Really. Psychologically unhealthy people tend to find that some fucked up shit makes them happy. There’s a depressing number of parents who find that beating or molesting their children makes them happy. Others find that copious amounts of drugs and alcohol and not having a job to interfere with their party schedule, or dragging a new mommy or daddy home to the kids every few months makes them happy. These situations are perfectly shitty ways to raise children.
As I said in the other thread, polygamy can be a good way to raise kids IF all the adults involved are mature, responsible, psychologically healthy and stable people who are able and willing to put the kids’ needs ahead of their own bullshit. That’s not to say it would be any better than monogamy–any sort of set-up will most likely work in that situation. But the more people you add into the mix, the less likely it is that all of them meet all those criteria.
I notice some folks locking on ‘whatever makes a parent happy’ as if I didn’t qualify my posts, so I’ll just go ahead and repost what I actually said, lest we all get distracted.
Bolding just added. I think that’s a bit different than ‘whatever makes a parent happy’.
I hope I don’t sound all snippy and annoying, because I’m not trying to. But I really did try to qualify my posts carefully, so that no one started with the whole "it’s not all about what makes the parents happy wontsomeonethinkofthechildren.
I can get behind that for some forms of polygamy. I have a tough time agreeing that it can be a perfect way for this particular form of polygyny, unless essentially not having an involved dad can be a perfect way to raise a family.
Monogamy happens naturally, therefore it’s natural. It is the most common form of human relationships It’s ludicrous to say they aren’t natural. They are, by far, the norm. Humans bond in pairs, in every culture, every enevironment, every part of human history and evolution. They do not bond in groups.
Well, if works out like that, lesbians seem to do okay. I’d actually think a relationship where the two women were involved with one another and shared a somewhat distant male lover would be preferable over the standard polygyny setup.
Actually, I was quibbling with Stoid’s assertion that her “as long as the adults can be happy with it” is functionally equivalent to the “healthy, stable, informed consent” conditions set forth in this thread’s OP. They’re not the same thing, not at all. Fucked-up people are happy with some seriously fucked-up shit that’s not good for kids.
Okay. But that’s a layer of specific qualification that you are inserting. that I wouldn’t have thought to insert because it wouldn’t occur to me, but our intent was the same: let’s talk about this outside circumstances in which the parties are plainly unhappy and forced into it. Because I see no automatic harm - It may be distasteful to outsiders looking in, but if the people involved are happy, who is anyone else to say what degree of information is required?
Nor do I. But that’s not the same thing as what Tokyoplayer did. He said: “when you talk about polygamy as a solution of the “unnatural” state of monogamy.” If he meant what you meant, he would have said “when you talk about polygamy as a solution to the childcare issues that may arise in a monogamous relationship where both partners work outside the home.” The two statements don’t mean anything close to the same thing.
(And you actually didn’t have to interpret, since I said that. I listed the ways in which it would be beneficial, and that’s top of the list.)
To begin with, I never believed, claimed, thought or argued that the Browns lived a life free from any downsides. If asked I would have said Im sure there were some… what human relationship is free of them? None I’ve ever seen.
Second, When I started the thread, it was casual and I had no reason to go digging. It’s not like I was going to go out and make life decisions about it, I just had an opinion, an opinion that would have zero impact on anything at all, and I felt like sharing it. Since they came across as sincere (which I still find them to be) I had no reason to spend time and energy double and triple checking to make sure that my perception of them was flawlessly accurate. That’s ridiculous. (Especially since my first encounter with them, on Oprah, included discussions of the downsides and problems!)
However, I don’t think you can refute that once the thread got rolling and everyone started making an issue of it, I probed a helluva lot deeper than anyone else did, consuming everything there was to be had and then some. While acknowledging that we all seem to have different opinions of what we all agree we’ve directly observed, the fact is that in the end, there was no horrifically damning information that destroyed the picture being presented, which was that these five people were, in the main, very content with their cholces and were leading happy lives together.
About the only thing that wasn’t entirely obvious from the start is what a tool Kody is, but his wives like him, so there ya go…
You’re missing my point with this argument. We could both point to boatloads of things that people commonly do that aren’t the least bit natural. The fact that people do it, and do it a lot, doesn’t make it natural. If you doubt it, explain to me how natural it is to drive a car.
Secondly, forming pair bonds isn’t the same as monogamy. Or rather, it’s not the only way to define monogamy. When I say monogamy is unnatural, I’m referring specifically to sexual exclusivity.
Don’t worry, you don’t sound snippy and annoying at all. I was just responding to the one post I quoted, and didn’t see what you re-posted here. Sorry about that.
You’re missing the point, though. I mean, I get that you might not have thought about the qualifiers, given that we hadn’t had the discussion yet, but the discussion centers around the question of whether the happiness of the adults is adequate to make a satisfactory household for the children.
I’m confused by this, because you DID say that monogamy is unnatural. I don’t think it’s a big leap to make to think that what you mean is that since polygamy is more natural, then it naturally is a superior way to raise children.
You went digging mostly for information about what kind of background each of the women was from, from what I saw. I wasn’t that interested in that part of the conversation, so I was skimming. What I’m talking about is putting on a critical thinking cap, and asking yourself if the reactions some of the women had in the show to certain situations were telling you anything that maybe contradicted the words they were saying. All the digging in the world won’t tell you that, because none of these people have gone to the media to tell them anything they don’t want people to hear.
Can you please provide a coherent definition of “natural,” because that’s a word that basically means nothing.
yes it is.
Yes it is.
Sexual exclusivity is the norm. It is what occurs, for lack of a better word, organically, without artificial imposition of bullshit power roles (polygamy). You are not going to persuade anybody to your sister-wives ideal by sneering at sexual exclusivity. That doesn’t make you sound smart or evolved, just immature and hostile.
Sarahfella, Hello Again and jsgoddess very excellently addressed many of your objections, so I won’t rehash all of them.
For additional clarification, I did not quote or paraphrase you. (I quoted one word, with quotation marks, but that hardly counts.) If you are going to hold me to a standard, I would appreciate if you follow the same standard.
I stated what I believe is the assumption of that thread, based on it and later quotes that monogamy presents problems and that polygamy solves them. I also clearly stated that it was the assumption of the thread, which implies to everyone that that was my belief, and I did not say that was something you, Stoid, explicitly said.
In the post which you are objecting to, I used the word “you” in the same meaning to mean “one” and I believe that most people can understand that. If that caused any misunderstanding I apologize.
In the interest of accuracy, let’s go back and visit what you actually did say.
My bolding, of course. You say that this is without any value judgment. I say that in addition to being factually incorrect (“we very rarely actually pull it off”), that this suggests that polygamy is a solution (“way better”) and compares the best of polygamous families (those mature enough to handle it) with the worst of monogamous families, the ones who are “miserable, fighting and cheating.”
In addition, although I did not state it in my earlier quote, I believe this implies a judgment (“deeply unnatural”).
I’ll let the reader read and judge if this is an accurate assessment for themselves.
And thank you for revisiting this issue, since it allows me to address another point which is that your preferred brand of polygamy only addresses men’s issues and not women’s. Polygamy allows men to have multiple partners, and this assumes that it will solve the issue of men cheating. It doesn’t by the way, unless you accept that having 57 wives, as Joseph Smith is said to have had, is a rational solution to wanting more, but does nothing about whatever drives women to cheat.
I then go on to state
I stand by this, that this counters your statement the polygamy solves the problem of people who “miserable, fighting and cheating.” I think that most people that immature will not automatically do better simply because there are more women to fuck in the household.
I was just responding to the one post I quoted, and didn’t see what you re-posted here. Sorry about that.