# Polygamy - non-religious objections ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 17, 2004, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590 "2004-02-17T02:10:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![AZCowboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/97f17d/32.png) [@AZCowboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AZCowboy)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590/81 "2004-07-16T00:36:31Z")
> [@Zagadka](#): > > I take exception with this statement. Ha! Your superior intellect was able to discern my hyperbole. I must be more careful using the word “all” - it’s so, ya know, inclusive. I must admit my mistake. I concede. I retract my statement. Please allow me to rephrase: The roots of current western culture accepted polygamy, almost without exception, until the Catholic Church decided it against their interests. Better? > [@](#): > > You can’t pick a small piece of history/culture, hold it aloft, and decalre it representative of the history, tradition, and future. Bovine excrement. Technically correct, but totally irrelevent in context. The statement you quoted was in response to an assertion by **UDS** , and was intended to divorce (pardon the pun) the notion that exclusivity in marriage was central to the western concept of marriage, except until recently. As I later stated explicitly, I wasn’t intending to advocate polygamy in that post. Interesting that you noted the Aegean culture as the exception. Indeed, the philosophy of ascetism was the apparent influence on the Catholic Church eventually leading to the monogamy standard (first for priests, eventually for lay people as well). > [@](#): > > I don’t have a problem with polygamy - other than it annoying me during debates I do care about - but kindly treat history delicately when you pick through it for propaganda. It would probably make more sense to express your annoyance in a thread about a topic other than polygamy, else you come off a bit boorish. But just to double down, I’m annoyed how many gay marriage supporters seem base their support, not on principle, but only on self interest. Hypocrites, indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590/82 "2004-07-16T00:48:05Z")
> [@AZCowboy](#): > > Ha! Your superior intellect was able to discern my hyperbole. I must be more careful using the word “all” - it’s so, ya know, inclusive. > > I must admit my mistake. I concede. I retract my statement. Please allow me to rephrase: > > The roots of current western culture accepted polygamy, almost without exception, until the Catholic Church decided it against their interests. > > Better? No. My superior intellect points out that you have yet to define what the “roots of current western culture are”, other than a few selected cites you’ve drudged up. One could argue that “current western culture” is founded on Greek, then Roman, then Catholic, then Protestant cultures, none of which were especially polygamous. Selected pagan, “barbarian” tribes across Europe, yes. “The roots of current western culture”, no. It isn’t even valid to throw out the “culture” argument and say that “the ancestors of current westerners”, since most of the populations have been displaced so much over the past ~1500 years. > [@](#): > > Interesting that you noted the Aegean culture as the exception. Indeed, the philosophy of ascetism was the apparent influence on the Catholic Church eventually leading to the monogamy standard (first for priests, eventually for lay people as well). Well, “the roots of western culture” didn’t develop with Baltics or Slavs, sugar. > [@](#): > > But just to double down, I’m annoyed how many gay marriage supporters seem base their support, not on principle, but only on self interest. Hypocrites, indeed. Make a thread about it. Homosexuality has nothing to do with polygamy. Don’t expect us to fight your battle. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590/83 "2004-07-16T01:11:52Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > . A large benefit of marriage is the automatic powers afforded to a spouse in the event of their partner’s death or incapacitation and that could not exist in a polygamous union. (Example: Hubby has a massive stroke and is being kept alive by machines- wives 1, 3, 5 and 7 say “keep him alive” but his even numbered wives say “pull the plug”- is 2, 4, 6, 8 or do we not resuscitate?"- likewise, if he dies and leaves $1,500 per month in Social Security benefits, should that be divided equally among the spouses [assuming they’re all of age to draw SS] or should it be per seniority, etc.? . I always read these arguments, and honestly they don’t make sense. Can I remind you that a lot of people _aren’t_ married? Hence, that when they on life support, their children, or parents, or siblings could also disagree about the plug issue? Wouldn’t it be complicated to share the estate of deceased people who had several children? How should it be handled? Divided equally? Per seniority with the oldest child getting more than the younger ones? I hope we’ll find someday a solution to these difficult issues, so that people can have more than one child or one parent. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590/84 "2004-07-16T01:15:28Z")
> [@vanilla](#): > > I’m going to say a shortage of women problem. > I doubt any man would share his wife with another guy, so most poly marriages would have multiple wives, ergo; woman shortage. Why do you make this assumption? Are you under the impression that men are more jealous or possessive than women? By the way, we have a polyamorous…err…trio…on this board, and IIRC, it includes one woman and two men. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590/85 "2004-07-16T01:32:06Z")
> [@Stonebow](#): > > . Just because it works in an individual case does not mean that a policy should be made encouraging it. And couldn’t I make the reverse statement : just because it doesn’t work in individual cases does not mean that a policy should be made preventing it? Perhaps we should get rid of monogamous marriages too, since they often don’t work that well… ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590/86 "2004-07-16T01:40:16Z")
> [@minty green](#): > > Marriage is a status conferred by the government. Getting laid, on the other hand, does not require any act or forebearance on the part of the state. I think Aldebaran actually has a good case. In our societies, where having several partners is a relatively common practice, and well tolerated, one of these partners is granted many priviledges by the government. It might be fine and dandy for most people, but not necessarily so for some other, like our resident trio. I can’t see a reason why, if three people are living together in common agreement, one should be deprived of the advantages another one enjoys (or at the contrary, why one should be granted priviledges denied to the other). ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590/87 "2004-07-16T01:59:39Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Hi Lilairen > Hmmm. That still doesn’t get us quite there. A relationship which I am free to leave if my partner takes another spouse isn’t what I consider an exclusive relationship. An exclusive relationship is one which excludes the possibility of another spouse. > > . Many countries where polygamy is legal have passed laws stating that the wife can oppose a subsequent marriage of their husband. One could easily imagine such a system where a second (or third, fourth, etc…) marriage could only be contracted with the consent of the existing spouses. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590/88 "2004-07-16T02:25:29Z")
> [@Lilairen](#): > > It occurs to me that contracts of this sort may have uses elsewhere; I may take the idea and gnaw on it for a while. I mentionned in an older thread the example of two retired single brothers who would want to live together, with the benefits associated with marriage (for instance the second one being able to stay in the house they live in after the death of the first one), and who obviously wouldn’t be interested in having intercourses… I fail to see why unrelated childless people could benefit from such an arrangment by marrying each other (nobody is going to check whether or not they actually sleep together) while these two brothers couldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590/89 "2004-07-16T02:33:42Z")
> [@Stonebow](#): > > I have not been able to track down the study in question, but I will accept it at face value. That doesn’t really back up **KellyM’s** assertion that they are _more_ stable than monogamous unions, but i will concede that some of the extra factors are canceled out by extra members. ) I wouldn’t be surprised if they actually were. My reasonning is that contrarily to monogamous marriages, not only polyamorous arrangments aren’t recognized and backed by the government, the families, society, but also they’re actively discouraged. As a result, I would tend to suspect that if they aren’t significantly more stable than an “average” monogamous relationship, they are likely to fall apart almost immediatly, or more probably to not even been considered as an option at the first place. IOW that it requires a much stronger commitment at the first place to establish such a relationship. Of course, it wouldn’t apply anymore as soon as it would be legally and socially recognized/accepted. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590/90 "2004-07-16T02:51:12Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > In our societies, where having several partners is a relatively common practice, _and well tolerated_, (emphasis added) Your society, maybe. Not mine. Sure, we don’t send people to jail for having an extra boy-/girlfriend on the side, but such behavior is not commonly accepted in America by any stretch of the imagination. And that doesn’t even _begin_ to touch on the societal disapproval over multiple partners in the same household. Over here, we prefer the mistresses to be discretely (and hypocritically) hidden away from everyone else. > [@](#): > > one of these partners is granted many priviledges by the government. It might be fine and dandy for most people, but not necessarily so for some other, like our resident trio. I can’t see a reason why, if three people are living together in common agreement, one should be deprived of the advantages another one enjoys (or at the contrary, why one should be granted priviledges denied to the other). That’s a perfectly sensible sentiment. But it’s also a perfectly sensible sentiment to limit the automatic conferral of such benefits (recalling that most of those benefits are always freely available via contract) to two persons instead of, for instance, five. Sorry, but I’m just not impressed by claims of discrimination based on numbers. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590/91 "2004-07-16T02:52:56Z")
Dammit. I hate the automatic italics in the new vBulletin. The emphasis was supposed to be on “and well tolerated.” ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590/92 "2004-07-16T02:53:26Z")
> [@modro](#): > > It is a law that is applied evenly to all citizens, no select group of people can practice government sanctioned polygamy. Then, I could similarily say that currently no select group of people can practice same-sex marriage, and that nobody is denied the right to marry someone of the oposite sex. So, it’s applied equally too. > [@](#): > > Where gay marriage is fundamentally different, is that currently our laws allow any two people who love each other to get married, so long as they are male and female. . Here I could say : Where polyamorous marriage is fundamentally different is that currently our laws allow any people to get married, so long as there aren’t more than two of them. Following this reasonning, I could hence state that polyamorous marriages should be allowed, but not same-sex marriage. Because, as you mentionned “it’s fundamentally different”. And on this basis, could deny a charge of hypocrisy. The law is currently “two people of the opposite sex can get married”. And this law is applied with perfect equality. Nobody is denied such a marriage. Homosexual people aren’t, and polyamorous people aren’t, either. It just happens that none of these two groups is satisfied by such a marriage. So, one group would like to change the “two” part, and the other the “opposite sex” part. No fundamental difference, except that the concept of same-sex marriage is now getting mainstream acceptance, while the polygamous marriage still doesn’t. So, yes, I think there’s some hypocrisy (or more likely some lack of perspective) in suporting one and opposing the other on the basis that “it’s different”, a non-argument which could be (and is) used by people opposing same-sex marriages. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590/93 "2004-07-16T03:08:50Z")
> [@Zagadka](#): > > Make a thread about it. Homosexuality has nothing to do with polygamy. Don’t expect us to fight your battle. I hope then that you don’t expect anybody who isn’t homosexual to “fight your battle”? Fortunately for various minorities, a lot of people who didn’t belong to them “fought their battles” in the past. Lacking that, being minorities, they wouldn’t have been able to achieve any advancement. Nor would you, without the support of heterosexuals willing to fight yours. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590/94 "2004-07-16T03:15:08Z")
> [@minty green](#): > > (emphasis added) > > Your society, maybe. Not mine. Sure, we don’t send people to jail for having an extra boy-/girlfriend on the side, but such behavior is not commonly accepted in America by any stretch of the imagination. . I didn’t write “commonly accepted”. I wrote “common practice” (isn’t it in the USA, or are adulterers exceedingly rare?) and “well tolerated” (do most people in the USA cut ties with friends or relatives when they discover they have cheated on their spouse, for instance?). ---
**Author:** ![Lilairen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lilairen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lilairen)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590/95 "2004-07-16T04:42:42Z")
> [@minty green](#): > > Your society, maybe. Not mine. Sure, we don’t send people to jail for having an extra boy-/girlfriend on the side, but such behavior is not commonly accepted in America by any stretch of the imagination. And that doesn’t even _begin_ to touch on the societal disapproval over multiple partners in the same household. Over here, we prefer the mistresses to be discretely (and hypocritically) hidden away from everyone else. In my society I’ve been told that it was “fucked up” (yes, that is a direct quote) that someone asked me for permission to pursue a relationship with **Teine**. And when I asked him if it would still be fucked up if she’d not asked and just cheated, I got an answer, “Of course not.” There’s a discussion in one of my groups going on at the moment about those people who will be happy to cheat with a married person, but who become uninterested in the relationship as soon as it becomes clear that it’s with the spouse’s knowledge and consent. In other words, my experience is that _honesty in one’s multiple relationships_ is less socially accepted than being a lying, betraying, cheating asshole. I think there’s something wrong with this. ---
**Author:** ![KellyM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/57b2e6/32.png) [@KellyM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KellyM)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590/96 "2004-07-16T04:47:59Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > I hope then that you don’t expect anybody who isn’t homosexual to “fight your battle”? Well, they’re not exactly encouraging others to want to fight for them. Look at how, for example, Rep. Barney Frank, the HRC, and the DNC have all consistently abandoned transgenders in their ongoing battles for inclusion in nondiscrimination and hate crime legislation. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![AZCowboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/97f17d/32.png) [@AZCowboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AZCowboy)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590/97 "2004-07-16T21:25:30Z")
> [@Zagadka](#): > > My superior intellect points out that you have yet to define what the “roots of current western culture are”, other than a few selected cites you’ve drudged up. A few selected cites? Please review post #29 in this thread, where I stated, “Polygamy was accepted throughout early Christian, Jewish, and Muslim societies.” Do you deny that? Or do you deny that the cultures of the early Christians and Jews, combined with the cites for Germanic, Scandinavian, Celtic, and Slavic cultures are not at the roots of western culture? You mention Protestantism - take a look at what Martin Luther’s take on polygamy was. While neither the Greeks nor the Romans endorsed polygamy, both societies accepted mistresses and concubines (a less socially desirable solution, I hope we would all agree). **Lilairen’s** point is well taken, dishonesty in extramarital relationships is more socially acceptable than polyamory. I still struggle to understand that, it appears to be an artifact of some immoral religious teachings (although not biblically rooted). > [@Zagadka](#): > > Homosexuality has nothing to do with polygamy. Maybe not in your idea of polygamy, but certainly within the concept of polyamory, homo-/bi-sexuality is common (and while perhaps not common, transsexuality isn’t exactly rare). Also, see **clairobscur’s** post #92 for along this line (not to mention #93). The poly’s arguments rest on concepts like liberty, honesty, equality, respect, love, commitment and integrity. What part is unworthy of your support? ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2004, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590/98 "2004-07-18T04:47:25Z")
Yes, I was under the impression that, the majority of men are more jealous than females. This may have been hard wired into men in the old days, having to do with making sure the offspring were theres, courtesy of Desmond Morris. I may be wrong. Also about the woman shortage too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polygamy-non-religious-objections/229590.md?page=4)