This thoroughly revised second edition offers a child-centered, international perspective as it urges America to de-stigmatize alternate family forms.

In this book’s first edition, Philip L. Kilbride showed polygamy as the preferred marriage pattern in most parts of the nonwestern world and explained how plural marriage is surfacing in western countries to address economic and spiritual crises. In Plural Marriage for Our Times: A Reinvented Option? Second Edition, Kilbride and his coauthor, Douglas R. Page, update and enhance this thesis in light of contemporary circumstances, new studies, and current legal debates.

This new edition examines plural marriage’s benefits for children. It extends the discussion of polygamy and religion, especially the Muslim perspective on marriage and family; considers the illegal polygamy of immigrants; and looks at multiple marriage in African American communities, where crisis polygamy is a growing phenomenon. The authors suggest Americans consider plural marriage as a viable practice that can help reduce the divorce rate, better protect women and children, and serve as an alternative to the fractured family so prevalent in America today.

Includes an extensive bibliography