You’re forgetting Othello. Not to mention Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (not married, true, but just as good.) The ban on interracial marriage wasn’t all that old.
I’m a bit surprised that Republicans aren’t for polygamy. They seem fine with the 1% getting most of the money and property, why not more than their share of the spouses? If raising a CEO salary from $20 million to $30 million is essential to keep them from slacking off, think how much more they’d work if their reward was multiple wives. (Or husbands.) Think of the benefits for the family - even if women insisted on working, there would be at least one wife probably would stay home. And if two parents are better than one, three must be better than two.
Not to mention it is Biblical, just like the ban on gayness.
Mr. Huckabee?
I would just like to point out that the slippery slope argument is valid after all.
10-20 years ago, before we had same-sex marriage, liberals like the SDMB readership would advocate for it, and conservatives would say (among other things) “but that will lead to legal recognition of polygamy.”
The liberals’ response to this was unanimously “that’s absurd! You’re grasping at straws! That’s the slippery slope argument, and it’s a total fallacy! Polygamy will never happen. It’s a terrible idea for any number of reasons. Polygamy and same-sex marriage have nothing to do with each other, and I’d be totally against polygamy. Hey, everybody, get a load of this moron over here who thinks recognition of same-sex marriage will lead to recognition of polygamy. What a hoot!”
Now that we have same-sex marriage, several people in this thread have said “well, since we have same-sex marriage, seems like we ought to recognize polygamy. Consenting adults and all that.”
The slippery slope in action!
This just seems like grasping at straws to me.
It’s like how there is a large number of people who think that drug laws in America should be changed, and that marijuana should be legalized or at least decriminalized, because the drug laws and the War on Drugs have caused a lot of harm. And then there is a much smaller number of people who think that all drugs should be allowed, and that there should be absolutely no drug laws because of whatever libertarian reasons, or because they just want drugs to be available. Other people will then point the second group and cry “slippery slope!” and say how it’s a reason that the drug laws shouldn’t change at all and marijuana should stay illegal.
Slippery slope is a fallacy. If marijuana is made legal, it’s not inevitable that all other drugs will be. Now that same-sex marriage is legal, it’s not inevitable that polygamous marriage will be. It might become legal, after a polygamous couple sues and the case goes to the Supreme Court, and things are argued and laid out. But it’s not because same-sex marriage kicked a snowball down a hill and it’s rolling and can’t be stopped. You can’t use this to justify slippery slope arguments in the future.
No kidding. Why, mere months after the supreme court decision legalizing gay marriage, polygamous marriage was also legalized! No, wait, that’s wrong… polygamous marriage wasn’t legalized, but there WERE people on a very very left-leaning board arguing that it should be legalized, and other people disagreed with them. So it’s pretty much the same thing.
How does that have anything to do with bisexuals? Monogamous marriage means that everyone has to pick one and stick with him or her.
Bisexuals are attracted to both men and women, but that doesn’t mean that they need to have a partner of each sex. For comparison, I’m attracted to blondes, brunettes, and redheads, and nobody’s saying that I need to have three wives because of that. Eventually, I’ll find the right woman, and her hair will be what color pleases God, and I’ll stick with her.
But in the example you give, ONE parent or set of parents had custody. Is momma’s fifth husband a legal guardian too? Does daddy’s new wife have the legal authority to make binding medical decisions, even if momma’s fourth husband disagrees?
Sure it is. Right now, SocSec has a “family maximum” that can be paid out for dependents and survivors benefits, which gets split among those entitled. If there are seven spouses and 42 kids splitting that one benefit, the amount being paid per individual is so low as to be almost meaningless, which defeats the entire purpose of the benefits in the first place. There’s no point in paying out money that doesn’t serve the purpose, but conversely, part of the SocSec taxes go to pay for these benefits; the worker earned them. How do you make sure the last-born child in a multi-marriage receives adequate benefits?
A contract between you and all of your spouses doesn’t bind the hospital. A big part of the push for SSM was the ability to have other people outside the marriage recognize your status.
Well, presumably it could. If Joe and Mary and Jane all want to get married, and currently Joe and Mary are legal spouses, there’s no reason that it shouldn’t be easy, cheap, and uncontestable to set things up so that Joe and Mary both have power-of-attorney and hospital-visitation-rights and so forth if Jane falls ill. What is certainly terrible in that situation would be for Jane to be sick and her parents, who disapprove of her lifestyle, being legally allowed to bar her “spouses” from visiting her and make decisions for her. There’s no reason that issue at least, can’t be solved.
(Cue someone saying “wah wah wah, that was one of the horror stories put forth when arguing in favor of gay marriage… if you’re OK with just a bandaid on that, but you weren’t ok with just that bandaid when arguing for gay marriage, then you’re a hypocrite”.)
Pluralistic marriages will/should do the exact same thing you and your wife did – walk in and say give me a marriage license. No more and no less. Everything else you imagine in your mind will be dealt with the same way they were (or would be) for the two of you; a combination of give and take and/or compromise. Should the relationship fail, there will be a divorce just like you would have and hopefully with at least that level of justice. The divorce may - and its a big “may” - be slightly more complicated than yours but somehow I doubt it. Even with just two people non-amicable divorces can get pretty long, complicated and messy.
Easiest one yet. 
Ahhh, but you forget the “proof” SSM had to overcome. Remember back in the 70s and earlier? Not only was there “proof” that gay relationships were all about brutality, pedophilia and other aberrant behavior but police were actually taught to mark out any gay couples living together for when domestics occurred. Since gay couples are going to more likely be of equal size and strength, they are going to be more violent and bloody and the cop on the street better be ready for it. It was such a common “fact” that it was used on a couple of the old TV shows - Dragnet or Adam-12? Can’t remember where all it popped up
Pretty much the same thing for your “harm/no harm” argument.
Of course what we had back then was junk science at best and bullshit at the worst but everyone “knew” it. Just as you think you know something about pluralism based on what? Some religious fanatics? Lets be honest; it speaks louder against the religion than it does pluralism. Give it some time and try to keep an open mind. As more people join in the fight, you may just meet a few to change your opinion.
I will start this with an apology because I don’t mean any of it as harsh as it reads but ---- how can you say LGBT community and call pluralism a non-issue? OK, not everyone interested is going to be bisexual (some of the people I know are Same Sex but interested in having more than one spouse as well as the wide range of heterosexual mixes) but to call this a non-issue is almost insulting. And too close to the language used against SSM when that debate and movement started.
Do we, society as a whole, have battles to fight? Plenty! But this should indeed be one of them or we should simply admit we were self-interested from the beginning and go home. Equal rights for folks who resemble me; at least in being in “pairs”? Sure. Equality for all? Forget about it, it isn’t worth the fight. Sorry - I understand people who feel that way and I have nothing against them. But from the beginning I just knew I couldn’t be one of them. I fought for SSM even though I didn’t have any vested interest in it and I’ll fight for pluralism with the same dedication. Do I think I’ll live to see it happen? I didn’t expect to see SSM happen in my lifetime. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be surprised again.
This has to be a joke, right? Such a profound misunderstanding of basic concepts isn’t likely, so I’m guessing you’re just trying to joke.
I don’t know about how it works in your state, but in mine, there is no law that compels an institution to recognize a power-of-attorney. They may or may not, and if they won’t, you have to go to court to confirm that you do indeed have the power to act. That is laborious, expensive, and time-consuming, and it isn’t going to do much good to get a court order in a couple of weeks or months if Jane is sick tonight.
Even in states that do have laws compelling recognition (such as New York), there are exceptions. For example, “actual knowledge of a report having been made to Adult Protective Services regarding abuse by the agent” is reasonable cause to refuse a financial power-of-attorney; Jane’s parents file an APS report claiming Joe & Mary have been taking advantage of her, and Joe & Mary are SOL until the government investigation is completed. An iron-clad agreement between Jane, Joe, and Mary is worthless if third parties choose not to recognize it.
So two people get married. Then a third person gets married to them. One of them now gets sick. Which of the other two has ultimate decision-making responsibility for end-of-life decisions? Are their opinions of equal weight? Does it matter which two of them were originally married?
Again, my point is not “oh, wow, these problems are unresolvable”. It’s that the questions exist and would need to be answered at some point.
Suppose the supreme court decides tomorrow “ok, it’s unconstitutional to deny poly people the right to marry as many people as they like”. So… what happens next? When gay marriage was legalized everyone understood exactly what would happen, because the laws and procedures and legal frameworks basically remained unchanged. Your repeated insistence that no such change would be required for a transition to plural marriage is, frankly, baffling.
I never personally read that here. What all I remember reading, as a very staunch supporter of SSM, was that most saw it complete an no big deal. What if polyamory was next? The US could take it on and deal with just like every other issue resolved so far.
Paragraph One is easy: you assume that the standard now is that in the absence of documentation my wife automatically has the right to make end-of-life decisions for me. If you look at the record you will see that that varies from state to state - and while I may be mistaken in this, sometimes even within a state. Sometimes when that time comes, lots of people get to weigh in. And how many cases now hit the courts where a spouse has one idea and parents a different idea? Or the doctors one thought and the spouse another? Trust me - end-of-life is an important debate to me as well - it isn’t always the spouse who wins. So add as many spouses as you would like to imagine, your argument has no weight as a reason to deny basic legal recognition to pluralistic relationships.
Paragraph Two - not much there, really. I can answer every question you raise but I doubt your mind will change any time soon. It’s just too much like the same old excuse I heard growing up. “I’m not against the idea of same sex marriage but I see problems I must have answered first”. It is in part human nature to be afraid of things new or foreign to us especially when they don’t personally effect us. I don’t hold that against you and I will admit that those of us for pluralism have something we need to prove, or at least educate you on, before you can find a comfort level with the idea. That’s why I keep answering your concerns; there may be hope for you yet. And if not you, at least for others.
Paragraph Three - “When gay marriage was legalized everyone understood exactly what would happen”. In what sense? And just who do you mean by “everyone”? I can name you a lot of “everyones” who thought gays and lesbians would be rushing the courthouses by the hundreds of thousands to take advantage of this fantastic change in the law. That it was the end of the American family; whatever that was. That the floodgates were open and we would all drown in same-sex marriages. Didn’t happen that way, did it? A minority of a minority got something they should have had all along - recognition that love and marriage, lifelong commitment (at least in theory - same as it is for us heterosexuals), isn’t something limited to heterosexuals.
But then again, going by your posts, its this same legalistic nightmare that was often trotted out in opposition to SSM in the old days. Remember how the entire Family Law statutes would have to be rewritten if we ever had gay marriage? And like you I find myself baffled. It didn’t happen then so why should it happen in the future? What will need changed other than a some minds?
Allow me to make a prediction: I don’t know when exactly but sometime in the next fifteen years some company is going to recognize pluralistic relationships in terms of benefits and all that various stuff. Then one or two states will do the same and start offering PM the way they always offered heterosexual marriage and now SSM. (Lord, if you are listening – please let it be Hawaii and NOT Utah) The order may be reversed but I’m betting on it being this way.
The old mantra of doom and gloom will rear its ugly head again and be shown just as wrong as it was before. Some time after that (Lord? Me again. Please don’t let it take as long this time. Please?) the Supremes will weigh in in favor. As you would put it, the laws and procedures and legal frameworks will basically remain unchanged. That won’t end the argument or opposition any more than their decision did for SSM. Some pluralists will want to be married, some will want to just remain as committed families; just like unmarried hetero and same sex couples. And whoever passes for the Dopers of the future will be asking “how was anyone ever against this”.
Figure out a way to do the paperwork and I’ll put some money on it. My ancestors and yours can meet up somewhere and settle it up. 
I ran across the idea of contract marriages in a Heinlein book when I was just a kid. It was an odd idea then, but started to make more and more sense as I got older, particularly after taking some anthropology courses which introduced just how many different forms families take. The modern nuclear family is an aberration in history.
(FTR: I’m a male married to a female, living in an industrial society, have two biologically-related children, and have never been divorced. IOW, I’m in a fairly stable traditional marriage, with no personally negative experiences to color my outlook.)
Just looking at marriage as practiced in North America, marriage comes with a whole lot of benefits that are just assumed with traditional marriage, but require special negotiation and legal paperwork for many other relationships. For instance, the right to visit your spouse when he or she is in the hospital cannot be interfered with by blood relatives, but only if you’re married, not in a civil union. You cannot be legally compelled to testify against a spouse. Inheritance and custody usually devolves automatically to spouses, and there are fewer grounds for contestation by outside parties.
The reason gays weren’t willing to settle for civil unions was because of these unofficial-official benefits that have been attached to marriage. The problem is that many of these benefits are unspecified, vary from territory to territory, and renegotiation of the relationship status involves messiness after the fact. Prenuptial agreements became popular again (the history of prenups goes back to just about the earliest writing we have) because it’s usually beneficial to negotiate when both parties are friendly and willing to reach a mutually beneficial agreement, than when both parties are angry and willing to hurt each other.
Most, if not all of the problems people use to argue against non-traditional marriages go away if you treat marriage as entering into a contract, with explicit requirements, provisions for breach, terms of duration, and conditions for renegotiation. Divorces can get complicated precisely because many decisions are not negotiated in advance; in effect, every contested divorce is a post-facto negotiation, with added bitterness.
I think a huge amount of messiness in divorce would disappear if up-front negotiations were required and people had to <gasp> actually talk to each other about what they wanted to do about issue A or B, and what would happen if bad thing X, Y, or Z happened. The divorce rate might actually go down because people might discover that their “soul mate” actually held views that were incompatible with their own before they get married. Hell, I’ve met some married couples who never even discussed kids until years after they got married, and then had disputes about what religion to bring the kid up in, or how they were going to handle employment and child care.
If you treat marriage as a contract, there’s no particular reason for polygamy to need complicated special arrangements. All of the same things need to be negotiated, there are just more legal parties involved. Polygamy is still ethnographically more widespread than monogamy. There are some benefits to group marriage that are basically the same as living with an extended family (i.e.: grandparents or uncles, aunts in the same household): shared child care, resource pooling, division of labor, greater support network.
I’d argue that actually serial monogamy, made possible by the widespread social acceptability of divorce, is the worst system possible. For men, if you get divorced, you still have legal and societal obligations to support your former wife and your children, but lose sexual access to her — and in many cases you are estranged from your children as well. Most women, despite the legally required financial support from their former spouse, usually have lower household income after they get divorced, with all of the associated difficulties, and they usually have custody of the children as well so must deal with child care on their own. Both men and women after divorce have the additional burdens of setting up separate households. If you get remarried, time and finances are split unevenly between current and former households, and children end up with all of the problems possible with a large mixed family, without having any of the benefits of a shared household.
Ooooops – did I mention that I was up much past my usual bedtime typing all this? My bad. :o
FWIW, I’m a family lawyer in a country (South Africa) that permits a limited form of polygamy.
The Recognition of Customary Marriages Act permits polygamous marriages for marriages entered into accordance with customary law. The default matrimonial property system for all marriages, including SSM, is in community of property (joint or shared estate). Prospective spouses about to enter a marriage may have an ante-nuptial contract concluded providing for each to retain their separate estates. The contract is signed before a notary. For polygamous marriages, further marriages are marriages out of community of property and the contract regulating the property rights has to be approved by a magistrate. (a magistrate is the presiding officer in the lower courts).
While they may be valid concerns about protection of property rights, patriarchal culture and gender equality, the issue of of polygamous marriages is not so horrendously complex as to be a valid argument against its incorporation in the legal framework. (I can only assume that those who argue that it would be “too complex” have never sat down with their nation’s income tax laws!) I find such arguments to be facetious, even if extended to also allow women to enter into multiple marriages.
Of greater relevance, and purely IMHO and IME, is that there simply isn’t that great a demand for polygamous marriages. There are no voices (none significant or serious at any rate) arguing for an extension to polygamous marriages to “regular” civil marriages and I’m not aware (I stand to be corrected) of any movement for recognition of polygamous marriages comparable in size to movements pushing for gay or trans rights in any Western nation.
Also, IME purely, polygamous marriages are increasingly associated with old, poorly educated men in rural areas. Young urban black professionals are much much less likely to be involved with polygamous marriages. With increased urbanisation and development, there’s likely to be a decrease in polygamous marriages.
Legalisation (or for me, the extension) of polygamous marriages may make for an interesting online discussion, but as far as I can tell, there really isn’t that much demand for it.
I think you’re continually misinterpreting what I’m saying. I’m not saying “oh, woe is me, this end-of-life-decisions issue is SO intractable, it’s way too hard, we’d better not allow this”. I’m saying that plural marriage can’t be made legal just by flicking a switch the way gay marriage can (and is). Here’s another one, the tax code. There’s a thing where a married couple can file together. Does that extend to any number of people in a group marriage? Another one, immigration. Currently if a US citizen marries a foreign national, that person gets an automatic green card. Does that extend to any number of spouses in a plural marriage? And on and on.
Lots of issues, none of them necessarily hard to resolve, but all of them would need to be resolved. And furthermore, not all advocates for plural marriage would necessarily agree on how they should be resolved. In Mormon-style polygamy (to the extent that I know anything about it at all), the man is married to all the women simultaneously, but each woman is married only to the man. They have a special relationship with each other, but are not intimate partners. That’s presumably different as far as power-of-attorney-type issues and who-has-to-want-a-divorce from a more polyamorous group marriage. So are there multiple different arrangements of poly marriages that are available? If so that makes all the marriage certificate paperwork more complicated, yada yada yada.
Umm, they did rush to the courthouse by the hundred of thousands. And they got married. So I’m not sure what your point is.
Yes, this was the primary, and wrong, argument against SSM, that it would “Destroy the family” or something. An argument that was NOT frequently made, because it was too stupid even for the anti-SSM side, was “uhh, I just don’t understand. What will happen? I’m so puzzled. I mean, umm, how will it work?”. I also rarely if ever heard an argument saying “well, there’s an established history in the US of exploitative religious-based gay marriages in which the existence of the gay marriage defines entire communities in which people are brainwashed”, similar to the arguments concerning mormon fundamentalists. And if someone did make an argument like that, that person is an idiot.
Taking a step back here, I’m not the enemy. There is currently no serious proposal to legalize poly marriage. If there was, I would certainly support it on moral grounds, and I’m sure that the logistical hurdles are overcome-able. The only point I’m trying to make is that the comparison of gay marriage to poly marriage is just as flawed now as it was when people were trying to use it as a slippery-slope-argument against gay marriage.
(Tangent: I’m also interested in the idea of prejudice against polyamorous people. It certainly exists, in that it’s hard to imagine someone openly living in a group marriage being elected president. On the other hand, I don’t know of either a single slur along the lines of “fag” that refers to poly people, or a stereotype that is associated with poly people, comparable to the way gay people are “swishy”. You never have to scold teenagers and tell them “stop using ‘poly’ as an insult”. And there aren’t decades and decades of pop culture with the equivalent of gay panic jokes. It’s interesting.)
One answer fits all; of course. Joint filing only has to mean two people if YOU want it to. Throw that switch; nothing will change. Same with immigration. Will someone abuse either of those? Damn betcha! Just as heterosexuals and same-sex partners can, and do, abuse the same system today.
And I’m sorry – all these arguments have been used against SSM at one time or another. And just like with pluralism it is FALSE. The same old mind-set and the same old red herrings.
Gee, the fact that Mormons now practice both marriage and a form of polygamy has totally complicated and destroyed marriage to the point we shouldn’t let anyone get married. At least not any of those nasty Mormons. All they are going to do is mess things up. Sure; and if you buy that I’ve got some real estate you are going to love.
You are confusing legal marriage with religious marriage. Just as some religions refuse to recognize or accept SSM, and some sects have almost been formed around SSM (I’m thinking of the RIC movement), some will follow different forms of pluralism. Religious freedom is just too strong in this country to totally change that; Lord knows some churches haven’t accepted racial equality yet or gender equality. Marriage equality won’t be any different. It comes down to one of those things that may never change. Like with anything touching on religion, the courts will settle it all out in the end.
So since you are confused by all this new knowledge, let me spell it out for you; we throw the switch and nothing changes. What does someone do to get married now? The couple apply for a license or permit (depending on how you want to word it) and then stands before a judge or licensed individual AS A COUPLE and states that intention. Switch gets thrown - ALL the people involved in the pluralistic union apply for the license and ALL of them stand before a judge or appointed individual and state that intention. Details vary from place to place but in the broad sense I think you will understand it worded this way. See? Yet again – no changes needed.
OK, having had this debate with people like you, I can hear your scream from here. BUT WHAT IF ONE SPOUSE GETS INTO ANOTHER MARRIAGE WITHOUT THE CURRENT SPOUSE KNOWING OR APPROVING? SEE!!! I’M RIGHT!!! IT REALLY IS DIFFERENT! Sorry Max, again its only in your imagination. Today we have people who get into a second marriage without the knowledge or approval of their spouse; its call bigamy and people go to jail for it. Add as many people as you wish to what we call “marriage”, the crime is the same and the law is already on the books.
Hundreds of thousands? You sure you want to put money on that number? My point is you WAY overestimate the number of pluralists who will want to get legally married. You are also assuming that not having the recognition that SSM has won is going to stop them. Just as gays and lesbians either got around the laws or simply ignored them in the past, pluralists have done and will do so. Using the same basic tactics - lies and deceit. But is it fair to force them to continue like this? I say no.
There are real benefits to marriage; fewer than you think but they are there. In some legal matters such as testifying against a spouse and a couple others. Most of the benefits are more tradition and imagination than they are law or reality. So why deny these benefits to pluralists other than the same old tired arguments that were used against SSM? You still haven’t shown me anything unique to pluralism to deny them the dignity and recognition you and I have.
I doubt you are the enemy but you come very close to expressing their beliefs; one of the other reasons I’ve invested this time with you. I will say though that I am not totally sure in my heart you will ever support legalized pluralism. Just as you use your imagination to find differences you will use that imagination to find our proposals less than “serious”. And I doubt you will accept that choice any more than some are accepting SSM. But Rome wasn’t built in a day and SSM didn’t happen over night. We’ll get there sooner or later.
A lot of the people I know who would like to see, and maybe take advantage of, pluralism were surprised after the Supremes weighed in on SSM. Too many people, even those in the struggle for marriage equality, just sat back and said “Game over - we won”. No we didn’t; we won one battle but the war continues.
Me? One of my older predictions turned out to be right. As we fought for SSM state by state, and sometimes county by county, I tried to warn my friends to be prepared to have their rights and desires ignored. When it came to racial minorities and questions of equality, we never were able to put together what we could truly call a united front. For all the talk of LGBT I knew from the beginning that is was L and G but not so much the rest. Maybe not having a vested interest it was easier for me to see; maybe its my age showing. But we’ll get there; one way or another and one state at a time.
There’s an on-going issue in certain cults like the FLDS as to whether the young women involved were of legal age or actually consenting at the time of marriage.
I’ve known a number of people in poly relationships, including one woman with two husbands, and some are mature adults in a stable relationship and some are nut cases headed towards a domestic trainwreck - sort of like monogamous couples. I don’t think poly marriage is inherently abusive any more than couple marriage is, but there are a lot of social, cultural, and religious factors that can result in abuse.
There are also issues regarding things like medical decision making, hospital visitation, inheritance, and so forth that are very different under legal marriage vs. other arrangements.
My marriage to my spouse makes me his next of kin and even his own blood relatives can’t interfere with that. For some of us, that’s very important. There’s also issues for people who have no living blood relatives - sure, you can draw up a bunch of legal papers designating someone to have power of attorney in an emergency but by getting married you side-step all of that extra paperwork and it’s much harder to challenge in court.
Yes, a common pattern is for one wife to be legally the man’s wife and the others to either be legally divorced former wives or simply unmarried women who just happen to live with the man and his wife.
This allows the “unwed” wives to collect all manner of government assistance.
There actually are historical examples of polyandry (multiple husbands). The link not only gives historical examples but one from 2013 in Kenya.
One woman-multiple husbands is certainly much more rare than one man-multiple wives but it certainly has occurred. These occurrences range from default practice among some Tibetans and Native North Americans to outliers such as the triple in Kenya. Every inhabited continent seems to have examples of the practice.
I think if plural marriage is ever legalized in the US both forms will have to be equally allowed. However, I just don’t think there is a large demand for plural marriage. Even where polygamy is legal the majority of people still tend to pair off.