Sister Wives Marathon

TLC sure loves "unique" families.

They love "little people" families, they love really big families, they love really big families made up of multiples. They love families who work on motorcycles, they love families who enter beauty pageants, and they especially love families with freak or accidental pregnancies. If there's anything I've learned from watching TLC, it's that families come in many, many different forms.

Including polygamy, as demonstrated by the lovely Brown family.

I was a little late in tuning into this show, but lucky for me (and Judd since I was in so much shock that I made him sit through it with me), all the episodes were re-running last night in preparation for the season (and probably series) finale. So we had a little polygamist TV marathon last night, complete with pizza and grape soda.

Watching "Sister Wives" to me was like watching a really bad movie that makes you really uncomfortable to sit through, but at the same time it is so fascinating that you can't turn it off. There were a lot of moments where the partial feminist in me cringed, gasped, wanted to throw the remote at the TV, and so on. These moments seemed to happen the most whenever clueless husband Cody or ditzy 3rd wife Christine opened their mouths to say anything. I especially wanted to slap Christine for setting up her newborn daughter to fail by naming her "Truely Brown." I know she had a middle name, but no one is going to remember to use it. Better hope Truely marries someone with a better last name, "Truely Brown" just sounds sad. I'm all for unique names, but come on, think of your kid and all the teasing they might get at their polygamist home school!

Oh, the other cringe moments came whenever about-to-be 4th wife Robyn burst into tears. She bursts into tears every time someone talks to her, she thinks a happy thought, and especially over her shared soul mate Cody.

Which made me wonder, if Cody is everyone's "soul mate", did he have to create some Horcruxes to split that soul up among four wives? So every time he remarries, he becomes less of a person? (sorry, I'm way too excited about Harry Potter in a few weeks!)

Cody may not be Voldemort, but it's pretty obvious the dude just wants a younger, more fertile wife since the other three are in their late thirties and just about past their child-bearing years. The worst was when he told one of the wives that it makes him sick to imagine her with another man...how does he think these wives feel on a daily basis?

But there were aspects of the show I liked too. I really liked 1st wife Meri since she seemed to be the most honest of the bunch and told Cody off the most for legitimate things. I liked the gaggle of teenage daughters who had life goals other than marrying the second they could. I wasn't able to form much of an opinion on 2nd wife Janelle other than that I'm glad she worked because someone needed to keep Cody in his shiny new Lexus and pay for Robyn's country club reception...oh, and feed the kids too.

I appreciate that TLC chose a more mainstream family to represent polygamy other than literal modern-day pioneers that you see in stories about raids and child molestation. These people look pretty normal and their kids seem pretty well adjusted. The wives seemed to genuinely care for one another and their kids. Quite honestly, I'm not sure what part of what they are doing is illegal, as Cody is legally only married to Mari. It's not much different than "The Girls Next Door" except these are mommies rather than Bunnies and there's a bunch of kids involved. But as evidenced in this show, Mr. Brown has several bedrooms he must rotate between, much like Mr. Hefner, I can imagine.

I could never do it. I'm glad I was born in the century I was, because I really don't think I could ever do it. I understand why it was done, but it's not for me.

But it does raise an interesting question: If gay marriage becomes mainstream, will polygamy become a more open thing? Not for religious reasons, but just because it, too, is an "alternative" view of marriage? Or what about one woman and two men? Is there even a culture that allows that?