New campaign to legalise polygamy.
If polygamy is legalized wouldn’t children of polygamous unions be less at risk as they would not be forced to live in cloistered compounds where they are subject to abuse and have no contact with the outside world?
It always was.
But practically speaking? No, let’s worry about getting same-sex marriage in and then worry about polygamy. Adding on polygamy would just set things back, unfortunately.
Let me see if I follow the logic here: Jesus was married to multiple women. How do we know this? Because he expected us to follow him in all things, including marriage, and since we, according to our religious beliefs, are polygamous, it follows that Jesus must have been polygamous to set an example for us. Why do our religious beliefs call for polygamy? Why, because Jesus was polygamous, of course!
Bill Gates can afford 15 wives, the average schmoe down in Utah with multiple wives and kids all on welfare while his lazy ass is unemployed on the other hand…not so much.
that and its always guys with multiple wives, have you ever even heard of a woman with multiple husbands?
No, since isolating them for the purposes of control and abuse is much of the point.
Yes, it’s an occasional practice in Tibet. As I recall, it’s for economic reasons; few if any people like it.
Right, and you run into things like this…
In June 2005, Jeffs was charged with sexual assault on a minor and with conspiracy to commit sexual misconduct with a minor for allegedly arranging, in 2002, a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old first cousin. The girl, known as “Jane Doe IV” testified that she begged “Uncle Rulon” to let her wait until she was older, or choose another man for her. Rulon Jeffs was apparently “sympathetic”, but Warren Jeffs was not, and she was forced to go through with the marriage.
The girl’s not old enough to live on her own, emancipate herself, etc. but her father can force her to marry another man. Too lazy to look it up, but wasn’t the idea, ‘I’ll force my daughters to marry you and you can force your daughters to marry me’?
In every society that permits polygamy, it’s mostly men who marry multiple wives, and few or no women marry multiple husbands. This has consequences.
In a normal society that pairs up men and women one-to-one in marriage, two important things happen, because humanity has roughly equal numbers of the sexes. First, almost everyone who wishes to marry can do so. Second, because there’s a competitive marriage market, women can demand a certain amount of rights and respect from men who are competing for them.
Once polygamy is legal and socially normal, those things break down. As powerful men snatch up many young women, there’s a shortage of women available for marriage. Hence large numbers of men are unable to marry at all. This creates an underclass of men more prone to poverty and violence.
Second, it becomes expected that young women should be given over the older men. The result is a family structure where the man has much more power, and the women have fewer rights. This arrangement spreads from the family to society at large, and women are demoted to a lower status.
This is not mere speculation, but proven facts about what has happened in societies that did permit polygamy. As anthropologist Peter Wood said.
Legalizing polygamy might provide some small benefits in line with what Astro suggested, but the overall costs to society would be much worse than those small benefits.
Before I make my comments, let me make perfectly clear that I have no problem with gay marriages, and that what I’m about to say is aimed at some of its proponents, not gay marriage itself.
I find it this thread very amusing, because of past discussions about gay marriage.
Gay marriage proponents: Gays deserve the right to get married.
Gay marriage opponents: But if you give them the right, where will it end? Next thing you know, you’ll be wanting people to have the right to marry animals, or have multiple spouses.
Gay marriage proponents: You’re an idiot. We’re not advocating any of those things. Don’t be ridiculous.
And now we have this thread.
You’re looking at societies that existed decades or even centuries ago and applying that standard of polygamy to the present day.
While I wouldn’t say I’m in favor of legalizing multiple marriage, there’s no proof that’s how it would go in 2009. And Mormon splinter sects are too small of a sample size (and more or less run by tiny dictators) to give an accurate impression of how modern society would react. If anything, it’ll just make golddiggers of both sexes easier to spot because multiple marriage in the traditional sense would only work with the rich.
Group marriage would be a whole different kettle of fish.
There’s no requirement for this. In every society until modern day, women were property. In modern day, a woman could just as easily have two husbands as a man could have two wives. I’ll admit that it’s probably not as likely, but the key point is that the setup of modern day society is completely different from the days of yore.
And more importantly, so what if crime rises and everything? I’d bet you anything that removing the jury system would cut crime by significant amounts, and yet we’re unlikely to get rid of it anytime soon. Where there isn’t going to be large effects, you’ve not got a strong argument for imposing any particular morality on other people who don’t share that morality. I would be supremely doubtful that allowing polygamy would increase crime rates by any significant amount any time in the next several centuries, and probably not even then. Oftentimes, the philosophy of an issue is more important, where the statistics aren’t impressive or the philosophy is just that important.
Re my OP I’ve seen this “gay leads to polygamy” notion expressed before, but never bothered to ask what the logical linkage was supposed to be between the two. Can you detail how one leads to the other for me?
Would legalizing polygamy make any practical difference ? As far as I know if I can convince the chorus line from th Moulin Rouge to move in with me and have my babies there’s no risk of prosecution as long as we don’t try to legally marry. I guess there are potential property rights and inheritance issues, but we could probably work those out by signing contracts with each other. If I was feeling particularly generous, I could even have a couple of their boyfriends and husbands move in with us, and start a circus.
Does anyone ever get prosecuted for this kind of thing ?
The only major obstacle I can see with this plan is the transfer of nationality / right of residence. I have long assumed that this is the real sticking point with gay marriage as well.
I’m not saying that gay marriage leads to polygamy. My point is, the general consensus seemed to be that while legalizing gay marriages would be a good thing, other forms of non-traditional marriage would be a bad thing, at least would cause monetary and legal complications. Now in this thread, so far, most of the posters are saying that polygamy might be something worth exploring.
In other words, I’m sensing mixed signals here.
I agree. Polygamy is cruel to men and women both. As a guy, it seem kinda hot to have multiple women but a few minutes of sober thought makes one realize it’s a bad idea.
And I would speculate that things would be a lot more out-of-control in places like Colorado City if they weren’t surrounded by a relatively stable, monogamous society onto which they can expel surplus men and which also can see to their welfare.
“Most of the posters”? I think you need to re-review your count of the serious responses which appear to range from ambivalent to hostile. I’m not getting any love for the concept.
No real reason to legalize it. I’ve heard many people, mostly single like me, say that a monogamous relationship is too much to ask from most people. I don’t think I agree with that, but I have friends that are married and wife/husband swap. They tell me, “It’s just sex.” If that’s all it is, then there’s no alimony, ugly divorces, etc.
I’m personally unconvinced the motive is to protect marriage so much as it is to reiterate that gays are icky.
Currently, marriage is only accepted between two persons of opposite gender. You claim that you can’t have an happy life with this arrangement because you love a person of the same gender so the “opposite gender” part has to be changed. I claim I can’t have an happy life with this arrangement because I love more than one person so the “two persons” part has to be changed.
If a third party agrees with the idea that maybe the traditional definition of marriage could be changed for your and your partner benefit, won’t he have a hard time defending the idea that on the other hand, it shouldn’t be changed for my and my partners benefit?
Either you stick with “It has always be done this way, so we’ll stick to it, and besides this stuff is immoral” or you have to give an equal consideration to all changes that are asked for, not only the ones you happen to personally like because otherwise you’d be no better than people who oppose gay marriage. It’s not consistent at all. So, you’d have to come up with actual, sound, reasons for denying marriage to polyamorous people.
“We don’t do that in our society”, which had been sufficient for a long time, doesn’t cut it any more once people have agreed we’re not obligated to stick to the tradition, and even that we might be morally obligated not to stick to it. So, yes, allowing gay marriage most certainly opens the door for polygamy.
You don’t want to deny me the right to marry the personS I love, right? You don’t want to be one of those people?
To Answer the OP
I do not believe that legalizing polygamy would help those people. It seems to me that cults like that are about control, and in cases like this, specifically control of men over women. So even if it was legal for a man to marry more than one woman, in communities like the Mormon splinter groups, women would still be subject to abuse and forced to live in cloistered compounds, because legalizing polygamy would not address the heart of the matter for those kinds of people. Mainly, that the men can do whatever they want, and the women should be submissive, barefoot, and pregnant.
If a man wishes to live with two or more women or, less likely, a woman wishes to live with two or more men, if all involved are consenting adults and there’s no reason to suspect coercion or that any children borne of the union are being mistreated, then I see no reason to prosecute them. However, I don’t believe that more than one spouse should have spousal rights as afforded by law (the legal next of kin status that is essentially what advocates of gay marriage are seeking) as this would cause way too many problems.
Using the Henrickson family of BIG LOVE as example- for those who don’t watch the show Bill Henrickson has three wives:
Barb- senior wife (the only legal one) with whom he has three children, married about 20 years
Nikki- the second wife, married about 10 years, 2 children
Margene- the third wife, married about 5 years, 3 children
Suppose Bill dies intestate. Should the estate be split 3 ways, equal amounts to each wife? This does not seem fair to Barb who was married to him longest and contributed more, nor does it seem fair to Margene who has 3 young children to support (Barb’s two oldest are almost grown).
or
— Bill receives major head injuries in a car accident and needs a high-risk major operation for which next-of-kin consent is needed. Barb says “do it”, Nikki says “don’t”, Margene says “I’ll go with what Barb and Nikki decide”. Who do you go with?
—Bill goes to work for a major company (on the show he’s self employed but this is “for instance”). Is it fair for the company to have to provide full medical to three wives and 8 children? (True, it’s the same number as if a monogamist had 10 children, but a monogamist isn’t likely to have 10 more kids in the next few years or have 3 women needing annual mammograms and other gynecological procedures.)
—Bill finally has it up to his eyeballs with Nikki and has Tony Soprano clip her. Margene sees the whole thing. Does Margene have to testify?
The biggest difference (of many) between gay marriage and polygamy is that gay marriage really doesn’t require rule rewrites. In the cases above, suppose that Bill’s gay cousin Will
—dies intestate; the estate goes undivided to his husband/partner/whatever you want to call it
—requires a high risk operation; the partner makes the decision
—goes to work for a major company; the company subsidizes insurance on the partner and any kids of the union
—goes on trial; his partner can claim exemption from testimony or, if he particularly chooses, may testify, same as a regular spouse
Polygamy however requires major re-writing of rights.