Polygamy is not something new to the world and it is not something that is restricted to just the Mormons being purportedly in involved in this.
It is believed that Jews, Muslims and Christians many centuries ago all practiced polygamy.
In Greece it was classed as being a form of concubines.
For men in Macedonia this was an acceptable practice to ensure there would be a male heir.
This was most common to be found in royalty.
In Greece homosexuality was acceptable as well as polygamy.
So the point of being is that this is not new to one religious sect or new to the world and it is something that has been widespread for centuries.
It was actually the Roman empire that introduced the concept of having only one wife in a relationship which was adopted readily by Christianity itself.
It then became a religious issue once these trends started to change from the practice of polygamy and adultery became a factor.
Unfortunately this new concept of monogamy led to some really barbaric acts such as that of Anne Boylen.
Most likely in today's modern age polygamy would be considered as a form of open or free love in fact one could say that polygamy in its true sense is in its tribal form Of course this is looked upon different when it comes to the Mormon fundamentalist.
To get a bigger understanding of this one would have to go back to 1852 where the Mormons themselves practice polygamy but at that time it was out of the United States in the territory of Utah.
At this time not only was the Brigham Young the governor of the territory but was also president of the Mormon church.
It was the stance of the church at that time that polygamy was a very important establishment of the religion itself so that it was something that was necessary for eternal salvation.
Democracy came in to the Mormon church when the United States government separated Church and State which took place after the death of Brigham Young.
One of these elements had to give up which was polygamy.
Then at this time is when there was a separation into two groups of the Latter-Day Saints Church and what became known as the Mormon fundamentalists The three stands up the Mormon fundamentalists on polygamy, patriarchy, and organized religion is ironic to realize that any of these in regards to a democracy system can exist on its own.
If the three are combined together then it becomes against democracy.
Ironically this can be quite widespread in the United States because of the freedom of the individual.
This is even more evident when one takes a look at slavery because when one is free it gives the ability to the individual to enslave someone else It can become quite a controversy when the Constitution of the United States allows the freedom of religion and to be able to express it.
It can become quite a complex law where there is case law where people have been indicted.
For example the Reynolds case which challenged the bigamy act.
This came down to a controversy between what did the first amendment protect which in this case was supposedly the rights and beliefs of opinion pitted against the rights of conduct.
It came down to the controversy raising the fact that the comparison could be made that even though polygamy was at one time part of a religion so was human sacrifice so it opens the door again to basically where is the line drawn.
There is no doubt that the Mormon fundamentalist is not going to readily give up what they are standing for in order to demand democracy.