# Is it time to finally recognize polygamist marriages?? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 21, 2015, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080 "2015-09-21T07:32:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/21 "2015-09-21T16:09:29Z")
You just know that polygamists will be the ones screaming loudest that legalized polyandry will destroy the institution of marriage. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/22 "2015-09-21T16:46:57Z")
We’re not ready for polygamy, and I don’t know when, if ever, we will be. There are thousands of questions that need good answers first. If Alice marries Bob, does Bob then need Alice’s consent to also marry Carol? If he does marry Carol, then are Alice and Carol married to each other? If Bob dies, does there remain any relationship between Alice and Carol? Can one member be divorced from another individual member, or only from the entire marriage? Who can initiate divorce proceedings: If three of the five spouses in a marriage want to be rid of another one, but one other spouse wants to keep that one, can they divorce or not? How are medical decisions made: If one member of a threesome falls into a coma, and one spouse wants to withdraw life support and the other wants to maintain it, what happens? This is all just off the top of my head, and I haven’t even studied the current law. There are famously over a thousand different legal implications of marriage, and someone would have to go through every last one of them with a fine-toothed comb to figure out how (if at all) polygamy would break them, and how to fix them. Now, if someone does go through all that, and can convince me that they have done all that, then I would have no problem voting to allow it. But we’re not there yet. In the meanwhile, there’s still the old dodge of one official spouse and however many unofficial lovers. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/23 "2015-09-21T17:14:16Z")
Presumably the millions of polygamous marriages before solved these — rather arcane — questions. Americans really overthink life. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/24 "2015-09-21T17:17:48Z")
You’re kidding, right? I mean, really… would you want your sisters to marry one? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/25 "2015-09-21T17:19:19Z")
No, they didn’t, because the millions of polygamous marriages before were almost all based on a model of wives being property, and so a man could own as much property as he wanted. Wives as property makes everything quite simple, but simple isn’t always good, and we’ve moved well beyond that by now. ---
**Author:** ![Cyros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a698b9/32.png) [@Cyros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyros)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/26 "2015-09-21T17:36:15Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > How are medical decisions made: If one member of a threesome falls into a coma, and one spouse wants to withdraw life support and the other wants to maintain it, what happens? Don’t we already have this conundrum with siblings? If a parent is in a coma and there are 3 siblings who are the only family and one wants to pull the plug but the others don’t what do we currently in that instance? I would think that whatever is currently in place to cover this situation could easily be used to cover the case of multiple spouses. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/27 "2015-09-21T19:00:19Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Gay marriage is now legal. We have gay rights, transgender rights. Can anyone honestly oppose polygamist marriages for consenting adults? > > The recent Utah flooding deaths have brought this issue to the forefront. I see normal people dealing with a tragedy. Why must they be persecuted for their beliefs? Property seized, people jailed. For what? For living a lifestyle many don’t agree with? I agree that polygamy shouldn’t be treated as a criminal act. If people want to informally engage in polygamous relationships, then let 'em do what they want. I doubt you’d get anyone here saying that people _should_ be arrested for engaging in polygamous relationships. The real question, which most people here have focused on, is whether such relationships should be legally recognized as multi-way marriages. I’d be against it: no matter whether we’re rich or poor, we’ve got a decent chance of finding love. If polygamy became sufficiently widespread, that could change. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/28 "2015-09-21T19:37:01Z")
> [@Boogly](#): > > I don’t know why multiple partners are willingly in a relationship shouldn’t be allowed. That being said I’d be more worried about how the divorces, and all related subjects, would be handled by any government. There is plenty of law around this already in countries which allow polygamy. Our tour guide in Egypt got a divorce from a polygamous marriage. Getting the divorce was easy, though it was financially painful - but you can say the same about our divorces. There are some good reasons to be against it, having nothing to do with morality, but how to change the laws isn’t one of them. Even so, I hope that Governor Mike “Religious Freedom” Huckabee is heading for Utah to protect the religious freedom of the polygamists. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/29 "2015-09-21T19:55:41Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > There is plenty of law around this already in countries which allow polygamy. Our tour guide in Egypt got a divorce from a polygamous marriage. Getting the divorce was easy, though it was financially painful - but you can say the same about our divorces. I’d be curious to see how bilaterally / equilaterally structured those laws are. In the US, at least today, most (if not all) laws regarding marriage and divorce treat each entrant into the marriage equally (i.e., neither sex is at an advantage or disadvantage). In countries which have legal polygamy today (which has been noted above, is nearly always “one man / multiple women”), is this the case? (For that matter, is it the case in those countries with a one man / one woman marriage?) ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/30 "2015-09-21T19:56:34Z")
Polygamy is decidedly old, old world, worse than arranged marriages. Evolutionarily speaking it has advantages and is ‘practiced’ by a lot of mammals (including the males fighting each other for the right to mate), but that’s just it. It’s primitive and semi-uncivilized and is something that separates us from animals. No matter how you slice it, even if everyone is happy, polygamy directly implies that women are chattel to a male-dominant society. Even if they have full legal rights and are free to divorce etc. it is still promoting the idea that not only is man superior to woman but that, fundamentally, one man is actually worth _multiple_ women. I don’t see it ever being accepted in the West, only tolerated on a limited basis. Given a choice I would never vote to allow it… ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/31 "2015-09-21T20:16:36Z")
All that should matter is wether the people are of legal age and if they desire to be married. Period. Anyone who is against recognizing such marriages and chastises another person for being anti-SSM is a hypocrite. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/32 "2015-09-21T21:50:46Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > All that should matter is wether the people are of legal age and if they desire to be married. Period. Anyone who is against recognizing such marriages and chastises another person for being anti-SSM is a hypocrite. Wow that’s a ridiculous overstatement. Have you even read any of the various entirely reasonable comments in this thread? Here’s one, at random: > [@Aeschines](#): > > For gay marriage, the legal framework was already in place. Just apply the exact same laws for heterosexual marriage to gay marriage. Nothing had to be changed. For polygamy, the laws simply aren’t in place. There aren’t tax credits set up in federal law for multiple spouses. The laws aren’t in place to handle inheritance in the event of death or child custody in the event of divorce. Thus, if the Supreme Court were to order all US government entities to recognize polygamous marriage, a bunch of law would have to be created de novo, and no one would agree on what is fair, and it would be chaos. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/33 "2015-09-21T22:18:51Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > I come from polygamous Mormon ancestors on my mother’s side, including one g-g-g-greatfather (I hope I got that right) who had 30-odd kids. :dubious: There is a non-zero chance we are related. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/34 "2015-09-21T22:22:26Z")
If it were up to me, polygamous marriages would have to be _unanimous_: all of the current members would have to approve any newcomers. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/35 "2015-09-21T22:33:41Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Wow that’s a ridiculous overstatement. Have you even read any of the various entirely reasonable comments in this thread? > > Here’s one, at random: “It would take effort to get the laws in place” is not a “reasonable” argument against it. It’s a reasonable argument that it might take time to implement, but that’s a different point. Besides, he was just playing devil’s advocate. If you read his entire post, he wants the government out of the marriage business altogether. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/36 "2015-09-21T22:35:31Z")
To be honest, we could shoe-horn polygamists into a lot of the existing laws if we needed to. Some examples: Community property states already use an income tax technique of dividing up all income 50/50 between two separate-filing spouses. So the IRS could insist that a tax return cannot list more than one spouse and be eligible for MFJ filing, with additional spouses filing MFS and using community property allocations rules if required by their state. (Alternatively, it wouldn’t be such a stretch to consider a plural marriage a specialized case of partnership or trust law, with a return filed for the plural marriage that would issued K-1s to the individual members.) Medical decisions already have some issues (a case of siblings, as someone mentioned), Inheritance laws aren’t really so complicated if you just divided assets among multiple spouses instead of having them go to a single one. Things like life insurance and IRA beneficiaries already bypass inheritance laws and go straight to named beneficiaries. A divorce isn’t even all that complicated. A current divorce takes one legal entity (the married couple) and turns it into two legal entities. So what’s the big difference if we take one legal entity (a plural marriage) and turn it into two legal entities (a single person and a remaining plural marriage)? I’m pretty much with John Mace on this. Having allowed SSM by reason of the 14th amendment, I just can’t think of any reason why plural marriage should be prohibited. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/37 "2015-09-21T22:40:19Z")
There’s been some very interesting comments and valid points raised about legal issues. Divorce and child support could be tough to work out. I guess a first step would be to decriminalize polygamy? Just let people live together like they choose without fear of the law. Right now, it seems prosecution is random. They don’t seem to put a lot of effort in finding polygamous couples, but will prosecute cases they hear about. Any family that goes public risks prosecution. (just my observations from reading about polygamy cases in the news) This is basically the path that lead to gay marriage. Homosexuality was decriminalized first. Allowing gay couples to openly live together. Then eventually a movement began to build for gay marriage. It was a long process but it finally got done. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/38 "2015-09-21T22:58:09Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > “It would take effort to get the laws in place” is not a “reasonable” argument against it. First of all, it’s more complicated than that. It’s not just like “well, gosh, we’d have to pay a few law clerks for a year to compile all the laws in one place”, it’s “we’d have to actually sort out what the laws ARE”. And while some questions are probably fairly easily resolvable, others are almost certainly not. And some would have multiple reasonable solutions, some of which would please some people and royally piss of others, and vice versa. All of which means that you can’t reasonably just say “I support governmental recognition of polyamorous marriage” and have it be clear what you mean. Do you mean “I think that is a laudable goal”? Or “I think that is a laudable and achievable goal”? Or “I support a specific set of proposed laws a regulations which would lead us to that laudable goal”? Furthermore, poly relationships, unlike gay relationships, have a long history of association with abuses of various sorts. If everyone knew that a large percentage of the gay marriages that would have occurred would be (for instance) 60-year-old rich men marrying poor and uneducated 18-year-old boys who they intended to keep as virtual sex slaves for 5 years or so before tossing them out, then that might have been an actual meaningful argument against gay marriage. (Persuasive on its own? Probalby not… but meaningful). Note, by the way, that it’s entirely reasonable to believe that self-selected polyamorous relationships between consenting adults should absolutely be decriminalized, because they are within someone’s right as a private citizen to enter into; without thinking that it currently makes logistical sense for them to be recognized as marriages. And in fact, that’s the position I hold. Go ahead, look me in the eye (virtually) and tell me I’m a hypocrite. ---
**Author:** ![Mikeisskeptical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@Mikeisskeptical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikeisskeptical)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/39 "2015-09-21T23:20:22Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I guess a first step would be to decriminalize polygamy? Just let people live together like they choose without fear of the law. Right now, it seems prosecution is random. They don’t seem to put a lot of effort in finding polygamous couples, but will prosecute cases they hear about. Any family that goes public risks prosecution. (just my observations from reading about polygamy cases in the news) I don’t know where you live, but here in the UK you\* are \*allowed to live with/have any relationship you like with as many people as you like. You can have a wedding ceremony, you can refer to each other as husband/wife etc. It’s just that the law doesn’t recognise the marriage. I don’t know if the difference between polygamy and polyamory has been made explicit enough on this thread ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080/40 "2015-09-21T23:40:39Z")
[1853]_Head-shaking_: It’s going to be mighty difficult to get rid of slavery: don’t get me wrong, it’s probably a laudable enough aim; but the paperwork ! All the compensation that will have to be worked out… And not for free, I might add: the lawyers will make a killing, have you ever worked out what they charge an hour, $5 ! And there’s lots of them going to be latching on to this racket… Plus the pesky regulators, and inspectors, and politicians with a hand out, they’re all going to want a cut. And changing the laws ! That’s far too difficult. You can’t just change laws. Now, what are you going to do with the slaves ? Can’t just cut them loose, that would be cruel. They depend on their owners far too much to be ever separated, work gives them dignity. Are _you_ willing to pay for their upkeep forever ? How will their legal statuses ever be determined ? Who will make good to the owners if an ex-slave injures property before leaving ? The ex-slave can’t pay, no-one can pay, the owner is left high and dry with a ruinous loss. I admire to say the notion is a generous one, but utterly impracticable, only indulged in by fond dreamers with no experience of the real world: basically, it can’t happen because it’s all far too difficult. You’re not doing the slaves any favors either. They much prefer things the way they are. Maybe in a better world… "Hip, Quashee ! Run along with those messages to the big house or you’ll sleep in the stockade tonight ![/1853] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-to-finally-recognize-polygamist-marriages/732080.md?page=3)