When discussions of polygamy arise, most people seem to be clear on two things:

1. Polygamy oppresses women
2. Polygamy is men’s wildest dream come true.

Allow me to anoint myself the representative for all mankind (literally, ‘man’-kind), and tell you something that may shock and surprise you:  men don’t want polygamy.

Let’s imagine two hypothetical men, whom we’ll label the “Good” man and the “Bad” man.

The Good man is just that:  good, decent, and righteous.  He treats women, especially his wife, with love and respect.  He takes seriously his marital covenants and responsibilities.  He makes sure he always treats his wife well, and that her physical and emotional needs are met.   The Good man knows that successful marriages require compromise and that happy family life will often require him to sacrifice personal needs and desires for the sake of his wife and children.  Marriage can be a struggle sometimes, but the Good man is willing to put in his time and effort to make sure the entire family is content, year after year. 

Why would the Good man want polygamy?  If having one wife means a lot of work, responsibility, and sacrifice for him, doesn’t having two wives mean having just about twice as much of the same?  Sure, marriage brings with it the joy of companionship...but he already has that with one wife.  Having two (or more) wives means he’s now responsible for handling potentially tricky communication issues with two (or more) people rather than one.  Since he cares about his marital responsibilities, he now has to make sure his time is adequately split, such that neither wife feels neglected or distanced.

And (presuming each wife would naturally want her own biological children), the number of children he must be a good and proper father for, also increases.  Since the Good man would never divorce or abandon his wives, this commitment and responsibility will be there for him for decades.  What’s the attraction of polygamy, again?

On the other hand, the Bad man has only one use for women in general—and that use starts with ‘s’ and ends with ‘x’.  Women exist purely to satisfy his physical needs, and he has no desire for anything that involves the word ‘commitment’.  Marriage is a yoke that binds him to responsibilities that take away from his freedom.  Sure, marriage can bring sex…but he can get that without marriage, too—where he has all of the blessings and none of the responsibilities.

The Bad man knows that between pornography, prostitution, strip clubs, and any number of other women who seem willing to provide sexual companionship without any commitment in return, there are no shortage of women who are available in some medium or another to satiate his lusts.   And all it usually takes is a few bucks, with no long-term commitment required.  Certainly, he’s not required to bind himself to any one particular woman for decades.  If, after a period of time, the current object of his affection ages and her attractiveness dims, he can just go on to the next younger model, like trading in an old car.  Due to the nature of their ‘transaction’, he has no responsibility for any of those women in his past—they served their purpose, and he has now moved on.

So, why would the Bad man want polygamy?  Why would he want to be responsible for taking care of multiple women for many years, when every single attraction to the ‘natural man’ that polygamy supposedly provides can be obtained without binding himself with responsibilities at all?  

For all the recent controversy about the HBO polygamy show “Big Love” involving temple covenants, the more interesting issue is how polygamy is portrayed itself.   In its original review, USA Today found "Big Love" to be “dull and unengaging”:

From what I can tell, the goal of Love is to prove that life can be just as mundane, colorless and boring with three spouses as it can with one or none. Mission accomplished.

A more pointed analysis from Slate magazine (emphasis mine):

The really surprising thing about the series is not how steamy and illicit the populous Hendrickson ménage is but how little heat it gives off—how downright tedious it manages to make polygamy seem. [Bill] Paxton's amiable and hardworking Bill Hendrickson is permanently put-upon; when he's not overseeing his thriving home-improvement business (note the line of work he's in), he is at the beck and call of his demanding spouses.
...
The show's setup has the strange effect of inverting the terms of the unreconstructed patriarchal paradigm that the sexual politics of polygamy plays to. In Big Love's hands, the harem fantasy so beloved of hot-blooded males turns out to be one long harem nightmare; what might have been a thrilling exposé of the excessive and the aberrant turns out to be a familiar tale of the domestic fatigue that has assailed the lives of couples ever since Adam hooked up with Eve (whose turn it is to do the dishes/buy the groceries/have sex tonight), times three.
...
The result is that polygamy never looked worse than it does here, suggesting not an end to the humdrum rhythms of marital life but an alarming extension of them.

Well.  Gee.  Hmmm.  Did it occur to either of these writers that this is exactly what real-life polygamy would be like?  What’s the attraction for men of any stripe, here?

The ugly truth is that society already has de facto polygamy—has for years.  No one blinks an eye when a man in popular society is found to have cheated on his wife with another woman, let alone more ‘minor’ forms of adultery involving pornography.   There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of women who are content to be the mistress to a married man without any commitment, and we’re supposed to believe that adding a marriage covenant to the picture—where the man does his part to provide a formal bond of support and security even after the initial sexual attraction has faded—somehow makes that woman’s position worse?

Men don’t want polygamy.  The ‘good’ men don’t want the extra responsibilities, especially when the benefit to them is fairly small.  The ‘bad’ men don’t want the extra commitments, especially when they can get what they are looking for easily enough without them.

(Both of the above reviews note--without exploring the irony--that "Big Love" was originally paired with the now-ended "Sopranos" series on HBO.  If you're a man, which situation would you rather be in:  Bill Paxton with three wives, or Tony Soprano with one wife and a series of interchangeable--and disposable--mistresses?  If you're a woman, which situation would *you* rather be in?)
 
If there ever is to be a serious discussion about polygamy in this country it needs to focus on the reality of polygamy, not the 'theory'.  Most men don’t want polygamy.  Some women *might* want polygamy, if only because from a pure self-interest standpoint they’d be significantly better off than what many willingly accept for themselves now in their one-sided relationships with men.