Stuff You Should Know - Why would anyone want multiple spouses?

Episode Date: October 5, 2010

Polygamy, the practice of having multiple spouses, is mostly illegal in the United States but very common in other parts of the world. In this episode, Josh and Chuck discuss polygamy and touch on a host of related topics, from Mormonism to monogamy. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flooring contractors agree. When looking for the best to care for hardwood floors, use Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner. The residue-free, fast drying solution is specially designed for hardwood floors, delivering the safe and effective clean you trust. Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner is available at most retailers where floor cleaning products are sold and on Amazon. Also available for your other hard surface floors like Stone, Tile, Laminate, Vinyl, and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit Bona.com slash Bona Clean. The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call,

like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid for it. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. The Swingin' is podcast on iTunes. Is it? Yeah, Stuff You Should Know. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. In the flesh. We're both wearing robes and mustaches. Swingin'. Swingin' Chuck. As in to swing.

Have you ever heard of swinging? Yeah, I think I told the story once about the Atlanta Swingers Club. It was very close to my phone number growing up. We used to get calls all the time for people seeking the Swingers Club and being the Baptist family. It was like, you know, my mom basically made them seem like it was the devil calling. Sure, I'm sure. It's pretty funny. Yeah, so on this very special episode of Stuff You Should Know, we find out what fueled young Chuck Bryant's budding sexuality. It turns out it was misplaced phone calls to swingers clubs. And continued sexual dysfunction because now that I'm adult, I'm like, you're just trying to have a good time. Yeah, hey man, listen up. It's not my deal, but you know, yeah. You don't want to put

your hangups on other people, right? Yeah, that's a drag. Well, it depends, man. We're talking today about polygamy and there's a whole lot of people putting their hangups on polygamists. Yeah. They have a hard time here in the States. They do. But before we get into that, Chuck, before we get into the swing in this podcast around, yes, let's get some administrative details out of the way. Yes. Very important announcement. This is like, I know you're tired of hearing about it if you don't live in Atlanta, but this is the last or the Southeast. One of the last chances we'll have to say we are having our trivia night in Atlanta. Yeah. October 13th. It's a Wednesday. Block out from 6pm to about 11pm. Yes. You're going to show up to work on Thursday, not on all four cylinders

right? Depending on how many cylinders you have. Sure. But you're going to have had a great time the night before. Why, Chuck, what's going to have happened on Wednesday, October 13th? We're going to play bar trivia and we're going to have daily shows. John Hodgman sitting beside us. Yes. Onion Editor-in-Chief Joe Randazo. Yeah. And Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Squidbillies co-creator Dave Willis. Nice. Yes. And plus us. Oh yeah. And our families. And Jerry. Will your mom be there? Yeah. How adorable. And I hope my brother's your dad coming. I don't know. No. He finally went out and bought an iPod to listen to what his son was doing. Yeah. I don't think he's turned the thing on yet. And this was months ago. Yeah, I think my mom will be there. Didn't he show you the iPod

when you met him at my birthday party? Yeah, yeah, he did. He was like, look. And you're like, what is that? Right. And it was a nano even. He said it's an iPod, Chuck. I'm surprised you don't know that. Right. You're in it. So that's what's going on Wednesday, October 13th. The night before, Tuesday, October 12th. Our buddies and de facto house band, the Henry Clay people, are playing a show at the Drunken Unicorn on East Ponce. And we're going to be there and Jerry's going to be there. And hopefully a couple of our buddies coming in from out of town. Randazzo. Yeah. Maybe Hodgeman. We'll see. And see some rock and roll and hang out with the band. They're cool guys. Yeah. It's like two nights of fun in a row. Yes. It's going to be a fun week. Yes. Yeah. So that's

what's going on this October 12th and 13th in preparation of Halloween. Now back to polygamy. Yes. All right. So let's get back to polygamy. Chuck, you remember Warren Jeffs? Yeah. Thanks for this article because I didn't really have an intro, except for mention of Big Love, which I've never seen of you. You know, I watched Big Love initially and bailed on it. Not because it was bad. I just didn't have the time, but I've heard it's really good. Sure. Yeah. Well, it's a acclaimed series. HBO's Bill Paxton. You can't go wrong with Mr. Bill Paxton. That guy's a class act. But back to Warren Jeffs. Yeah. Not to be confused with Bill Paxton. Bill Paxton plays a polygamist on TV. Warren Jeffs is a polygamist in real life, right?

At the very least, he's been indicted for allegedly fostering the marriage between a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old, right? 14-year-old and her 19-year-old cousin. Yeah. Someone call him a petarist, Josh, and not just a polygamist. He couldn't be a petarist unless he is a homosexual because petarists refer specifically to the child molestation of boys. I didn't know that. Yeah. Well, then he would be a child molester then in many people's eyes. Allegedly, Chuck. Allegedly, allegedly, allegedly. Well, he's in jail for it. He was convicted of it. He has not been convicted. He goes to trial on November 15th. Well, he was found. What was he found guilty of then? Apparently, they're having a hearing to find out if he's one in the same as the person they were

looking for. No, no, no. That's in Texas. He's been in jail for the, he was sentenced to two consecutive prison terms of five years following his 2007 conviction in Utah. Now there's new charges in Texas. Lay it on me. Well, they're trying to get him extradited to Texas and he, much more serious charges were thrown out. I'm sorry, Texas has the much more serious charges, so they threw out even more charges in Arizona. This guy charges all over the place. Yeah. And so, he is in jail in Utah and they, the governor signed an extradition warrant to send him to Texas in mid-August, but they denied it. So, they're waiting on a court-ordered extradition basically. Yeah. And that may bring him five to 99 years that he- And up to $10,000 fine.

Assaulted a child under 17. Yeah. So, that makes him a child molester. He's got a lot of stuff against him. I'm going to just say allegedly all over the place because I have to admit I'm not 100% on what he's been charged with or convicted of. Okay. But having charges all over the place is nothing new for polygamists. Yeah, I know. Jeff is the leader of a sect of Mormonism called fundamentalist Mormons. Yeah. We should say that the Church of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons, although frequently associated with polygamy, haven't really done so since the 19th century. We'll get into the Mormons and their polygamous lifestyle later. But I think it's fair to say that Jeff is not representative of the Mormon

Church as a whole. No, not at all. Let's start with the basics. Okay. Let's talk about polygamy. What is it? There's like, I think people have a- Give the definition of polygamy, Chuck. Well, before the definition, let me just say that most Westerners don't identify with anything but monogamy. But culturally, worldwide, and in history, monogamy is in minority actually. Actually, polygamous society is outnumbered by the hundreds. Yeah. Monogamous societies and cultures. Monogamy appears to be a Christian hang-up because if you go to areas before the Christians got there, pretty much everybody historically was polygamous. Right. Right. Then the Christians arrived and all of a sudden there's monogamy everywhere.

Right. Did you know that? Yes. And among mammals as well, humans are, as monogamists, are in the vast minority. Right. Only about three to five percent of all mammals engage in monogamy. The rest are polygamists. Right. Right. So definition-wise, I believe it's polygamy is more than one spouse. Polygamy is more than one wife. Correct? Yes. So polygamy doesn't attach gender or legality to it. Right. Right. And then polyandry is a woman having more than one husband. Which Jerry beforehand- Jerry was like, well it's not like women can have more than one husband. Wrong. Especially if you are a member of the Nienba people in Nepal. Yeah, women there have, and I just think this is like a sitcom waiting to happen,

women there have to marry all the brothers of a family. Yeah. So if you marry one brother, you get Daryl and Daryl. If you marry Larry, you get Daryl and Daryl as well. Nice. And it makes sense in a way for them because it allows them to pool their resources as a family, hold on to family land, take care of their children. Well, it's very culturally specific, right? Yeah. Because this group of people, there's about 1,300 members of the Niambian culture. Sure. And they simply don't have enough land for each man to go out on his own, form a homestead in a family. Right. So it's very culturally bound the reasons for this. And apparently it's fairly beneficial. There's a lot of consolidation of family's bloodline

and resources. All of the brothers have access, sexual access to the woman, to the wife, right? That's something you're going to hear a lot of, sexual access. Which means you can get it on. Yeah. They all have access to getting it on. They all have sexual access. Each brother does. But they said they do allow them to specify, like, you are the father of this child. Right. They differentiate who's the father of which children. But they all help raise them. Yeah. They all contribute to caregiving, to child rearing. And also, it's hierarchical. I was wondering how, like, who chose the wife, right? And it's the oldest brother. And he's definitely the dominant husband. You know, if I would rewrite the rules though, if I was a tribesman,

I would say we should go with, like, the best looking brother or the brother who has the most game. Yeah. So we can all get the most attractive wife. What if the oldest brother is like a real nudge? But that's what I'm saying. Like, just in case the oldest brother is a nudge, he's still the dominant husband. Right. Although I'll bet just sibling rivalry trans is pan-cultural. Yeah, true. So I'm sure that there is, like, one that has game and he's like, yeah, I got more sexual access to her than you do. Tony's a sitcom man. Yeah. Except it would be, like, they would Americanize it. It would be, like, four American, like, guys from Brooklyn, brothers that would find this woman tribesman and bring her to America and all marry her.

I could see Ed Burns doing that. I could do. Yeah. He'd make them Catholic though. So Chuck, that's the Neambian people. They are definitely a rarity. Even rarer, the Amazon Zoey tribe, right? Yeah, that's multiple everything, right? Multiple husbands and wives at the same time. Yeah. It's just basically, like, it's a free for all in the jungle. But it's not fair of us to make fun of that. We're just laughing. Because I'm not making fun of that. Yeah, that's their culture. Again, they think we're weird. Again, I think that, man, this is such a potential, this is just potential dynamite here. Yeah, but it's just different cultures. They see your dad and his nanopod. But it's not just that. Like, there is some real,

there's very real social, like as in society, and biological benefits to polygamy. Sure. But there's also some very negative social and personal drawbacks too, right? Yeah, we'll get to those too. Yeah. So, well, what are we going to talk about? Oh, yeah, who else does it? Well, we'll continue with the nomenclature just so we know. There's also bigamy. Right. That attaches legality to polygamy. Yeah, bigamy is the law. It's when a man illegally marries more than one woman, and that is definitely illegal in the United States. Well, it's the practice of polygamy in a place where it's illegal, illegal. Like no one, no, in the United States, you can't practice polygamy, except I think there's very small pockets in like Utah and Arizona, where it's

actually legal. Oh, really? Yeah. Colorado City, Arizona, I think is one of like two places in the country where it's actually legal. But federally it's still illegal, right? I don't know. I have to say, but say like in Georgia, if there's no such thing as polygamy, there's only bigamy because polygamy is illegal. See? Yeah. Okay. Now, I get it. I just wanted to make sure. Bigamist oftentimes are accidental bigamists. Like they will marry before their divorce is complete. Yeah. But there's also, and they called it rare, not as rare as you think, when the dude leads a double life and literally has two families. And it's rare according to the population, but if you look up in Google News Search, you'll find plenty of it.

Or listen to the Grateful Dead Song, Friend of the Devil. That'll give you the right idea. That'll get you on the trolley. That's one of the few dead songs I like. It's a good one. I like Easy Wind. It's really? Yeah. And what is polyamory as being in love with more than one person? That is just a communal familial living where everyone has sexual access to everybody else. There's not necessarily and usually isn't any marriage involved. But it resembles like a polygamist household in that there's like a group of people all contributing to the raising of children. And probably in most cases, there would be a differentiation of whose kid is whose. Yeah. But it's like a mini taking a

village to raise a child. Again, I don't know how good this is necessarily for child rearing. Yeah. We're not going to make that call. But we can say there's a study in Malaysia that's emerging as brand new. This thing was just published in July. And it's a groundbreaking study actually. Malaysia, it allows polygamy among its Muslim population. Yeah. Because it's Muslim law that you can have up to four wives as long as you can care for all of them equally. And treat them all equally well. And apparently that's like what you're supposed to do. That's not always the case. But I think like a significant portion of the children in polygamous households in this Malaysian study, there's something like 1235 people

involved in the study and 523 of the children in the households. So like a significant majority of the children said that they wouldn't engage in a polygamous lifestyle, even though they're Muslims once they marry. Interesting. Yeah. So I don't know how much that will change as they get older though, especially as status is attached to it. Well, the article here said that westernization like younger Muslims think polygamy is kind of old fashioned. Yeah. Maybe that's something to do with it too. Yeah, good. And I'm sorry, I got that wrong. 523 children were involved in the study. 90% of them said that they wouldn't engage in polygamy. Yeah, that's overwhelming. Yeah. So polygamy is the idea that a man is very successful and should spread his seed while he is on the earth because

he is rich and successful to breed more young and rich and successful people. And that a lot of times has been endorsed when you have a minority of a population like early Jewish doctrine were in favor of it. Right. It's a really quick way to jumpstart your population to get your society going. Yeah, and I was surprised it said some Orthodox Jewish sects still advocate polygamy, which I didn't know about that. I was hard pressed to find the confirmation of that. I saw that some gave it up recently, but I had trouble finding that. I did too, except for here. And I think China did that too because they're Vietnam. Oh, well Vietnam and China did it too under Confucianism. Oh, okay. So that went out of fashion. China did it under Confucianism. Vietnam

did it for practical reasons. It's not legal in Vietnam, but it's widely practiced because the place is so ridiculously war-torn that they actually need to restart their population as well. Right. So again, it does have a lot of advantages, specifically polygyny, right? Yeah. Let's talk about why. And again, from this moment until we're not talking about it anymore, we're speaking biologically, impersonally, without any social aspects. Okay. Biologically, polygamy makes utter and complete sense, especially if you subscribe to the Dawkins selfish gene idea. Right? What's that? Well, it's the concept that we are merely vehicles for our genes that are driven to basically exist in immortality by passing its line down as frequently as possible. Gotcha. Okay.

Through polygamy, through polygyny, I should say. Is it polygyny? Polygyny. I've been saying polygyny. Sorry. I think you could probably say it both ways. I just think we're confusing people. Through polygyny with the gene, a man can reproduce far more frequently. A healthy stallion could basically reproduce several times a day, every day, if he had sexual access to a lot of ovulating women. Right. Sure. Okay. Thank you for that, man. A woman can only reproduce once every nine months after becoming pregnant. Right. And she may have twins, triplets. Naturally speaking, octuplets are the result that they're a product of modern science, of fertility drugs. But say you have twins, maybe triplets top usually. Irish twins at the max.

Okay. What is that? Like 13? No. Irish twins is when you have like two kids that are nine months apart. Okay. I'm thinking of a baker's dozen. So Chuck, so polygyny makes sense in that if you want to build up your population a bunch, have a bunch of ovulating women and guys to reproduce with them. Right. Sure. So it makes sense biologically, but socially, it's a catastrophe. Yeah. Right. Well, one thing that's hard to talk about is actual statistics because Mormon plural marriage is not the kind of thing that's documented. They keep it very private and secret. So you can't go out and get a bunch of statistics on abuse, but the stories that you hear and anecdotal evidence suggests that a lot of abuse happens. Yeah. Like girls that are 14 years

old getting married to men that are 25, 26, 30, 40 years old. That's definitely one part of the dark side of polygamy, polygyny specifically. Polygyny also places men in a position of absolute authority just by even just by bestowing that possibility of the men, the man having more than one wife, but all those wives are devoted to the one man. He's automatically at the top of the hierarchy. Yeah. Just by virtue of the arrangement. And just sociologically speaking, being put in that kind of situation would probably make you drunk with power, just being an average person. Well, you ought to have been abused that position. Sure. And even if they don't want to abuse it, the women in a polygamous scenario, they don't have, they're subservient and they're so dependent.

They don't have like the skills, even if they do escape their scenario, they don't have the skills to make it on their own because they've just been the subservient wife the whole time. Right. That's no good. A lot of people who have moved on from polygamous marriages usually use the word escape or often use the word escape. They escaped from a polygamous marriage. I got divorced or anything like that. And then also, just economically speaking, there is a division of one guy's paycheck over however many wives and children he has. He may have more than one house if he's doing pretty well for himself. Maybe he's an engineer or something. But it's still one person's paycheck supporting all of these people.

And you see that problem apparently, according to the article, who wrote this one? Grabster. The Grabster wrote this one. He points out that Colorado City, Arizona, which is one, I think, two places where you can be a polygamous, is basically single-handedly puts a strain on the welfare services of the state of Arizona. Yeah, they're going broke. Yeah. So that's another aspect of it as well as the economics of it. And then apparently jealousy too. Sure. First wives, rather than being the dominant wife out of all of the other ones, are often just kind of left to the side. Well, that's what happens in big love. Especially to get younger and younger and younger. Is that right? Yeah, that's like a big plot line of the show I know,

is that some of the wives become jealous of each other and like a love triangle would. I don't see how you couldn't. Yeah. You know? Even among the most devoted polygamous families, I don't see how that couldn't happen. Like jealousy is so ingrained. I'm the most non-jealous person on the face of the earth, but that would even make me jealous. Yeah. I would think. Yes. Or maybe not. I think it would. So Chuck, you ready? Let's talk about the Mormons. All of you guys have been very good and patient. Thank you for waiting. Let's do Mormons, man. Yes. This is a brief overview of Mormonism. We're not going to, maybe we could do a whole podcast one day on them. We'll see. But it's a religion founded by Joseph Smith,

Jr., early 1800s, and he claimed to have received messages, divine messages from an angel that directed him to golden plates that basically told the story that he translated to eventually become the Book of Mormon. So the Book of Mormon was written and it does not contain specific info about polygamy, but supposedly he practiced polygamy after receiving another personal divine message saying, if you go out and have multiple wives, then you will be a king in heaven. Yeah. Basically, to be a successful Mormon, you kind of had to practice polygamy. It was a directive from God. Yeah. Although, again, it says nothing about it in the Book of Mormon, right? Nothing about it. There's a cool website called The Wives of Joseph Smith. How many were there?

They have 34 by my count, but each name has their age, whether they had a husband at the time they were married to Joseph Smith, and then there's a link, each one's hyperlinked to a bio on them. It's very cool to make sure that these women aren't forgotten because they were part of the founding establishment of Mormon. Sure. So he had 34. From what I could see, some of them were sisters and the youngest was 14, right? Wow. One of his kids, Joseph Smith, the third, was like one of the Malaysian Muslim kids because when he came of age, he was like, I am not practicing polygamy. I've seen it firsthand and I'm not doing it. Yeah. He made a separate sect. He branched off because he wanted to stay down with the Mormons. He just wasn't

down with polygamy. Exactly. A guy who was down with polygamy was the successor to Joseph Smith Jr., the founder of the Church of Latter-day Saints, a guy named Brigham Young who you'll notice has a university. He does. Yeah. Brigham Young had even more children or even more wives, apparently. He had 55 from what I understand. Wow. His were much more verifiable. Apparently, Joseph Smith didn't ever publicly cop to polygamy. Brigham Young was like, check out the 55. Right. They're like, hello. By the mid-1800s, it was so prominent. Yeah, 55 times. You should say that 55 times. In the mid-1800s, there were so many Mormons, though, doing this that the Church, while they didn't officially bring it into their literature, they did acknowledge it in an

official announcement and they referred to it as plural marriage. Right. So you've got plural marriage in 1852. Yes. Four years later, something big happened. The Republican party, Abe Lincoln's party at the time, I think he may have been an attorney still, but he was a log cabin Republican. Right? Yeah. Because he lived in a log cabin. And he was Republican. Right. But so Lincoln's party came up with their 1856 platform and it was based largely upon ridding the United States of the twin relics of barbarism, Chuck. One was slavery. The other was polygamy. Right? Right up there with slavery. Yeah. These were the twin evils that were basically keeping the United States backward from progressing forward. Supreme Court agreed. Yeah. And that launched a what you could

call an unconstitutional government assault on the religion of Mormonism because of polygamy. They wanted to quash it, basically. Yeah. Utah applied for statehood during this and they were like, not as long as you got polygamists, you get rid of your polygamist Mormons and we'll deal with you after that. They criminalized cohabitation. Right? Yeah. What else? They prevented you from voting or holding office if you were polygamist. That is so illegal. It's ridiculous. I know. And they actually froze church assets. That is even more illegal. Confiscated their property. Yeah. So they really persecuted the Mormons based on polygamy. Yeah. And whether you agree with polygamy or not, the United States government and eventually the government of the state of Utah

really, really went after them for their practice of polygamy. Well, yeah. And that's why the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, they were having so many problems and they wanted statehood and all that that they in 1890 said, you know what, we've had another revelation and we're going to change that doctrine. So can we be a state now? Right. And they said, yes, you can be. They set up specific laws there, though, that they didn't do in other states. If you were caught as far as the Mormons were concerned after, I think, 1890 when they said that they had that other revelation, they said if you were caught practicing plural marriage, you would be excommunicated from the church. And some people said, well, you know what,

you can't excommunicate us if we form our own sect. And from that was born the Mormon fundamentalists who still practice to this day. Warren Jeffs is a Mormon fundamentalist in this group. And they believe that the Joseph Smith Jr. had a divine revelation and they believe that they will be kings in heaven if they have multiple wives. Right. So there's some defense to this among Mormon fundamentalists. One. I don't buy it. No. One is that if you have more than one wife, you are less likely to philander. I don't buy it. No. That's just doesn't make any sense. I think you would be more likely to philander, wouldn't you? I don't know. I mean, to me, and I've been around cheating and seeing it and stuff like that, I think you're either you're going to do that or you're not.

Doesn't matter if you're single, if you're married, if you have three wives or one wife, you're either a cheater or you're not a cheater. But I think that there is a, I think socially, structurally, that absolute power makes you more of an arrogant person. I agree. And I could see a person because cheating is a choice. Either do it or you don't. You make a decision not to do it or you make the decision to do it. Right. Everybody wants to. I think that you could make the case that socially, again, sociologically, somebody is somebody in that position could, I would say, be more likely to cheat. Extra hands to care for children. Come on. Everybody's got two hands and you multiply that

by eight wives. You got 16 hands to care for. Yeah, but you multiply the six kids times eight wives and you have 48 kids. Yeah. No, I know. So it's like, maybe if you didn't have those kids, you would need the extra wives to care for them. And also we should probably take a break here and say real quick, we're like, Chuck and I are both monogamists, right, Chuck? Oh, yeah. Okay. So, but at the same time, if there is a form of polygamy where it's not detrimental, I don't really see that in this article. I don't, I don't have to each his own. It's the S.Y.S.K. motto. Sure. It's so long as it doesn't hurt somebody else. It should probably be the supplement to the S.Y.S.K. motto, right? Right. But it is illegal in these United States, federally. There are

several laws passed in the 1800s. State wise, there are only a handful of states that actually have specific laws, but Utah is one of them. And that was part of the deal, I think. Like specifically outlawing? Yeah. Okay. When they were granted statehood. And they get around it, though, a lot of times because they don't officially marry more than one woman. They will live a married lifestyle. They will have a ceremony. They just won't have like an official marriage certificate. Right. They'll have, they'll be, they'll be married by the church and the church's eyes. Exactly. Right. There are other ways to do this, too. There's that whole cohabitation thing. It's pretty hard to prosecute. And until 1953, polygamous families, groups were raided

by the police routinely in Utah and out west. And then in 1953, this one raid had, there was a backlash against it because the media published pictures of children being sent off to foster homes and wives being left without husbands. And all of a sudden sentiment turned a little bit against raids on polygamous families. So I think the rest of the United States is very confused on how to approach polygamy. Yeah. So okay, Chuck, anything else? I just do have one little funny thing about our trivia night in Atlanta. Oh wait, about polygamy. Oh no, I got nothing else on that. I do have one more thing. Oh you do? There is, there's been established a couple of things about the benefits of monogamy. STDs, however they've developed, deter polygamy. Okay. Right.

And there's actually a genetic evolutionary basis to monogamy. You have more sexual access to one person. Right. So you may be only be able to reproduce nine months at a time. Right. But you can do it many, many times during your reproductive years and the caregiving for those children will probably be of higher quality because you're a cohesive family unit. Okay, so that's my little thing. That's your last bit? Yeah. What do you have about our trivia night? I forgot to mention this, but Matt Frederick of Stuff They Don't Want You to Know fame came by and apparently there was a former NORAD employee named Stanley Fulham who claims that on October 13th, the night of our trivia, in major cities over the United States, massive UFO fleets will be overhead

sending us warnings about global warning. That's awesome. And I said, is this guy a crackpot? I heard, I overheard this conversation. Matt said, well he worked for NORAD, like that means like there's no way he could be a crackpot. Right. Of course he said it with tongue firmly in cheek, but we hope. I think that's just yet another reason. Come out October 13th because we're on the roof of this joint. Yeah. And you'll be able to see some UFOs that are broadcasting messages like a little warming socks or save Newt the polar bear and that kind of stuff. So I just think that's a great reason. Leo was right. So people are out there, they're like, I wouldn't want to come in that trivia, but I would love to come see a UFO overhead. Yeah. That's like,

we just doubled the number of people who are going to be here. I think so. Yeah. Actually, it'll be that girl from say by the bell, the college years. I don't know who that is. She had her big film break in Independence Day. She ran up to the top of the roof in LA and had that sign was cheering. Oh, okay. Independence Day and then pow gone. Maybe she'll be at our trivia event. Let's hope so. All right. If you have anything you want to let us know about, you know what? If you are a member of a polygamist, polyamorous, bigamist or Swinger family, seriously, we're very curious. Is there any way that polygamy can be beneficial to a family unit? If you have personal experience with this kind of thing, send us an email. Seriously,

let us know. You can send it to stuff podcast. Wait a minute, Chuck. We never even said anything about the search bar. We shouldn't even be here right now. You ready? Okay. If you want to know more about polygamy, you can type that word in P O L Y G A M Y, right? Into the swing and search bar. Swing and search bar at howstuffworks.com. Now, if you want to send us that email, you can send it to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. Want more howstuffworks? Check out our blogs on the howstuffworks.com homepage. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?

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