Polygamy (and gay marriage)

Great Debates
21

While I agree that polygamy shouldn’t be legislated against I can’t see this working at all.

When two people get married currently they effectively become the same person before many aspects of the law (financially and some others I feel certain). I think any form of polygamy that didn’t have all partners married to all partners would overly complicate things.

Effectively the marriage is a partnership similar to a business partnership. The number of partners isn’t controlled but all partners have similar relationships with each other (senior and junior partners complicate this in a corporate way, I admit).

But saying Mr X is married to Mrs Y and Mrs Z but Mrs Y and Mrs Z are not partners has disaster written all over it.

So I’m all for the legalization of polygamy. Bring it on.

Now all I have to do is convince Lady Chance and Crystal Gayle and I’m golden.

22

While, as I said above, I am not sure about my stance on plygamy, I am sure that I would not use the “its too hard to draft new laws” reasoning as my defense for such actions. If I were to support polygamy, the fact that it is difficult draft laws to protect polygamous groups and society would not deter me from fighting for it and working to bring it about.

23

I agree with your first sentence, but strongly disagree with your second sentence.

Each individual in a partnership (business or marriage) remains a distinct entity in many aspects in the eyes of the law. The partnership (business or marriage) becomes a separate entity in the eyes of the law. In business, neither individual in a partnership is prohibited from entering other partnerships, nor are the number of individuals in a specific partnership limited.

24

The second sentence of my last paragraph should have read, “The partnership (business or marriage) becomes a separate entity for other aspects in the eyes of the law.”

25

Society condones traditional marriage because of a general belief that one man and one woman in a stable, committed relationship is more beneficial to each other and to society as a whole than if they were not in such a relationship. That is why civil marriage laws bestow rights and priveleges upon married couples, along with responsibilites that encourage careful thought before legal commitment.

If your belief is that two people of the same gender can have a similar commitment with the same benefits to themselves and society, then you support legal recognition of gay marriage. If you don’t believe that, you don’t support it.

If you believe that a group of people larger than two can have a similar commitment with the same benefits to themselves and society, then you support legal recognition of polygamy. If you do not believe this, you don’t support such recognition.

They are two entirely separate arguments, and anyone who introduces polygamy into an argument about gay marriage is simply trying to cloud the issue because they have run out of support for their gay marriage argument.

26

You may be right. Consider these other statements:

Society condones traditional marriage because of cultural artifacts influenced significantly by historical judeo-christian ethics, which may not necessarily have any impact on the actual benefit to society.

Society condones marriage because of a general belief that a stable, committed relationship is more beneficial to society as a whole than if they were not in such a relationship, and acceptance of monogamous, gay, and polygamous relationships may be more beneficial to society than monogamous relationships alone.

Is there any empirical or logical justification to support any one of the three statements over the others?

27

Personally, I’d disagree with AZCowboy’s suggestion that additional marriages should not require consent; as far as I can judge, that removes any possibility for protecting people from the consequences of their partners making fraudulent marriage contracts. That consent can either be written into their initial marriage contract (and hence given “in advance” of any additional contracts) or included as a part of the paperwork for any additional ones, but I think that there must be some sort of consideration given to the question of whether initiating a second (or additional) such contract will place a person in violation of the first contract(s).

blanx, incorporation can handle some property issues and potentially some taxation issues. It cannot force people to grant any visitation rights in the hospital, and it can only provide health care to everyone if the corporate body takes out such a group policy. I don’t know off the top of my head what the costs on that would be; I know that maintaining a corporation has a cost in the state in which I live. (Even if it’s the sort of corporation that does not pay taxes on its income, there is something like five hundred dollars in fees due every year. This is more likely to be affordable for a multiple-income family than it would be for a single or dual-income family, but is still an expense.)

I have been, for a long time, in favor of looking at family units as their actual units, rather than trying to break them down into variously broken models of “the nuclear family”. This isn’t just about gay and/or poly groupings; there are plenty of people who are responsible for the care of relatives (most often parents) as well as their children, and I think that should be recognised as a family unit, not a nuclear-family-model-with-added-grandma. If family units were recognised as themselves, rather than only to the extent that the fit the parents-and-offspring model, I think that would be a general positive good.

Jonathan Chance: I think I’m confused; why do you think that multiple contracts are infeasable? Personally, I’m not interested in marrying my partners’ partner. We’re not in love. I’d find it far more confusing to be obligated to profess partnership love and commitment to someone for whom I don’t feel them. (Talk about threatening the meaning of marriage there.)

28

And I don’t have a problem with that, it seems more of a semantic difference from what I suggested. That is, if the first spouse is opposed to the third partner, either of the first pair should be able to terminate the partnership (divorce), similar to what is available under no-fault divorce laws. IOW, the first spouse would always have to right to maintain a “traditional” marriage, if they so choose. But that doesn’t prevent their spouse from divorcing them and marrying another. No one should/would be forced to be in a union against their will.

Perhaps Lilairen’s description is more practical than mine, but the result is the same (although “advance consent” sounds dangerous).

FYI, at least in Georgia, I know that the only annual fee from the state for a corporation is a $15 registration fee.

29

Well, I think it DOES threaten the meaning of marriage as currently defined. I don’t necessarily think of that as a BAD thing, however. The current definition of marriage is probably something that should be re-examined from time to time.

While AZCowboy is correct that a partner may be in several partnerships marriage is NOT currently defined that way. As it’s currently defined for certain purposes (financial, responsibility for children, etc) the two partners are the same person. I’m not sure current marriage law would be ABLE to differentiate it.

Would a ‘discrete’ polygamy law (i.e. seperate marriages for one person) allow different responsibilities for children? Suppose Person A and B and Person A and C are married. What are the responsibilities for person C towards the children of A and B if A and B die?

Also, would seperate households be maintained? How would the law deal with the competition between spouse B and C for the resources (money, time, sex, whatever) of spouse A? These are the questions that would damage any attempt to define ‘discrete’ marriages.

I realize that one might not be interested in marrying ones partner’s partner. But I also think that the only practical way to handle polygamy would be to maintain the ‘one person one marriage’ concept while eliminating the limit on the number of people in a marriage.

30

The questions Jonathan Chance asks are why the comparison between gay marriage and polygamy are disingenuous.

Marriage between two people (gay or not) as a legal intuition are clearly defined. Taxes, health insurance, child care/custody/support, divorce, are already well defined in the American legal code. Whereas those of multiple spouses are not. Gay marriage is strictly a moral question which would not complicate the legal codes of the US, this can not be said of polygamy.

31

Hadn’t thought it through to that point but you’re right. I certainly have no objection to same-sex marriages. The position, legally, is well-established.

I prefer that government stick to making consistent laws and stay out of morality. I’m happier that way.

32

In Massachusetts, I think the filing fee for a corporation’s Annual Report is $30 regardless of type, and an S Corporation owes (or owed back when I was filing corporate taxes for S Corporations on a regular basis) $456 to the Commonwealth with its state tax form. (Please be advised that I am not currently working for a tax firm, and that a) my memory may be glitchy (it might have been $256) and b) these numbers may not represent current practice. I left the firm I was paralegalising for in 1998.)

I’d tend to agree that “advance consent” is dangerous, but gods know that people do all sorts of dangerous things in their relationships, and I don’t think it’s the responsibility of the state to prevent people from doing so.

Next response:

What responsibilities did your hypothetical person C contract for? Is C listed as those children’s parent? Is C named as guardian of children in case of decedence of both parents in the will or wills? Personally, I’d say that C ought have custody before it goes to other relatives or the state, unless specified otherwise in contract or wills.

Would separate households be maintained? Well, that depends on the people involved. My family is currently in two households and might well be for the indefinite future, since we’re on different coasts. I don’t think the law has any legitimate presence in anyone’s division of their resources unless someone brings a dispute. If someone brings suit, there are mechanisms in place for that; trying to legislate the internal workings of anyone’s consentual relationships is anathema to me.

I disagree with you on practicalities, and I do not form partnership relationships with groups. I will not lie and claim a partnership contract with a group, because that is entering into a contract in bad faith.

33

Lilairen addressed the other issues I saw in your post, but let me respond to this one:

I don’t believe that is fully or technically correct. Take responsibility for children, which seems to get convoluted in the status quo.

As I understand it, responsibility for children is actually a bit screwy under the law in relation marriage and parenting. If the spouse of one marriage parents a child from someone other than their spouse, a non-biological parent can end up with responsibility for a child, and the non-biological parent can be shut out from parental rights.

Or, in the case of a second marriage, the “new” spouse doesn’t necessarily have parental responsibilities for existing children.

IOW, under the current situation, the issues are not as cut and dried as it may seem. Poly unions may further complicate this, but I fail to see how it is so significant as to dismiss the concept as impractical.

Even financially, law does not necessarily consider two spouses one entity. If one spouse brings wealth into the marriage, or if one spouse inherits wealth while married, the other spouse may have limited rights to those finances (if any, I am no expert). For that matter, if one spouse previously declared bankruptcy, the other spouse can still maintain good credit. My point is, the law isn’t as straightforward as you suggest.

34

Hmm…

Bear in mind that your argument in paragraph 2 above states that regardless of the biological connections the married spouse even though not related to the child is nonetheless responsible for the child. I don’t see this changing under a polygamy-based system.

And financially (paragraph 5) I’d say the presence of contracts such as pre-nuptial agreements argues forcefully that existing law does consider the two people to be ‘one’ for financial purposes as a base assumption.

Certainly in joint property states (I was married in one) the minute I got married what’s mine was hers and vice versa. She got a ripping record collection and I got a bunch of china dolls, etc.

I wouldn’t mind hearing from an attourney (a divorce one, I suppose) about the way the law treats such things as inheritances and such. But it was my understanding that in a joint property state all affairs, unless negotiated and contracted out prior to the marriage, are joint ownership.

Here’s a scenario for you:

We’re back with persons A, B and C. A being the ‘center’ of our triangle.

Person C purchases a car. Because A and C are married A is also responsible for the payments. But person A and B are also married. Unless contracted for in advance of the marriage (both of them, I guess) would person B also be responsible for the payments in A and C skipped town? I think under existing laws (modified to allow for polygamous discrete marriages) person B would be on the hook.

But I’d like to here a lawyers thoughts on it.

35

I was trying to address that in my thread (you were there. you know where it is) disussing it here would hijack this thread and not fair to the op.

The OP as stated are

One can suppose gay marriages and it will not open the door to polygamy. Gay marriages, no matter what its social stygma or impediments is still a partnership of 2 people. It fosters a commitment between 2 caring adults and the legal system is already built to handle any aberrations to the commitment. The legal acceptance of same sex marriage merely affords the same rights and privaleges that a dual sex marriage has. It would require repeal of all sodomy laws, all laws discrimanatory to gays and remove any bias that the judges have against the homosexual lifestyle. Social acceptance can come later as what happened to inter-racial marriages.

Is Polygamy harmful? only to the ignorant. I would surmise that entering a life partnership with more than one individual (at a time) requires a sophistication in thinking that most people do not possess (or care to possess). Polygamy is not for everyone and can become a complicated emotional quicksand.

36

I’m not aware of any of those so-called separatist or “Mormon fundamentalist” groups identifying themselves as “Mormons.”

37

Jonathan Chance, I’ll admit that my examples were not the greatest. Let’s try again.

On the first issue, I recognize and agree that it wouldn’t change in a polygamy-based system.

Just doing some quick and basic research, I found that the concept of two people becoming a single legal entity in marriage has its basis in common law. However, many websites describing titling of property, such as houses, refers to this concept as a “legal fiction”.

Specific to torts, this legal page describes the common law view, the modern view, and the rationale (see 3a).

As for community property states, and specifically related to debts incurred before marriage, see this Findlaw cite (only under “special circumstances”).

On premarital agreements, I know contracts for illegal actions are uneforceable, so I think the fact that premarital agreements may be enforceable suggests just the opposite - that marriage doesn’t necessarily create a single legal entity.

In any case, perhaps a family lawyer, or Lilairen with her paralegal experience, will stop back in and help on this issue.

In your ABC hypothetical, I would say no, B wouldn’t be on the hook. Imagine each individual as a corporation (another quasi- single legal entity), and each marriage as a joint partnership. With that framework, I think it is much easier to see how these issues would be resolved.

X~Slayer(ALE), my apologies then, as I thought your comments referenced your post in this thread (and I didn’t read your thread until after I posted those comments).

Frankly, I believe that is an excellent point, and I should have added a similar disclaimer in one of my posts earlier.

38

You’re * born* gay

You’re not born fucking as many partners as you can.

39

Tell that to my first girlfriend.

40

Cite?

Actually, don’t bother, unless you can show the slightest bit of relevence to the topics at hand.