Gallup’s annual surveys on the moral acceptability of various issues have produced largely predictable results, with social conservatives remaining in the minority on most measures. The findings were generally unremarkable, except on the question of polygamy, which stands out as a growing point of divergence among younger respondents.
It remains the case that a strong majority, 74%, of people view polygamy as morally wrong. Likewise, but on the flip side, there is significant national agreement that birth control, divorce, premarital sex, gay or lesbian relations, and embryonic stem cell research are morally acceptable. But that 21% of people approve of polygamy is still a surprising number, especially to one who doesn’t follow social surveys.
Increases in polygamy acceptance have happened before. In 2020, overall polling for it came up with 20% of people, down just slightly from 21% in 2025. In 2005, that number was just 6%.
Those numbers themselves are a problem, but the age-specific data are worse. This year, 31% of 18-34-year-olds say that polygamy is morally acceptable, 21 percentage points more than the 55-and-older crowd.
It makes sense that there was once a more solid consensus against polygamy: The practice is a bad deal for women — consider abuse, property, and general wellbeing — for children — the “two-parent privilege” is not a minimum — and for Western civilization. As more Americans attempt to reject the Christian foundation of the country, they widen the door to polygamy and its implications. And while polygamy is nothing new, it certainly hasn’t reached normal status in our society. Where are young people getting the idea that it is a viable option?
The legacy media, of course, is always an answer. In this case, it’s a primary one. Sociologist Brad Wilcox has tracked and rebutted media promotions of polygamy for at least a decade, hopefully to some avail. And in just the past couple of years, the New York Times has pushed such pieces as “Interested in Polyamory? Check Out These Places?” and “I Was Content With Monogamy. I Shouldn’t Have Been.”
Add to this publicity aspect the examples of the adults who surround these young people. No-fault divorce has been a disaster (along with the popularity of regular old divorce) for the children from these broken families. Other children bear the consequences of family formation breakdown as a whole, such as with entirely fatherless homes or adoptions into gay households. Marriage and dating, in general, have degraded in recent times.
THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP IS A MARRIAGE GAP
All the measures of sweeping moral tolerance, with birth control (90%) and divorce (75%) in the lead, seem to be the measures by which we can track relational decline. Likewise, moral decline, given at least our instinctive repulse at the polygamy trends.
No matter how increasingly tradition-minded, young people are still eminently impressionable. It shouldn’t take something like polygamy to startle their predecessors.