Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1981. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 158-171).

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of English at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2013. / Polygamy is widely practised in African communities. The African social-realist novel, especially when it is woman-authored, shows female characters as having to play docile, subservient roles and accept demeaning positions in polygamous marriages. Although it has been claimed that traditional African marriage creates a satisfactory situation for women, mainly by means of the security it offers and the bonds that it forges between co-wives, the narrators of African realist novels almost always expose only evils associated with polygamy. In most of the texts, co-wives experience conflict with one another, not bonds. Men are portrayed as egocentric beings that greedily satisfy their sexual impulses at the expense of women. Encouraged by their families, they inflict irreparable emotional damage not only on their accumulated wives but often also on their offspring. While blinded by their desires, these men engender many unplanned children for whom they usually take little fatherly responsibility. Consequently, children too are objects of pity in many of the books. This dissertation, by means of close analysis of select African narratives, reveals that, despite all the struggles for liberation and democracy, values highly regarded in modern societies, polygamy is a prevailing sign of male dominance in African communities today. The dissertation shows that even such male-authored novels as Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Onuora Nzekwu’s High Life For Lizards fail to recommend a polygamous life to women, while Mariama Bâ ’s So Long a Letter and Scarlet Song, Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood and Kehinde, Es’kia Mphahlele’s Chirundu, Lazarus Miti’s The Prodigal Husband, Ama Ata Aidoo’s Changes, Sue Nyathi’s The Polygamist,SembeneOusmane’s Xala, Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, Rebecca HourwichReyher’s Zulu Woman, Miriam KWere’s The Eighth Wife, T.M. Aluko’s One Man One Wife and Aminata Sow Fall’s The Beggars’Strike all use polygamy to highlight the incongruence between the ideals of democracy and the facts of life as experienced by African women. These texts reflect real social problems. They cast light on the inequalities that prevail in polygamous relationships and imply that the principle of equality cannot be achieved as long as polygamy exists.

Based on a sample of 814 university students, pro- and anti-same-sex marriage and polygamous marriage groups were established based on students scoring >1 SD above (n = 145; n = 132, respectively) and > 1 SD below the group mean (n = 127; n = 126) on the Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Marriage Scale (ATSSM: Pearl & Paz-Galupo, 2007) and Attitudes Toward Polygamy Scale, which was generated by modifying the ATSSM (ATPM). Compared to pro-same-sex marriage students, anti-same-sex marriage students were significantly more prejudiced against gays and lesbians, authoritarian, religious, and politically conservative. Anti-same-sex marriage students also had less contact with and appreciation for diverse cultural groups, more desire to dominate out-groups, were less autonomous in their thinking, and were more likely to be men. Anti-polygamous students were more strongly opposed same-sex marriage, idealized the traditional family, authoritarian, religious, less autonomous in their thinking, desire to dominate minority groups, and were more likely to be female compared to those who were propolygamous marriage. Results further indicated that, polygamy and same-sex marriage are predicted by different variables, with same-sex marriage being more strongly tied to prejudice against gays and lesbians and polygamous marriage being more strongly tied to beliefs about the inherent morality of conventions surrounding the traditional family. A regression analysis using data from all 814 students yielded almost identical results with regards to identifying variables most predictive of ATSSM. Followup analyses revealed that prejudice against gays and lesbians was the single best predictor of opposition to same-sex marriage and even accounted for the associations between opposition to same-sex marriage and religiosity, political conservatism, and support of traditional marriage and family. With respect to polygamy, data from regression analyses revealed that ATSSM was the best predictor of ATPM. Despite the cultural focus on this variable, however, controlling for ATSSM did not reduce the predictive power of critical variables to a non-significant level. Recommendations for challenging opposition to marriage equality are discussed.

No description available.

Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of History. / Electronic thesis. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 138-140). Also available in print ed.

MGS / Institute for Gender and Youth Studies / See the attached abstract below

The Anti-Polygamy Society was established in 1878 to try to encourage Congress to abolish the practice of plural marriage tn Utah Territory. In the brief time that it existed, the women of this Utah-based group sent petitions, circulars, and letters to Congress and many leaders of the country urging that laws be passed to end polygamy. Much of their work was also carried out in the society's newspaper, the Anti-polygamy Standard.By the time that laws were passed that restricted polygamy, the Anti-polygamy Society no longer existed. Nonetheless, the society was important in the anti-polygamy crusade because it was responsible for starting the movement that finally ended polygamy.

Traditionally, in Nigeria women play a subservient role in relation to men. While a man can practice polygamy by marrying many wives, women cannot marry more than one husband at a time. Although researchers have documented the effects of polygamy on the spread of HIV/AIDS, little is known about the experiences of polygamy by Nigerian women who stopped practicing polygamy by immigrating to the United States without their husbands. It is important to know the experiences of these women as they pertain specifically to the spread of HIV/AIDS so as to develop a preventive intervention for HIV/AIDS among Nigerian women in polygamy. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the perspectives on HIV/AIDS held by 10 Nigerian women who practiced polygamy in Nigeria before immigrating to the United States. Recruitment was done through purposive sampling at a faith-based organization. Guided by the health belief model, interview transcripts from the 10 women were analyzed to reveal recurrent themes that expressed the women's lived experiences in polygamy with their perspectives on HIV/AIDS. Findings revealed that these women had a basic knowledge of the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS by engaging in polygamy but needed to comply with the terms of sexual encounters as dictated by their husbands; therefore, they were at risk for HIV/AIDS. The results of this study can be used to increase awareness among Nigerian women in polygamy and Nigerian health policy makers regarding the transmission of HIV/AIDS and the preventive measures available for HIV/AIDS. Understanding the experiences of women in polygamy may lead to greater understanding of the impact of polygamy on HIV/AIDS and may help to decrease the prevalence of this disease.

The primary purpose of this research was to gain insight into what childhood was like in turn-of-the-century Mormon polygamous families. This purpose was executed through two main avenues: basic empirical data and descriptive accounts. This type of research was crucial inasmuch as previous research and commentaries dealt with adult relations but little was known about children in this complex Mormon family structure. In order to gain an understanding of childhood in Mormon polygamous families during this era, forty elderly individuals who were reared in plural marriages were interviewed in depth. A field type design was employed using a historical-cultural; in short, retrospective history taking. Questions focused on the general family life style, respondent-sibling interaction, respondent-parent interaction, and respondent-father's other families interaction. Children in Mormon polygamous families encountered the events of Western rural America, as would any children at the turn-of-the-century, including hard physical work, large families, home based entertainment, and traditional values. Looking back in time, respondents in this study saw their families as supportive, nurturant, and for the most part as "normal" within the cultural context of Mormon community. Stress, however, was manifest primarily in the avenues of degree of contact with their father's other families, the complexity of multiple households, and the self-imposed questions that generally existed in the society during a time of persecution as well as internal change of the Mormon church.

<p>From 1852 to 1910 Congress labored to find the right instruments to eliminate polygamy among the Mormons and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints struggled to retain its claim as the most American of institutions. What these struggles reveal about the shifting role of religion in the developing definition of American citizenship is at the heart of this dissertation. By looking at developing ideas about citizenship in this particular frame, the social and political history of exclusion and inclusion comes into focus and exposes the role religion played in determining who could lay claim to citizenship and who could not, who tried and failed, who succeeded, and why. In the end, the coercive measures of the state and their own desire to join the body politic drove the Saints to unquestionably abandon the practice of polygamy, a central tenet of their faith, so that they could be accepted as American citizens. </p><p>The battle over polygamy and the rights of polygamists was not limited to the floor of the U.S. Congress or the Supreme Court, although those sources are carefully examined here. Debates over polygamy and Mormons' right to be Americans also took place in sermons, novels, newspapers, and popular periodicals. Official actions of the state and popular discourses simultaneously defined citizenship and influenced how Mormons understood their own citizenship. This dissertation is a history of the discourse generated by Mormons and their antagonists, laws passed by Congress, and court cases fought to defend or deny the civil, political and social rights of Latter-day Saints.</p> / Dissertation