The Polygamy Question: Missions, Marriage, and Assimilation

Abstract

Polygamy was a vexed question for missionaries in the Northern Territory ofAustralia. In the mid twentieth century, Christian missions of various denomina-tions worked with the Australian Commonwealth Government to achieve a policyof assimilating Aboriginal people into white Australian culture. Yet there was littleconsensus as to how this assimilation policy could or should be applied to Aborigi-nal marriages. This article demonstrates that the issue of polygamy exposed divi-sions between church and state as well as among Christian denominations overtheir understandings of marriage. These differences stemmed from differing spiri-tual visions of assimilation in Australia. The conflicts over marriage in the North-ern Territory, therefore, reveal that assimilation, and settler-colonialism morebroadly, operated on a religious plane as Aboriginal people, missionaries, andbureaucrats engaged in a spiritual contest over what represented a legitimate andacceptable marriage in that land.