A qualitative study examining the effects of polygyny on Hmong individuals who had been raised in polygynous households

Abstract

In the late 1970’s, Americans witnessed a large influx of immigrating groups of refugees, one of which was the Hmong. They brought foundational values of respecting hard work, elder leadership, patrilineal families, kinship, reciprocity, and the clan structure. These strong beliefs, taken into account with situational factors, contributed to some Hmong partaking in the long-sustained custom of cultural polygyny as a means for survival. Once seen as a necessity in Laos by some Hmong, it is unsure how many still believe in sustaining the custom in America. Polygamy has always remained a sensitive and controversial topic for the Hmong community. For these reasons, there has been very little research done on polygamy within the Hmong culture. The purpose of this research was to qualitatively examine whether polygamy has an effect on Hmong individuals and what these effects may be as reported by the participants. The researcher constructed a survey in Hmong and English, which served as a framework for obtaining narratives from participants concerning their relationships with their fathers, mothers, fathers’ other wife, fathers’ other children, their view points on polygyny, and advantages and disadvantages of being raised in a polygynous household. There were five participants in this study; all from the same Midwestern community, both female and male and ranging in age from late teens to over sixty-five years. Each interview was audiotaped and took approximately thirty minutes to complete, then, interviews were transcribed. The researcher and her thesis advisor independently reviewed the transcriptions. Inter-rater reliability was established at .90. Open coding was used to initially name and categorize the data and selective coding was used to develop a more general frame work. In general, the results from this study support the findings of other researchers showing that polygamy does affect the individual. The five participants listed an overwhelming number of disadvantages of living in a polygynous household as compared to the advantages. The disadvantages were many and included depression, sadness, stress, anger, resentment, too many children, confusion of roles, and lack of the following, love or connection with the father, respect, resources or money, and role model. The number of advantages only numbered three, and they were a higher number of brothers and sisters, freedom and learning from mothers’ mistakes. General themes seen throughout the interviews were confusion of roles, lack of resources/money, resentment, lack of love and respect. If the effects of cultural polygamy can be studied and identified, there may be more momentum set to address the practice and its effects through social work aiming at intervention, prevention, and/or treatment. Due to the sensitivity of this subject, and particularly in the United States where it is illegal, polygyny is not easily studied and researched. Additionally, cultural polygyny is an outgrowth from the culture in which it is based and therefore, polygyny in Africa will be different from polygyny among the Hmong. It would be hoped that people who have lived in polygynous families seek support and gain the help that is necessary and that future research is conducted. In addition, that those who work with individuals from polygynous families, understand the effects so that treatment is effective. Therefore, it is recommended that future research be conducted with Hmong individuals and families.