The latest season of Seeking Sister Wife has given viewers plenty to discuss and debate.
Should Dimtri Snowden and Ashley Snowden be arrested for alleged incidents of assault and abuse?
Should TLC pull the plug on this dangerous and wildly unhealthy reality show?
And will Garrick Merrifield really make a baby with his fiancee, Roberta?
Merrifield has been making a number of headlines of late for his role on Season 3 of this controversial program, which focuses on a man and a woman and their hunt for (at least) one additional partner with whom to share their lives.
It’s a weird concept.
It’s one typically rooted Fundamentalist Mormon, although the Snowdens have said they do NOT practice plural marriage for any religious reasons.
Instead, hilariously, Dimitri claims he brings in multiple women to sleep with because he’s really a feminist at heart.
What about Merrifield, though?
The Merrifields are active plural marriage participants, they’ve said in the past, due to their own interpretation of the Christian Bible.
“We decided two years ago that God wanted us to live a plural lifestyle,” Garrick explained on the third season premiere.
“We don’t come from a polygmous background, but we believe in the bible, and people in there had multiple wives.
"And I thought ‘Gee, the people in there are godly people and God loved them, so I then realized God wasn’t against that.”
This is not the typical interpretation of Christianity, of course.
But to each his or her own, we suppose.
“The way I see it is, living a plural lifestyle is a great way to follow Christ and to be like him, and we felt that we were called to life this way,” Garrick added on this same episode.
For her part, Dannielle Merrifield said she was stunned when Garrick first broached the idea of bringing in another lover because she didn’t want that kind of lifestyle. She didn’t wanna share her man.
Not many women would, you know?
However, Dannielle prayed about it… and then “realized bringing a sister wife into mine and Garrick’s relationship means my children gain another mother figure, and I think we all gain a little more love in our lives as well."
From there, Garrick convinced Dannielle to actually get divorced so he could recruit a woman named Roberta to be his wife.
She hails from the Brazil and would only be legally permitted to live here as a resident if she married an American citizen.
When asked by a producer at one point this season if he was concerned that Dannielle doesn’t truly want to live in a polygamous family, Garrick replied that he was unbothered.
"No, I don’t have concerns that Dannielle thinks that she’s being forced or some way to live this way," he said.
"I think without a doubt she’s totally convinced that God led this to her in her life, to bless her and that she’s not just, you know, doing it ’cause it’s what I wanted.”
In another example of Garrick being a self-centered moron, he admitted that Dannielle can sometiimes be jealous of Roberta — but this God’s fault and God’s fault only.
“Dannielle is really emotional, and we’re running around in circles because God hasn’t delivered her from jealousy,” he said on air.
“I’m praying and trusting that soon He’ll take that away, she’ll see clearly on this whole matter, and we’ll be able to work through this because we decided together to live this way.
"And so we’ve got other people involved and we can’t just say we’re not going to do this anymore.”