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CNN Talkback Live

Should Polygamy Be Left in the Past?

Aired May 21, 2001 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM GREEN, POLYGAMIST: If you go out and have sex for fun in Utah, it's a class B misdemeanor, but if you have a child with a woman without a marriage license in Utah for a religious reason, for the religious motive of building a patriarchal family, then you are a felon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOBBIE BATTISTA, HOST: Tom Green says he will appeal his conviction on four counts of bigamy for being married to five women, and he believes he'll win. He says there's nothing wrong with the way he lives, with his wives and 25 of his children in the Utah desert and making frequent appearances in the national media. Green says he never considered himself legally married to the women. But prosecutors didn't buy it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID LEAVITT, PROSECUTOR, JUAB COUNTY: Tom Green knew that he was married, that he knew about the common law statute and that his definition of marriage is the same as the government's definition of marriage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BATTISTA: Green's case, the first polygamy case to be prosecuted in Utah in nearly half a century, focuses attention on the polygamist lifestyle. With an estimated 30,000 polygamists living in the U.S., what is this way of life all about, and do they have a right to do it?

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to TALKBACK LIVE. We hope to be joined by the man at the center of all of this controversy, Tom Green, sometime during this hour. He's running just a little bit late.

So first, for the women's perspective on the issue of polygamy, we are joined now by Mary Batchelor, who used to be a polygamist, and Anne Wilde, who is currently a polygamist.

Welcome to both you. Thank you very much for joining us.

MARY BATCHELOR, FORMER POLYGAMIST: Thank you. ANNE WILDE, POLYGAMIST: Thank you.

BATTISTA: Let me ask you first, why this sort of arrangement is attractive to you? Why do you do it? What do you get from this kind of arrangement? -- Mary.

BATCHELOR: Well, the main reason is religious. We have a very strong religious commitment to polygamy through Mormon theology as well as Biblical.

BATTISTA: You are not currently in a polygamist relationship, though, are you?

BATCHELOR: No, not currently.

BATTISTA: And why is that? How did that happen?

BATCHELOR: Well, I actually joined a polygamist family as a second wife and it lasted three years, and the other wife left, so we were left together in monogamy. And I often refer to myself as an involuntary monogamous.

BATTISTA: But you're involuntary, meaning that you would be very happy to have that plural situation again?

BATCHELOR: That's right, that's right. I had to adjust to monogamy, and I did, and I find it very fulfilling. But I also know, from having lived in plural marriage in a polygamist family, that there is something else there.

BATTISTA: And Anne, you have been in a polygamist marriage now for 30 some years, correct?

WILDE: Yes, about 32 years.

BATTISTA: And how does that...

WILDE: Very happy in it.

BATTISTA: And why is that?

WILDE: Well, for the same reasons that Mary mentioned. It's definitely a strong individual religious commitment. I feel like the blessings that are promised to those who live it righteously are worth the effort, and besides, it's just kind of a lifestyle that I enjoy, because I enjoy a lot of freedom and independence. I'm very religiously motivated, and this is the lifestyle and the principle that I feel that I should live.

BATTISTA: Well, how do you all deal with feelings of jealousy or isolation or any of the kind of normal feelings that a lot of women out there would feel if they were sharing a husband?

WILDE: Well, I'm sure those feelings are quite common in a plural marriage relationship. However, that's just one of the things you learn to overcome. In our book, we have compiled testimonies and essays from about 100 women, and you will notice in reading those, the older ones and younger alike, have experienced feelings like that, but they have been able to overcome them and find happiness, and they've adjusted to them. Those are just some of the things in the temporal world that you learn to overcome.

BATCHELOR: Well, I would like to add that you don't necessarily have feelings of isolation. Anne and I are completely blended in society. We interact in society. We have jobs. We don't -- I don't personally have a job at this time. I'm going back to school. But you know, we interact just like any other person. We look normal, we act normal, so we haven't experienced isolation per se, though, some families may experience that.

BATTISTA: Well, Mary, now how do you -- do you always know about the other women that are entering the relationship? I mean...

BATCHELOR: Oh, absolutely.

BATTISTA: OK, not that you get approval or anything like that, I presume.

BATCHELOR: Well, no. Actually, we do actively participate in the process of selection, and it's very natural, though. It's not like you go out scoping women out or anything. You just get to know somebody as a friend or -- and your personalities blend well and mix, and then you want it to happen. And she wants it to happen, you want it to happen, and it happens very naturally.

BATTISTA: And Anne, what is the effect of all of this on children? I think that a lot of people would feel that there are negative effects and that the children might suffer in some way.

WILDE: Well, they don't really have to suffer, necessarily, because in a family situation like this, I've heard it expressed that when there's more family, there's more people to love and more people to love you. Naturally, there is going to be an adjustment for children as well. But we've had a lot of friends that have grown up with 50 siblings, and they express the happiness and the joy of having that many people around them to play with, to grow up with.

Children that are raised in this principle, a lot of times, are very happy in it, and they want the same thing for their children when they get married.

BATTISTA: I think one of the criticisms about polygamist relationships is that it does -- it can open the door to things like abuse or incest or any of these obviously very negative factors.

WILDE: Unfortunately -- unfortunately, that is the case and it's because it is a somewhat closed community. Why is that? Because there's too much of a risk in coming out publicly because of the laws, so they just try to stay behind the scenes and live it quietly. And there are, in any society, I think, cases of abuse and incest. I don't think there's any greater percentage, probably a lesser percentage, of those kinds of things in the polygamist community.

BATCHELOR: Well, I would say it doesn't tend toward -- to cause abuse or any of those things at all. But I do think that the way society interacts with polygamists, and the way the hostile environment that's developing will tend to create abuse situations and will cause polygamist to withdraw again because in the last 50 years there's been an increasing level of tolerance and acceptance, where polygamists can interact well in society: go to school, become doctors, professionals, other career people. And now with this hostile environment, these families are going to withdraw because the threat of prosecution is there for polygamy.

And my understanding and my belief is, if there are certain crimes being committed by a polygamist, then that person ought to be treated like any other person in society and prosecuted like any other person would be prosecuted, not because he's a polygamist, but because he did that crime.

BATTISTA: Well, let me ask you both how you feel about the Tom Green case. Are you supporters of it? Do you have problems with the way he's lived his life?

BATCHELOR: We don't agree with all the choices that Tom has made in the arrangements of his family, although we have found him and his family to be very admirable in very many ways. I think they are a loving family. I think that he's a good father. I do not agree with the charges of bigamy under any circumstances. We do not believe that he's broken the bigamy statute.

Tom Green was not legally married when he was charged with bigamy. Under the common law statute, they found him married against his will and against the will of the wife they picked. And I find that very interesting, because how -- considering how many co- habitating couples are out there in the United States, these people do not want to be legally married, they're willing to forgo the so-called "benefits" of legal marriage and live together instead. I think there would be an uproar if they were suddenly declared married against their will to suit the state's purposes.

BATTISTA: Anne, do you have a problem with him marrying girls as young as 13.

WILDE: Well, that certainly isn't the way I would choose to live it or recommend it. I think that -- I have heard Tom say, however, that in every case when he married one of his wives, in the location where he married them, it was not against the law. I personally am not in favor of young marriages. However, there are girls that mature sooner if they are raised in this principle and in this lifestyle. Many times they grow up and mature a little sooner than if they are out being regular teenagers, hanging out at the mall and so forth.

The girls raised in this society are trained to be mothers at a younger age. However, I still do not recommend young marriages.

BATTISTA: All right. We are going to take a quick break here, and then we'll come back with some questions from the audience. But as we do, the question today: should polygamy be legal? Go online and vote at cnn.com/talkback. AOL keyword, "CNN," and while you are there, sign up for my personal notes and read your e-mails in our "You Said It" section. We'll be back with more right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: By 1890, the Church of the Latter-Day Saints banned polygamy, the penalty being excommunication. Utah's constitution outlawed polygamy as a condition of statehood.

We will be talking to Tom Green in just a few short minutes, but we'll take a couple of questions here from the audience. Ramita, go ahead.

RAMITA: I just wondered what the advantage of being in a polygamist relationship, as opposed to a monogamous relationship is for these women?

WILDE: Do you want me to answer that?

BATTISTA: Yes, please.

WILDE: OK. There's a lot of advantages. Of course, we discussed a little bit about the religious part of it, but when you look at a family that -- a lot of times a woman wants to have children, but she's also interested in a career. By having a sister- wife -- is what we termed that -- maybe they can work out an arrangement where one of them can go back to school, get a higher degree, have a career, and still have children because she knows they're going to be well-cared for by a sister-wife.

In our book, one of the stories was that she was able to go to work, then she shared her income with her sister-wife, who -- gave her a little spending money. So naturally, these things have to be adjusted within each individual family, what works best for them. But as well, each woman can have more free time to do her own thing, whether she wants to read or go out with another friend, or something like that, and still be able to have children at home and know they are well-cared for and loved.

BATCHELOR: It really gives an opportunity to pursue the development of your personal talents, and really to fulfill -- a lot of fulfillment in that.

BATTISTA: I have an e-mail here from Gary in Mississippi, who says: "I defend the rights of consenting adults to live as they choose. However, Mr. Green denied the right of 13-year-old females to choose a mate of their own. It seems that Green's wives came to him through matings arranged by the girl's parents." Is that -- in a closed community like that though, how do the men come across women to be their wives? Is it arranged?

BATCHELOR: Well, actually, no. We are not in a closed community. In fact, Ann and I are not involved in any ecclesiastical polygamist group or organization of any way or kind. We are independents, that means we just consider ourselves practicing fundamentalist Mormons, but we are not involved in any church or group. We just live in the middle of society, along with all of our other neighbors who are all different religions.

Some people who are involved in polygamy do arrange marriages, and generally they wait until the women are old enough to make the decision for themselves. They may have very much involvement in the say of who they want to marry. They do have some say over that. We do not go along with that. We don't do that ourselves. And as far as underage marriages, as Ann said earlier, we don't support that.

BATTISTA: Phone call...

WILDE: And then, too, regarding Tom's wives, I think you had some misinformation in that e-mail, because in every case they came to him, and practically coaxed him in some cases. It was not arranged by their parents. I think their mothers agreed in the cases of two or three of them, but it was their choice. They came to Tom and asked him.

BATCHELOR: Well, I also think it is important to make it clear that in the state of Utah, up until about two years ago, the minimum age of consent in marriage was 14. And it's still 14 in a couple of states, but now it has been raised to 16, so what he did was not considered illegal by marrying them at that age.

BATTISTA: I have a phone call from Ali in Pennsylvania. Ali, go ahead.

ALI: Yes. I would like to say that I think polygamy should be legal, because in our society -- take, for example, like adultery, like people like Bill Clinton and Jesse Jackson, that are sneaking around and the women don't have any dignity, there is no need...

BATTISTA: Wait, wait, what you are saying, Ali -- and I will let the women address this -- is that it's an excuse for adultery, that it makes it OK?

ALI: No, I think polygamy gives a man a right to have more than one wife, and that he doesn't have to be an adulterer, he doesn't have to...

BATTISTA: So, you're getting a free ride with that. I mean, in other words, you are just saying, yeah, men should be able to have more than one wives just so he gets a free ride from adultery.

In other words, ladies, a lot of people -- he's not the only one that would think that, I got a couple of e-mail on that also.

BATCHELOR: But you know, plural marriage is very hard for the man, as well as for the women. I mean, the challenges that are there are also there for the men, and the men do not need to live polygamy to have many women to go to bed with, they can do that already.

And believe me, even if polygamy was legalized, they aren't going to necessarily pick it as an alternative to adultery or cohabitation. They just don't have to. They don't have to take on that financial obligation, they don't have to take on that commitment. It's a hard commitment. The ones who do it truly do it because they religiously believe in it, and they're committed to their families.

BATTISTA: Let me go to Yetak in the audience. Do you have a question or a comment?

YETAK: Yes, I would like to know what constitutes infidelity in this type of relationship? If there's no concept of a man having just one wife, what constitutes a husband cheating in this case?

BATCHELOR: If a man has sex with a woman that he's not committed to in this relationship. We do consider ourselves married in the eyes of God, we just know that we are not married in the eyes of the state.

BATTISTA: What about financial obligations? Tom Green has -- what -- 29 children, I think, with four on the way. He sells magazines in the middle of the desert -- how does he -- how -- that's enormous financial pressure.

BATCHELOR: Oh, that would be definitely. And I think in their situation, it is even intensified by the fact that they were evicted from their home when they lived in the city, and they have now had to go and live in the desert, which makes it even harder to support the family from the environment in which they live.

But in other polygamous families, some polygamous families are very well-off, and they do very well. But the reason why is because we do not feel that the husband is the sole provider necessarily; the women are welcome to pursue careers and have jobs, and we blend our income. I think that that also gives empowerment and independence to the woman.

BATTISTA: All right. Ann Wilde, we thank you very much for joining us today. Appreciate your perspective on this.

WILDE: Thank you. Glad to be here.

BATTISTA: We will take a quick break, and Tom Green has arrived and will join us next. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA (voice-over): In 1878, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a case against church leader Brigham Young's secretary, George Reynolds, that polygamy is not protected by the right to religious freedom.

(on camera): Joining us now is the man at the center of this controversy, Tom Green. He is free on bond until his sentencing late next month, and he joins us live from Salt Lake City, Utah.

Tom, thank you very much for joining us. I understand that you have one of your wives there with you also, Shirley.

TOM GREEN, CONVICTED BIGAMIST: Yes, my wife Shirley.

BATTISTA: All right, great. We have questions, I'm sure, for both of you.

First, we should say that you were not -- are not legally married to any of your five wives, but you were at one time. And the way the state of Utah went after you is they made one of your wives a common- law wife, is that correct? Explain that for us.

T. GREEN: Yes. We thought we were single people "shacking up," in the modern vernacular, although we had a spiritual commitment between all of us. And that would have only been adultery or fornication, which is a misdemeanor. But that wasn't good enough for the state, so they made one of us -- one of the wives married to me, under Utah's common law statute, and that qualified me for prosecution. Actually, they filed the charges first and then created the evidence.

BATTISTA: Well, and they're also going after you for a felony rape charge, because you had relations with one of your wives when she was 13 and before you were married. Is that correct?

T. GREEN: You mean before we had a legal marriage here?

BATTISTA: Yeah.

T. GREEN: Yes, she and I were married in Mexico. We considered going to New Hampshire to be married, because she could have been married legally at that age, and Utah would have had to recognize that marriage if we had done that.

BATTISTA: Well, let me ask you this: Why do you pick women that are so young? I mean, there are a lot of people who would see that as not just illegal, but abusive.

T. GREEN: Well, first of all, I don't pick them. They get to choose me. And secondly, this is something that's been in Mormon fundamentalist culture, historically, for 150 years. My grandmother was married at age 15 in the Salt Lake Temple. Nobody thought anything of that, because traditionally and historically, young people got married when nature said they were ready. But society doesn't prepare them anymore.

In the fundamentalist culture, they're prepared. My wives have been married for 10 to 15 years now, and nobody has yet suggested or shown any way which they've been harmed by marrying me. They've demonstrated their ability to handle adult responsibilities in their teens. They've done very well at it.

BATTISTA: Shirley, when did you meet Tom, and how old were you?

SHIRLEY GREEN, WIFE OF TOM GREEN: I met Tom when I was 14 years old.

BATTISTA: And how did that happen?

S. GREEN: I spent time in his home doing some -- I was doing some sewing with his wife. And I spent a month in his home and got to know him that way. BATTISTA: And had you been brought up to believe that a plural marriage was the best thing for you?

S. GREEN: Absolutely. I grew up knowing I would marry into a plural family.

BATTISTA: Did you a approach Tom or did he approach you?

S. GREEN: I approached him. I fell in love with Tom, and I had to make the decision and choices as to whether or not -- I had to leave the community in which I was very deeply rooted into, because of the choices that I made for Tom. And because of that, I have been ostracized by my family. And I made those choices because Tom is what I wanted.

BATTISTA: So you've made a lot of sacrifices.

S. GREEN: I have, and I feel like I'm doing it all over again now.

BATTISTA: Tom, you have 29 children, and as I understand it, four on the way?

T. GREEN: That's correct, yes.

BATTISTA: How do you support them all?

T. GREEN: Well, we do much better at it when neighbors and the state stay out of our lives and leave us alone. We don't need any assistance. We have a telemarketing business. We sell a package of magazine subscriptions over the phone.

BATTISTA: But do you also collect welfare checks from state? Do you have to subsidize it with that?

T. GREEN: We never collected welfare checks until we were evicted from a mobile home park. Our home was demolished, while we were moving it, by a drunk driver. We moved into the old homestead place on the land we bought, 100 miles from any town. And that home, due to faulty wiring, burned down in the middle of the night, in the middle of the winter. We lost everything we had, including Shirley's three-year-old son, And the state came to us and said: You need our help.

And we did. They said: Because you don't have a marriage license, Mr. Green will have to pay it back because he's technically considered an absentee parent.

And I said: That's fine. I'll pay back anything I have to, and we used the assistance to get back on our feet. Two years later, we terminated the assistance and I went to the state to pay it back. In November of '99 they finally settled on what amount they wanted me to pay back. I signed the papers and said, "Set me up on payments."

They said: Sure, we'll have our regional office in your area contact you. Four months later when they hadn't contacted me, David Leavitt, the governor's little brother, filed criminal nonsupport charges against me. I went into that regional office wondering why I hadn't been set up on payments like everybody else does. They said: Oh, well, Mr. Leavitt got special permission to take over your case.

And of course, he didn't want me to make payments. He didn't want me to pay it back. He wanted a criminal conviction that he could use to taint the practice of polygamy with.

BATTISTA: So you feel like you've been made the poster board of polygamy in Utah?

T. GREEN: In a sense. I've been made the scapegoat.

BATTISTA: Let me go to the audience quickly for a question from Beth.

BETH: Hi, Mr. Green. I just have a quick question. It's hard enough for most families to file income tax. How do you handle that with all the children and the wives?

T. GREEN: Well, we have a lot of deductions. You can legally deduct anybody for whom you provide over half of their support.

BATTISTA: Let me go back to this question, because I think it's just curious for people: Why do you want, or need, five wives and 30 children? I mean, is it all about religion, or is this a little bit about ego as well? I mean, how far back do your fundamentalist beliefs go?

T. GREEN: This is not about ego, because I didn't select these women; they selected me. I didn't propose marriage to them; they proposed to me.

And this is a very key element of original Mormonism. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, and Brigham Young, his successor, taught that this was a requirement for exultation in the hereafter.

Joseph Smith and Brigham Young had similar marriages to mine. I've done nothing different from what they have done. I've simply perpetuated the religious belief and institution in plural marriage.

BATTISTA: We're going to take a quick break at this time and we'll continue here with the Reverend Lou Sheldon, right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: Welcome back.

Joining us now is the Reverend Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition. He's in Washington today.

Reverend, thank you for coming in.

From a religious standpoint, what do you see is wrong with this?

REV. LOU SHELDON, TRADITIONAL VALUES COALITION: Well, this is not a religious issue. This is a cult issue. These folks are very sincere. They don't have any of the trappings that you usually see, like at the Gold Club down at Atlanta where you have the, you know, obscenity and pornography. You don't have any of that.

What you have here is a cult that has related their belief system to the number of wives, children they can bring with them in eternity. But society has found, sociology I think has significantly established that it is best in the long run for there to be one mother and one father raising children, or a single mother or a single father raising the one child.

What happens in a multiple sexual partnership -- polygamy, for instance -- you create a kind of situation that -- and our research and our information we have been gathering out of Utah says, listen, you haven't heard the bad cases yet. You just happen to have a case here that isn't too bad. But there are a lot of information that (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that there's a distrust, there's a jealousy. There's a number of factors.

Look, people are sinners. And men are sinners, and men are often capable of doing things that they are sorry for later. And I think that when you have these multiple sexual partners giving birth to your children, it is really only a cult, and a cult is not a religion.

BATTISTA: Let me get Tom to answer that. Tom?

T. GREEN: You know, it's been my experience that you can find out what's really in a person's heart by how they see families like ours. If somebody has love in their heart, they see the interpersonal family relationships between the parents and the children. And that's what they see, is a family.

If they have the lust in their heart, all they talk about is sex.

This is -- this is as much a religion as it was for Father Abraham in the Bible, for Jacob, the father of Israel, and for all of the other polygamists who were considered the friends of God in the Bible. I don't know how this man can say this is not a religion.

SHELDON: Because Jesus Christ, in the New Testament, made it very clear, and that is the final authority that we premise this on: the Jews, Catholics and Protestants and Muslims, in terms of that a man shall leave his father and mother, shall cleave to his wife. This is very clear.

Even Saint Paul of the Epistles makes it emphatically clear that the marriage of a man and women is to compared with the personal relationship by faith of the believer to the Lord Jesus Christ.

So you cannot take these stories from the Old Testament and hold them up and elevate them and exult them. You have to see the Bible as a whole. And the Bible as a whole does not allow for polygamy.

BATCHELOR: I think that's wrong, absolutely wrong. In fact, the law of Moses, when it was revealed, gives reasons and instructions in how to live polygamy. And the early men in the Bible, many of them lived polygamy, and they were honored. In fact, Jesus honored Abraham, and he's the father of many nations.

SHELDON: Then what do you do -- then what do you do with the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, when he said a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife?

BATCHELOR: I obey them.

SHELDON: The (UNINTELLIGIBLE) there is a singular.

BATCHELOR: I obey them.

(CROSSTALK)

BATCHELOR: I don't think they are singular.

SHELDON: But you've chosen -- but you've chosen to...

T. GREEN: Reverend, excuse me, Reverend, there is nothing in the Bible...

SHELDON: You have chosen to...

T. GREEN: Excuse me, Reverend, there is nothing...

SHELDON: Excuse me! Excuse me. You have chosen to take that one verse and...

(CROSSTALK)

BATTISTA: But Reverend, you're also taking one verse...

T. GREEN: He's taking one verse.

SHELDON: No! I'm taking the whole thing of St. Paul! I'm taking the whole New Testament.

T. GREEN: There's nothing in the Bible...

SHELDON: I'm taking the whole New Testament.

T. GREEN: There's nothing in the Bible where Jesus prohibited polygamy.

In fact, Jesus was a rabbi...

SHELDON: Look, the Mormon Church kicked you guys out a long time ago...

T. GREEN: All the rabbis were polygamists in that day and age. Martin Luther himself...

(CROSSTALK)

BATTISTA: Tom, let me -- let me jump in here and ask Tom when exactly did the Mormon faith get rid of polygamy and why did they get rid of it? T. GREEN: The Mormon church didn't get rid of polygamy. In 1890, in order to become a state and elect their own officials here in Utah, instead of having them appointed from Washington, Mormon leaders of that time put plural marriage underground with a commission to keep it going. That's why...

BATTISTA: Why did they threaten people with excommunication, then, if they engaged in it?

T. GREEN: Because after 110 years, the men who understood it was placed underground, to be perpetuated outside of the church, they have died off and the modern leaders don't understand that this was part of the plan.

SHELDON: But today, I have spoken with Mormon leaders in Congress. These leaders who are Mormon in Congress do not accept what you say is a fundamental view of Mormonism. And so they (UNINTELLIGIBLE) as a cult.

BATCHELOR: That doesn't matter, Reverend.

(CROSSTALK)

That does not matter.

SHELDON: Why doesn't that matter?

BATTISTA: Hold on. We're obviously -- we're not going to have a point of agreement here any time soon, so let me go to...

BATCHELOR: No, we don't need to. In fact, I actually believe that America is a melting pot of religions. And in order to respect other people's religions, we have to start first with understanding. I think that I can respect his religion and his right to interpret how he wishes, but he should actually try to understand and respect mine. And I'm not seeing that.

SHELDON: Well, that is not the issue. The issue here...

T. GREEN: The people -- the people that are really insecure in their religion are the ones that go around calling other religions a cult. This is no more a cult...

SHELDON: But there's a law on the books!

T. GREEN: ... than any other religion.

BATCHELOR: There is not a law on the books.

(CROSSTALK)

T. GREEN: There's not a law in Utah against polygamy.

BATCHELOR: Sir, you're wrong. I'm sorry. I have studied Utah law. There is a constitutional prohibition, and there is no polygamy statute. There is a bigamy statute and a cohabitation statute. And I ask you, are you ready now to encourage prosecution of fornicators, adulterators, co-habiters, all across America for your religious beliefs?

SHELDON: Well, listen, whatever the law is in any state, you do it! Whatever the law is. And you folks are breaking the law.

BATCHELOR: There is no polygamy law.

T. GREEN: Reverend, there is not an anti-polygamy law.

BATTISTA: Let me jump in here, you guys, real quick and go to the audience. Jerry has been waiting to ask a question.

JERRY: I just had a quick question -- actually, two-part, two separate questions: What is the actual religious benefit of practicing polygamy? And also, two, do you honestly think that a girl -- I know that it is, like, a whole consensual thing -- do you honestly think that at the age of 13, they are mature enough to actually understand, you know, that I love this person, I want to spend the rest of my life with him? Because I know from myself at the age of 13, that was the farthest thing from my mind. I was playing with Legos, or just playing in a sandbox, or whatever.

T. GREEN: In American society, that's the situation it is, because American society has stopped preparing people to build families and began to prepare them to build careers instead. So it's extremely rare to find somebody, even among the fundamentalist culture, who is prepared for adult responsibility at such an early age.

But even American society recognizes that at rare exceptions somebody at an early age can be considered an adult. That's why a 14- year-old boy in Florida is being tried as an adult for murder. If he's old enough to consider his actions to be -- considered as an adult for murder, couldn't a girl be old enough to understand what she is doing in building a family?

BATCHELOR: Can I...

SHELDON: No, she would not be able to, because there is a big difference between a young boy in Florida who pulled a trigger once and the girl who has to have a long-term relationship, an ongoing thing.

BATTISTA: I have to take a quick break. I'm sorry. Hold on just a moment, and in a moment, most animals do it. Is polygamy natural? We will ask anthropologist Helen Fisher. We'll be back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: Adding to the debate now, from New York is Helen Fisher. She is an anthropologist from Rutgers University, whose latest book is "Anatomy of Love: the Natural History of Monogamy, Adultery and Divorce." Nice to see you, Helen, thank you.

OK, the big question, where does polygamy stand with mankind?

HELEN FISHER, ANTHROPOLOGIST: Well, 84 percent of human societies permit a man to take more than one wife at the same time. They don't all do it, though. Only about 5 to 10 percent of men actually have enough resources or enough charisma or enough stature in order to attract a group of women. So although it's permitted in a lot of places, it's not highly practiced.

BATTISTA: So, where does -- where do our -- I assume it's because our emotions and our ability to reason and our emotions in particular tend to break this arrangement down, or what?

FISHER: Well, first of all, with the beginning of agricultural society, it became really not very practical to have many wives on the farm. The jobs of -- you see, polygamy practiced in parts of Africa where women do a lot of the farming, and a man needs a lot of women to help him -- not plow agriculture, but horticulture.

Anyway, the long and short of it is, it became ecologically impractical as the human civilization became to evolve. And -- but it's still practiced in many parts of the world.

What I find interesting about it, very definitely when people said that there is a lot of jealousy involved, there is. I'm not sure that the human animal is really built to share very easily. There has to be very good economic reasons or very good religious reasons, and in this case, it seems to be that these people are drawn for the religious reasons to do this.

BATTISTA: So, is that why you feel that these young women, especially as young as 13 or 14, would be drown to this kind of arrangement?

FISHER: Well, I think they grew up with it. Just as been said, they expect to do it. They feel that this is what -- I mean, I'm not standing up for it or not standing up for it, but you can talk the human animal into doing a great many things. I mean, it just seemed to me that the opponent of it was equally convinced of his view of reality and his religious perspective. So, once you acquire a religious perspective of what is moral and what's good, then you can go with it.

But I do want to say some things about the children: you know, people have worried about children in a polygamous society, and there is no question about it, that sometimes, in some culture in the world, co-wives fight, sometimes they even poison each other's children, but these children can also grow up in a very warm, loving family, as Tom Green said.

And indeed, for millions of years on the grasslands of Africa, our ancestors -- children grew up in what they call "multi-age play groups," with a lot of other children, a lot of adults around too to help them. And that is the kind of community that much of America does need to have, and in fact, in this particular case, it appears as if Tom Green's family does have it. BATTISTA: I got an a e-mail here from Ethyl who says: "All this talk is about a man with multiple wives. How does this culture feel about women with multiple husbands?"

FISHER: Well, you know, it's a -- most societies do not permit that, for a good Darwinian reason, for evolutionary purposes. I mean, if a man can have several wives and several children at the same time, he will pass more of his DNA on into eternity, and indeed that's an adaptive mechanism, and a lot of men probably are quite -- have a tendency for that.

But a woman with multiple husbands cannot have a whole lot more children, so those men who live in a polyandrous marriage, in which there are several husbands and one wife, really suffer because they can't, in fact, have a lot of their own children. So in those kinds of cultures, and there have very few of them, less than 1 percent, a man who is in a polyandrous marriage will go out and have a second wife, or even a third wife of -- a woman in the village of his own.

So, from a Darwinian perspective, you would expect more men to have a tendency toward multiple marriages. And in those places in the world where women can get some benefits from that multiple marriage, they will do it.

BATTISTA: Reverend, did you want to jump in?

SHELDON: Yes, I just simply wanted to say that the point that the anthropologist is making, is very clear, that the information we have received from these areas in Utah, is that, we've only seen an example here of Mr. Green and his wives and his children, that appear to be, you know, very secure.

But there is an enormous amount, as the anthropologist said, of insecurity, sometimes jealousy and hatred. And then, she mentioned in rare cases sometimes poisoning the children. I think these are things that we have to look at in this modern society. I believe that this kind of a relationship -- the state doesn't have a vested interest in having polygamy.

The state wants to know that there's a father and a mother; or a single mother or a single father, but there's a head of household. And there's those units...

T. GREEN: We have all of those things.

SHELDON: This becomes I think the basis.

BATTISTA: Let me go to that question: If you do have all that and you have consenting adults and everyone is happy, then where does the state get off telling you how many wives or husbands you can have?

BATCHELOR: That's exactly how I feel. In fact, our book, which is called "Voices In Harmony"; contemporary women celebrate plural marriage, we show that many women come in to plural marriage in their older years, from other religions. They have come through the lives, and for their own reasons, they have discovered that plural marriage works for them. They are not necessarily born and raised and brainwashed -- so to speak -- into plural marriage. They choose it of their own free will.

BATTISTA: I have to take a quick break. We'll be back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BATTISTA: Marleen is on the phone from Idaho. Marleen, go ahead.

MARLEEN: Hi, I would just like to make a comment as a lifelong member of what we call the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, commonly called the Mormons.

Mr. Green, I have nothing against practices, but I would say that he is not what you would call a Mormon. He cannot be. He would be ex-communicated. When this law was in practice, it was given as a choice only about nine or ten percent of the male members were chose to practice this at the time of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young when it optioned...

BATTISTA: I'm sorry, Marleen, I'm running out of time here. And I'm going to let Tom answer you.

T. GREEN: She is correct about that today. The corporate church has had to take a stand to separate itself from polygamy.

BATTISTA: And that will do it for today.

We appreciate Tom Green, thank you very much for joining us. And Mary Batchelor, the Reverend Lou Sheldon and Helen Fisher. Thank you all very much.

Be sure to join us for TALKBACK LIVE tomorrow. Al Sharpton is running for president. He'll be on the show. You can ask him why he thinks he is the man for the job.

We'll see you tomorrow at 3:00.

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