism rush to my well-trained mind. I've spent many years analyzing the motivations of such characters. This makes me wonder if there is a hidden agenda in academia, but that's for another time.

So in the last episode the "main" wife, Barb, questions her choice is engage in plural marriage. She and Bill had been married for 12 years before she became ill and Bill received a "message" about marrying another. In a discussion with Nikki, the second wife, Barb says that she didn't allow the plural marriage because she believed in the covenant, but that she loved Nikki. Barb also discussed how she agreed to a new wife because she loved Bill and their family.

Here's the thing...is it so outrageous to think that a wife can be so devoted to her family that she would agree to allow another wife in an effort to keep her family? Take away the deceit and adultery and think only of the true loving devotion some couples have. Did she lose her mind, forget herself?

I just wonder what would happen if Will suddenly adopted his Mormon roots and felt that he had received a message from God urging him to marry again and have bunches of kids? Would I pack it up and hit the road, or would I stick it out? What if the other wife was someone I cared about? I know it seems crazy...but who knows why I do anything these days?

Don't get carried away, this is just an alternate reality based on a fictional television show and the possible vulnerability that I do not have.

But...consider this, what if the wife was that woman that thinks her husband is the smartest man she knows and that she is lucky to have him? She says that it's mutual love and not just him disregarding her as a human being.