Janelle Brown from Sister Wives thinks legalizing polygamy would cause men to lose interest in it. As it stands currently, many women in plural marriages lack the same spousal rights and protections that those in a traditional marriage would get. Kody Brown was in a plural marriage with Janelle, Meri Brown, Christine Brown, and Robyn Brown before three of his wives left him. But because he could only be legally married to one wife at a time, he legally married Robyn. This meant that his three other marriages were spiritual, putting the women in a more vulnerable position.
Would this arrangement still be appealing for men like Kody if each woman enjoyed the same legal protections? Janelle doesn’t think so, and she might be onto something.
Janelle’s theory is that legal polygamy would be less desirable.
During the Sunday, September 28 season 20 premiere of Sister Wives, Janelle explained her reasoning. If people want to reduce or put an end to polygamy, they could simply try legalizing it. She explained that legalizing it would mean “giving any wife a claim on her husband’s assets” — and men not might be super excited about that. Janelle actually seems pretty confident that men would lose interest in polygamy because of the financial risks that would come with being legally married to multiple partners.
“Just make it about the financial,” she said. “No guy’s gonna be giving part of his estate to four or five wives. It’s just not going to happen.”
In her mind, this would effectively ‘make polygamy go away.’
Because of the protections it would offer women, Janelle thinks “there would be so much benefit” to legalizing polygamy. But she’s not exactly interested in plural marriage anymore anyway. After Christine, Meri, and Janelle all left Kody, each person’s views on polygamy seemed to shift. Christine is now monogamous and married to David Woolley, for example. And in Janelle’s case, she said she doesn’t “feel that pull anymore toward plural marriage.” In fact, Janelle has said she’s not even interested in dating at the moment.
Meanwhile, Kody is still being… himself.
Kody’s views on polygamy have evolved as well, but during the season premiere, he still suggested that he would consider returning to polygamy for sex. “There’s something I want maybe more than you do,” Kody told his wife Robyn. He added, “My primary motivation, I’m afraid at this state in my life, would be… yeah, just how good looking she is.” Robyn called this “the very worst reason,” and Kody shrugged it off by saying he’s “a guy” and doesn’t “freaking care.” Hmm.
In the end, though, Kody admitted that he wouldn’t put his relationship with his current wife at risk just to have more sexual partners. “Just take the sex out completely,” he said. “She would have to adore Robyn so much that I would never, ever have to worry about whether she was competing with Robyn for my love and affection.”
