I’ve already mentioned in a previous post that in South Africa, polygamous marriage is recognised - but only for a black south Africans who conclude a polygamous marriage in accordance with customary law. This excludes the other population groups, as well as anyone who wishes to have a civil marriage.
Yet there is absolutely no push for any strain of polygamous marriage to be extended to other races - and amongst black South Africans support is declining.
I doubt there is much support for polygamous marriages in the USA or UK as well.
There once wasn’t much support for gay marriage, even among gays, in part because it never occurred to many gay people that marriage was even something that was an option. Right now, there are swingers, three-way relationships, open marriages, and bisexuals who do have more than one relationship going(or date a couple). Especially in the latter case of bisexuals who have long term sexual relationships with a couple, it probably just never occurs to anyone that their relationship could become something more.
Our tour guide in Egypt’s husband married another wife. And then ignored her. She was able to get out of the marriage easily, but it was expensive. Well worth it, she said. She definitely had some rights, but there was an imbalance of power there.
Are you honestly wondering why LGBTI activists didn’t fight for SSM during times when homosexuality was considered a mental disorder and/or subject to prison terms?
Polygamy has been around for millenia and is still practiced (and recognised) in many countries. The idea that it didn’t occur to any significant number “swingers, three way relationships et al” that their situation could be a marriage at some point is ludicrous.
Well sure, I suppose they could move to Saudi Arabia… But here in the US, no one involved in a three person or more relationship can even contemplate marriage. It’s not even on the horizon or being seriously debated yet. And in many places the authorities will still jail you if you’re living as if it’s a marriage.
No, they don’t. The arguments for gay marriage were based on the fact that legal marriage already existed but was being denied to some couples for no good reason.
If someone wants to set up a “nontraditional consensual arrangement”, i.e. identical twin brothers and identical twin sisters form a randomized foursome in which heterosexual couplings are a matter of convenience, (i.e. is that Jim or Bob? Who cares, have sex with him. Is that Sue or Mary? Who cares, have sex with her.), fine. They won’t get spousal benefits, though, like joint tax returns or privileged communications or any of the other matters that are associated with legal marriage.
The argument isn’t “make gay marriage legal because the state has no right telling citizens who they can have sex with”, the argument was “don’t keep a gender-based restriction on legal marriage because it is unfair for no good reason.”
This is reflected in the absolute lack - to the best of my knowledge - of any serious organised movement, NPO or other activist organisation operating in the USA campaigning for widespread adoption and /or recognition of any flavour of polygamous marriage. (If there is, I’d appreciate a cite.)
Highlighting mine. This phrasing has usually meant a man and woman living together and doing what men and women living together usually do. If this is your claim with regard to the US I call BS and require a cite.
Well, if they ultimately want to challenge incest-based barriers to legal marriage, they can fight their way through the courts the way SSM proponents did and maybe those barriers can be struck down.
The leap from there to polygamy (let alone SSM to polygamy) is not established, though.
As I understand it, the courts can mandate restraining orders to keep adults apart if it is likely their meeting will involve criminal activity.
I suspect the likelihood of engaging in incestuous sex was more of a factor, because in that specific circumstance, the state can actually exert some control. If someone wants to argue the state should not be able to do so, good luck to them but they will have to go through the long slow judicial process.
In some circumstances, even a single, traditional male-female marriage can have significant legal complications.
One reason for the Catholic Church requiring unmarried priests for the second half of its’ history was the rach of legal inheritance problems caused by the death of married priests. Was that gold chalice given to the late Father John personally (thus his property, and inherited by his widow) or to him as Pastor of St. Lukes Church (thus being & remaining property of the church)? And what rights does the widow have to continue living in the parsonage? It will be needed for the new priest, but throwing out the widow & kids hardly seems christian.
So, what happens when GM and IBM and General Electric merge and a few years later, GM wants to kick GE out of the conglomerate, and IBM and GE want the mega-corporation to continue as before?
Marriage is not all about children. It never was, it never will be, not as long as our notion of marriage survives. But marriage often involves children, and a marriage which involves children is those children’s whole lives. That’s why it can’t be handled like business law in the general case: Some marriages can and should be, but others require vastly different laws and procedures to ensure the children are damaged as little as possible.
This is another huge difference between dyadic marriage (that is, marriage strictly between two people at a time) and plural marriage, and it isn’t one we can hand-wave away with either general platitudes or claims that the individual courts will sort it all out. There is no precedent for what to do in these cases which is consistent with every adult in the marriage being a full adult with the full rights of an adult, and that lack manifests itself in a complete uncertainty in how custody disputes would be handled.
Nevertheless, the conservatives who were screaming “THINK OF THE CHILDREN” the last time same-sex marriage was up for debate are now just blissfully certain that there’s no problem with plural marriage other than liberal pigheadedness.
Because the child(ren) would be part of a FAMILY that would be getting dissolved, and would still have an interest in maintaining a relationship with co-parent(s) and possibly with half-siblings.