Over the last few years, we’ve seen three of Kody Brown‘s four wives – Christine, Janelle, and Meri – walk away from their plural marriage, leaving Robyn as the last wife standing. But because his exes weren’t legally married to Kody, the way they define divorce is a bit different from the way more traditional couples do, and apparently, it’s even different from the way their former church defines it.
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When Sister Wives first began its run on TLC, Kody and Meri were legally married; because polygamy is illegal in all 50 states, he wouldn’t have been able to be married on paper with his other wives. Years later, they divorced so Kody could be legally married to Robyn, making it easier for him to adopt her children from a previous marriage.
That means none of his exes needed to file paperwork when they decided to leave the marriage, but Meri did decide to get a spiritual divorce granted by the church.
On this week’s episode of Sister Wives, though, it was revealed that the church doesn’t consider them divorced until the wife who left has sex with someone else – at least, according to Robyn – and both Janelle and Christine had some strong opinions on the subject.
“I just think that’s bulls—, I’m sorry,” Janelle said in one scene while having a conversation with Christine. “I mean, I think that’s dogmatic. That’s a dogma I used to hear and I used to be like, ‘OK, whatever.'”
Christine didn’t seem to think it was such a bad idea, though, later telling the TLC cameras, “Go have sex with somebody, then that marriage is over. You can move on!”
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While talking to the cameras herself during the episode, Meri shared her thoughts, too.
“Until I have sex with somebody, that means I’m still attached to Kody? I don’t think it means that,” she said. “I think it really is more for if you’re going to go outside of your marriage and have sexual relations, then now you are that marriage is nullified.”
In any case, Janelle also admitted that she is thinking about following in Meri’s footsteps and going for a spiritual divorce, too, and it sounds like Kody might actually agree.
“I didn’t feel like I needed a spiritual divorce from Meri, and I didn’t feel like I needed a spiritual divorce from Christine,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s some kind of karmic connection that Janelle and I are obligated to still.”
Karmic connection or not, it appears Janelle is definitely happy to have moved on!
