I figured I’d try to get myself back up to speed by covering a current event or two. I wrote a brief note about the (now infamous) Texas polygamy case a while back. But the case is back in court again now as the state tries to hold individualized hearings for the families involved. Coverage of recent developments can be found here and here.
There are apparently 463 children being held in state custody. (Though it isn’t clear that all the people being held are truly children. It’s interesting to me that while we can scientifically determine many things, age is apparently not one of those things. Thus, some of the children being held may actually be women. Or some of the boys could be men.) The parents of those children are entitled to individual hearings about their fitness as parents. Individual hearings. And that’s what has just begun. Of course, part of the complexity is figuring out which people are the parents of which children. For this purpose, the state is resorting to DNA tests. (This was the topic of my other comment on the case.)
Two things strike me reading today’s coverage. First, you can see how important it is to be a parent. Parents have rights. Non-parents do not. It’s as simple as that. Indeed, that stark parent/non-parent line is part of what makes the case so difficult for the justice system. For each child, among all the people, there are two people who have rights. All the rest of the people are without rights. Thus, you have to find the right two people and give them a hearing. The rest can be pushed aside with nary a care. This is why one might care a great deal whether one was legally recognized as a parent. To adopt a test where everything turns on such a slender thread as genetic relationship seems foolish.
Second, the law quite ill-adapted to problems of “non-traditional” families. Put aside whether this particular non-traditional family was a good one or not. Surely it is possible to imagine communal families bound together by love and trust and obligation raising children together–one we could agree was a good place for children? (Okay, maybe not everyone can imagine this, but I can.) The legal system would be essentially unable to cope with such a family. It would insist on finding two and only two parents. It would privilege a few of the relationships–those that fit the legal template–over the all the others. If the purpose of family law were to ensure uniformity this might be a good idea. But if there is some greater purpose–to enhance the well-being of children? To promote human flourishing?–I don’t think this is something we should be pleased with.
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I was having some of these thoughts myself. There is one married couple who told the court that they were monogamous and lived at least somewhat differently from the others in the Texas compound. What if that mother has also participated in raising other children in the compound? Should the court consider placement of the children with her? Assuming some of the adults are willing to leave the compound and keep their children away from the practice of child marriage of girls and expulsion of boys, should those adults relationships with other children give them grounds to ask that the children be placed with them?
Do you really think that the mothers of the compound do not differentiate at all between their biological children and others? Don’t be naive. OF COURSE they know and love and care for their own even if the rules don’t allow them to express it. Maybe there are a couple of exceptions, a few “saints’ in the bunch, though I don’t myself consider that saintly… but the majority, i doubt they have been able to repress their natural emotions so successfully.