Polyamory vs polygamy

The poly folks tend to strongly distance themselves from polygamy. For obvious reasons. The FLDS is an abusive, child-trafficking cult.

But hear me out ... there are a lot of parallels. If you imagine a polygamous family where everyone joined the family as adults, no child brides. Like in the Sister Wives series. The differences include the sister wives' OPP and mono/poly dynamic. Which is an important difference from most polyamory practitioners. And then there's the obvious aesthetic differences, Mormon polygamist have very different style and decor from their polyamorous counterparts.

But *so much* is exactly the same. The polygamous wives torture themselves for not being happier about the other sister wives' holy, Jesus-approved connection with the husband (need moar compersion). They adhere to a rigid ideology that condemns their feelings of jealousy and "possessiveness" over their husband, and asks them to continuously pray and self-improve in order to stay in the dynamic.

They have to "communicate" constantly and use a ton of therapy language mixed with religious language to keep themselves in line.

And there's usually also one or two employed sister wives who make the whole financial arrangement work for everyone else. (This was Jeanine in the show Sister Wives, and also Christine contributed financially by raising all 20+ the children herself. The rest of them were just leeches.)

And it's also rife with abuse in the same way as poly dynamics. There's one person with the most leverage (usually the husband and the "favorite" wife) who call the shots and treat everyone else like dirt.

So although there are some important differences, I think polygamy (with adults) is more similar to polyamory than most people give it credit for.