That’s Ann Althouse’s reaction to this story about West African polygamy in New York, and the New York City authorities ”Don’t-ask-don’t-know policies “ on the issue. They’re too multicultural to care, and New York is a sanctuary city, anyway.

Althouse adds that “Either there is equal justice under the law or there is not.” But of course none of this would be happening in New York but for the Immigration Act of 1965.

Other women spoke bitterly of polygamy. They said their participation was dictated by an African culture of female subjugation and linked polygamy to female genital cutting and domestic violence. That view is echoed by most research on plural marriages, including studies of West African immigrants in France, where the government estimates that 120,000 people live in 20,000 polygamous families.

“The woman is in effect the slave of the man,” said a stylish Guinean businesswoman in her 40s who, like many women interviewed in Harlem and the Bronx, spoke on the condition of anonymity. “If you protest, your husband will hit you, and if you call the police, he’s going to divorce you, and the whole community will scorn you.”

“Even me,” she added. “My husband went to find another wife in Africa, and he has the right to do that. They tell you nothing, until one afternoon he says, ‘O.K., your co-wife arrives this evening.’[In Secret, Polygamy Follows Africans to N.Y. , By Nina Bernstein, March 23, 2007]