Auma's tribulations started before the burial of her husband when her brothers-in-law instructed her to surrender her husband's property. The idea had been carefully crafted to leave Auma and her sons vulnerable and needing a man to take care of them.

Then came the rituals, starting with shaving her head clean and the ultimate cleansing, which was to involve "ritual sex" with a stranger and allowing herself to enter into a polygamous union.

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At a recent theological symposium in Nairobi, experts discussed the complexities of polygamy in Africa. They suggested a phased conversion process for polygamous families entering the Catholic Church.

This method seeks to accommodate cultural traditions and family dynamics.

Giningakpio Justin Dapu, a prominent member of South Sudan's Catholic Diocese of Tombura-Yambio, exemplifies the challenge. With 12 children and two wives, Justin is deeply involved in church activities. However, due to his polygamous status, he is barred from receiving Holy Communion.

Dapu argues for full inclusion within the Church, noting his grandfather's acceptance despite having seven wives.

The recent synodal conversations were organised by the Pan-African Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network (PACTPAN) and the Conference of Major Superiors of Africa and Madagascar (COMSAM). Participants in the conversations empathised with Justin's situation.

They discussed their experiences and the complexities of polygamy within the Church, seeking a more inclusive pastoral approach.

Transition to monogamous marriages

Sr Leonida Katunge of PACTPAN highlighted the need for careful, empathetic engagement with polygamous families.

"We need to listen more to the people in polygamous marriages to understand what drives them to remain in such marriages" Sr Katunge said.

"The Church should enter into dialogue with these people and engage them in a process of transition from polygamous to monogamous marriages. We must help them understand the reason behind the call of the Church to live in monogamous marriages" Sr Katunge added.

Elisabetta Groberrio, another participant, shared the struggles of women in refugee camps who, as second or third wives, face exclusion from sacraments despite their active involvement in the Church. She called for pastoral solutions that recognise their unique situations.

"It is really a suffering for them and in several cases they are very active, but…without baptism they feel excluded from the real life of the Church" Groberrio said.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 1645) firmly upholds monogamy, describing polygamy as contrary to conjugal love and fidelity. However the African theologians urged a compassionate, context-sensitive approach that respects both Church doctrine and cultural realities.

Sources

ACI Africa

ACI Africa

"Getting a second or third wife is not a sin before God," said Wandera, 38, who was a catechist, or Catholic religion teacher, for 10 years before the Church expelled him in 2013.

"Men should go ahead and marry multiple wives like the biblical Solomon, who married many wives candidly."

Polygamy is common in traditional communities in the East African country. But increasingly, many other Kenyan Christians share Wandera's point of view.

In 2014, President Uhuru Kenyatta signed a law legalizing polygamy, despite criticism from women's groups. Since then, proponents have called on male Kenyans to marry many women.

"If you can sustain five wives, have them," said Gathoni Wamuchomba, a lawmaker from Kiambu in central Kenya and an aide to Kenyatta.

"If you are a man and you are in a position to bring up many children, do it."

Wamuchomba said raising children in the absence of their fathers leads to serious social problems, including increasing numbers of families living on the streets.

"We need to be honest. These children who are raised by single mothers, where are their fathers?" she asked.

But Catholic leaders in Kenya, where about 9 million of the country's 47.6 million people are Catholic, oppose the practice.

Polygamy "is against the will of God and we must desist from it," the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a recent statement. "We should uphold human dignity, and especially the dignity of the woman."

Noting that the Church upholds the "sanctity of the family unit," Bishop Philip A. Anyolo of Homa Bay, conference chairman, (photographed along with Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Charles Balvo), said Kenya's leaders should work on "better ideas of promoting and protecting family values."

It is "not proper for some of our leaders to purport to propose solutions (to social problems) by suggesting alternative forms of family," he said at a news conference at the end of the bishops' April plenary meeting in Nairobi.

"The dignity of the family must not be distorted by any human power, nor be changed for personal or social pleasure," the bishops' statement said, noting that the "protection and respect of the institution of the family is a responsibility of the state and the church."

"Every citizen must learn to respect the family," it said.

Archbishop Martin Kivuva Musonde of Mombasa said a sin is still a sin even if it is committed by many people.

"If everybody is stealing, does that mean we have to make it legal?" he asked at the news conference.

In the Catholic Church, polygamists may not receive the Eucharist, and polygamists who wish to be baptized must abandon the practice first. However, some other Christian churches take a different approach. Continue reading

• Image: Crux

But the percentage of Americans who say the practice is morally acceptable reached an all-time high this year, according to a recent Gallup poll.

Gallup has measured American attitudes toward a number of social issues and behaviours, such as divorce, same-sex relations, and stem cell research, since 2001.

In that time, the percentage of Americans who find polygamy to be morally acceptable has risen from seven to 17 percent.

Of all the issues and behaviours Gallup asked about, polygamy is among those to gain the most ground on moral acceptance since 2001, after same-sex relations, having a baby out of wedlock, sex between an unmarried man and woman and divorce.

Gallup initially attributed a 2011 bump in Americans' acceptance of polygamy to a change in the wording of the question. Before 2011, Gallup defined polygamy as being when "a husband has more than one wife at the same time.

"But polygamy is actually a gender-neutral term that refers to the practice of having more than one spouse at a time.

The majority of polygamous societies around the globe practice polygyny, when a man marries more than one woman. Another form of polygamy, called polyandry, refers to when a woman has more than one husband.

In 2011, Gallup changed its definition to reflect the term's gender-neutrality, identifying polygamy as when "a married person has more than one spouse at the same time.

"The change in wording coincided with a bump in the percentage of Americans who found polygamy morally acceptable ― but the continued rise likely has little to do with semantics, Gallup analyst Andrew Dugan wrote in a recent article.

The growing moral acceptance of polygamy may be part of a "broader leftward shift on moral issues," Dugan wrote, as well as increased depictions of the marital practice in popular media.

In the wake of the Supreme Court's 2015 ruling legalizing same sex marriage in all 50 states, scholar and cultural commentator Fredrik deBoer argued in an article on Politico that polygamy would be "the next horizon of social liberalism."

DeBoer seemed to echo in positive terms what many social conservatives ominously warned: that legal changes to so-called "traditional marriage" could lead to anything ― even group marriage. Continue reading

• Image: Huffington Post

That explanation may fly with non-believers, but in court documents filed last week, Jeffs's lawyer has put forth a divine reason for his disappearance - the miracle of rapture.

The FBI isn't buying the heavenly intervention angle. Read more

Hamza Piccardo is founder of the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy, an umbrella organization which represents most of Italy's Muslim communities.

Recently, Piccardo shared a picture of the mayor of Milan with a gay couple after celebrating their union on Facebook.

Piccardo accompanied the picture with the following message: "If it's only a matter of civil rights, then polygamy is a civil right."

Commenting on his own August 6 post, after several Facebook users reacted to it, he wrote: "Myself and millions of people don't agree with homosexual unions, and yet it's licit and we respect them.

Those interested in them are a minority, as polygamists would be. Society as a whole can accept everyone."

An Argentine newspaper, Infobae, quotes Piccardo telling the Italian state TV system, RAI, that the Vatican's silence regarding his request - which generated a heated debate among many circles - is perhaps proof that the pope has accepted it as a civil right.

Piccardo also uses religious grounds, what he calls "revelation," to bolster his case, saying that's the reason why he's asking for recognition of polygyny (a man with more than one female partner), which is accepted in the Qur'an, but not polyandry (a woman with more than one male partner).

Source

• Crux
• Image: metro.co.uk

The church's teachings had previously portrayed Smith has having been happily married to one woman only.

The revelations of Smith's polygamy came in an essay posted on the LDS church's website, The Telegraph reported.

This followed speculation on the Internet concerning Smith's marital history.

Addressing Smith's wife count, the essay notes that "careful estimates put the number between 30 and 40".

Some of these women were already married to others, while one wife was just short of her 15th birthday.

The church also notes that Smith's multiple marriages caused great pain to his first wife Emma.

"Plural marriage was difficult for all involved.

"For Joseph Smith's wife Emma, it was an excruciating ordeal," the essay stated.

The LDS church disavowed plural marriage in 1890 under pressure from the US government.

Their home territory of Utah was granted statehood as part of the deal, though some breakaway Mormon cults have continued the practice.

According to the essay, Smith was a reluctant polygamist but relented under the threats of an angel which ordered him to obey "the commandment fully".

Smith regarded his fledgling church as a restoration of the "ancient principles" of Biblical prophets such as Abraham, who practised plural marriage.

He also authorised other Mormons to practice plural marriage, it said.

The Church notes that Smith would not have consummated all the marriages as some were "eternity only sealings" - relationships to be taken up in the afterlife.

Smith' marriage to his 14-year-old bride was in this category, the church added, implying that it had never been consummated.

The essay also noted polygamy rapidly increased the Mormon population at a time when the church faced religious persecution and economic hardship.

Sources

• The Telegraph
• Image: Salon.com

President Uhuru Kenyatta signed the polygamy measure into law on April 29, formally recognising what has long been a cultural practice in the nation.

The new law allows a man to take a new wife without informing his existing wife.

An initial version of the law allowed a first wife to veto her husband's choice of additional spouses.

Male Kenyan members of parliament successfully pushed in a late night session to get that clause dropped.

This led to a walk-out by female lawmakers.

Christian leaders said the law would dilute the principle of holy matrimony.

They had united to urge Kenyatta to reject the law.

Under the new law there are five types of marriages in Kenya: Christian, Islamic, Hindu, monogamous and polygamous

Rev. David Gathanju, moderator of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa, said polygamy will "open the floodgates for all sorts of separations and divorces".

"That will surely hurt the family institution and the country at large will suffer," he said.

Kenya is predominantly Christian, with Muslims about 11 per cent of the population.

Bishop Joseph Methu, leader of the Federation of Evangelical and Indigenous Christian Churches of Kenya, said the new law would cause problems and confusion.

"We now begin a journey to see how it can be amended. I don't think it's good for us," he said.

Kenya's Federation of Women Lawyers is pleased the new law puts customary marriages on the same footing as legal marriages.

Previously, women in customary marriages could not prove they were married to a particular man, because they had no marriage certificates.

But the federation wants first wives to have a say in picking her husband's other wives.

Otherwise, men will be able to marry other wives in secret.

The US State Department is "still reviewing" the new law.

An official said some provisions can be seen as steps towards greater equality for women, but others codify existing traditional practises that disempower some women".

Muslim leaders in Kenya backed the new law, saying polygamy is found in the Bible and the Quran.

Sources

• Religion News Service
• CNN
• Daily Nation
• Image: BBC

Family First NZ is calling for the National, Labour and Green parties to state where they stand on the issue of redefining marriage to allow polygamy and polyamory.

"If the definition of marriage was extended to allow same-sex marriage, and only same-sex marriage, it could then be argued that we are discriminating against those seeking polygamous, polyamorous, or adult incestuous unions - if all that matters is love and commitment," says Family First's Bob McCroskrie.

"If we are going to have a debate about same-sex marriage and liberalising adoption laws, it is essential that the politicians acknowledge just how far this is going to go, and what relationships will continue to be discriminated against," he says.

Former Labour party Minister for Social Development and Employment Ruth Dyson, in a speech to Victoria University first year Social and Public Policy students in 2008 said "We must cater for the diversity we know exists. By this I mean the range of relationships from single, couples, triples, blended, de facto, and so on. That's where we're going with social policy."

Source

• Voxy.co.nz
• Image: AsiaNetNews