You seem to be assuming a form of polygamy that only allows for multiple wives. (Polygyny, I think) The opposite can also exist. Why limit it to one man with x number of wives? Why not one woman with y number of husbands, or group marriages in which each person can be married to other people (sort of like Dr. Phlox on Enterprise)?
Then there wouldn’t be any shortage of men or women. In fact, you might find a leveling wherein everybody would be married to somebody.
Of course, there might be a problem if a higher number of spouses became a status symbol.
Given that so many of our cultural norms and legal precedents are based on the idea that people will want to grow up and enter into monogamous relationships with one another, broad based permission for polygamy opens up a whole pandora’s box of issues that I think can be very disruptive to the social fabric. And no Martha, that’s not a good thing.
Granted, consenting adults have the right to do almost anything they want to do to/with one another. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that we should allow people to do anything they want.
At some point any group of people, be it a high school clique or a democratic nation of millions will have to say, “These things are acceptable to us and shall be encouraged.” You simply can’t get around that. As the group gets larger, there will more and more issues that they will be forced to address. Eventually laws are enacted to codify and standardize many of these opinions. Of course, what made sense 10 or 100 or 1000 years ago doesn’t necessarily make sense today. That being the case, both laws and social conventions change over time.
As a slightly tangential point. I’m getting really peeved with people who get all up in arms whenever someone presents a contrary idea to their own closely held moral beliefs. There are a lot of people who have strong moral objections to both polygymy, same sex relationships, premarital sex, abortions, etc. etc.
If you attempt to belittle the individual’s right to speak out, it only opens up the door for someone else to come along with what may well be a much worse idea in very fashionable clothing. If you attack someone for holding a contrary view simply because it’s contrary, and don’t really force yourself to try and understand their side of the issue (even if they are not explaining themselves well or respectfully) then you’re only letting everyone down and helping to spread destructive anger.
I’m rereading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress as well. The line marriage seems to me to be like a corporation, in that it outlasts its individual members. The environment in the story is explicitly described as lacking formal law structures, though, so there is not the legal issue. The protagonist in the story mentions strong family customs that have evolved within the family.
Aren’t these two statements contradictory? If someone has the right to do something, we can’t stop them. If we can stop them, then they don’t have the right to do it.
I am wondering about legal and inheritance aspects as well that would be more applicable to English-speaking North American society. Have any polygamy-supporters created model legal structures for such marriages, to begin addrerssing the issues in the Pandora’s Box?
I believe the Our Little Quad folks (four-adult family, two children) have done a fair amount of legal work for their family, and that some of it is on their website (http://www.ourlittlequad.com/ I believe).
One thing I’m certain of at this point in time is that when I have children and a will (neither of which is currently the case), I will specifically grant custody of my children to the other members of the family in the event that something happens to both me and Teine. I want my kids to stay in the custody of whatever surviving parents they have. Epimetheus: Enh, I’ve heard that sort of thing before. So I can’t consider it a terribly weird case. I can’t say that it’s the most common case among folks I know, but that’s because the most common case is that people don’t talk about what turns 'em on in that context. It’s common among the folks who do talk about such things.
Yes, those two statements are contradictory. They are also not reflective of the point I tried to make.
I never said that we cannot stop someone from doing what hey have a right to do. History books teem with examples of how society conspire to stop people from doing things which they have a right to do.
Nor did I say the the right to do something is defined by whether or not a society has the power to stop an individual from doing the thing in question.
The point I was trying to make was that people don’t have a free pass to do whatever they want. One of the effects of people living in social settings is that those societies have the power to proscribe certain kinds of behavior. Just because one can make the argument that people have the right to engage in polygymous behavior (for example) does not necessarily mean that the society is obliged to accept such behavior as tolerable.
What I find hypocritical is a society that has laws to forbid polygamy while
*having relations outside marriage is rather common. The only “penalty” is for the other parnter to ask for a divorce.
*living together without marriage while having partners at the side, in common agreement or not, is accepted behaviour.
*promiscue behaviour without even making any comitment is accepted as being absolutely normal.
Can someone explain me in detail this obvious contradiction between law and moral standard?
I read this comment once in an essay by L. Sprague de Camp, can’t put my hands on it right now: If a man takes two wives, he’s letting himself in for trouble. Either his wives will get along with each other, or they won’t. If they don’t get along, then whenever they fight the husband will find himself cast in the thankless role of referee. If they do get along, then whenever they want something from the husband, they can team up and wear down his resistance by working on him in shifts.
Your reference to “western”, at least to me, implied that such has always been true of western cultures, which is simply not the case. Pardon my interpretation if that was not your intention.
Cite? A few minutes with Google will clear this up.
Polygamy was accepted throughout early Christian, Jewish, and Muslim societies. You are correct that the monogamous tradition sprang from the Greeks. They brought the idea of ascetism. Early Rome only sanctioned male-female marriages, but mistresses were common and accepted - a situation I would strain to describe as monogamous. The RCC amalgamated the two together to create the imposed monogamy artifact we see today.
That the earth revolves around the sun? Suppression by the Catholic Church is hardly a reasonable measuring stick for truth…
What’s changed? Our ability to recognize that determination of the size and type and familial structures should be outside the purview of the government. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…
Minty’s point is well taken, but everyone needs to get over the image of the Mormon Fundamentalists as the model of polygamy. It’s like condemning Christianity for Fred Phelps or Islam due to terrorists.
Let’s see…Germanic:
Scandinavian:
Celtic:
And Slav’s too:
One last thought for all those predicting gloom and doom should such expressions of love and commitment be tolerated: Where polygamy has been socially acceptable (or at least tolerable), it has been practised by a small proportion of the population. No one suggests it is the model for all, or even most, people.
While polygamous marriages were never very common in Judaism (for example, of all the rabbis mentioned in the Talmud, only one is known to have had more than one wife at a time) it was not formally banned among Ashkenazic Jewery until Rabbenu Gershom issued a decree against it about 1000 years ago (well after the time of Jesus). Sefardim in some countries still practice polygamy today. Modern day Israel does not allow polygamy but will (IIRC) recognize the polygamous marriages of Sephardim who marry abroad and then immigrate to Israel.
OK, gotya. I should have been clearer. I meant the current western concept of marriage.
Polygamy is still accepted in Islamic societies. Zev, to whose authority I defer, states that it was acceptable but not common in Judaism. I’m not aware of any evidence that polygamy was accepted “throughout early Christian society” but I am willing to be educated on this point.
I wouldn’t. The whole point about marriage is not that it allows sexual intercourse between people – unmarried people can and do have sexual intercourse – but that it gives important social and legal recognition to the relationship between the couple. It has as much to do with regulating relations between the couple and the rest of society as it does with regulating relations between the spouses. A married man and his mistress, however public their relationship, do not enjoy the legal and social status that comes from being married to one another.
What’s truth got to do with it? How can a social institution such as marriage be considered “true” or “false”? Your analogy with Galileo’s teachings doesn’t stand up.
My point is that social institutions generally do not survive unless they meet the practical needs of society. They either adapt, or they die. If monogamous marriage didn’t meet the needs of western society, it would have disappeared long ago; no church or king could maintain it.
Of course, it doesn’t follow that it still meets social needs. But my starting assumption is that, broadly speaking, it has up to now, and an argument that it no longer does needs to be demonstrated, not just asserted.
No. I think if you believe that marriage is about the the “determination of the size and type and familial structures” and that this is no business of government, you should argue for no social or legal recognition of any kind for marriage.
But I come back to the point I made earlier. Marriage does not determine the size and type of family structure. Couples and, I suppose, consenting groups can and do determine that for themselves. Marriage determines how society will relate to the relationships so created. The question is whether a non-exclusive relationship between me and my polygamous or potentially polygamous spouse requires social and legal recognition. If it doesn’t, there is no need for polygamous marriage. If it does, what kind of recognition does it require? It is clearly something very different from the recognition that we accord to monomogamous marriage, for the reasons I have already stated (and which Lamia has stated much more forcefully and succinctly).
If we don’t know exactly what “bundle” of rights and obligations is going to constitute polygamous marriage, how can we know whether we ought to welcome it or not?
Setting aside the obvious point that a lot of folks would rather not have their private morality regulated by the government, the distinction you’re looking for is that none of the items you complain about require the government’s official sanction. 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.
So far, I have to say that Lamia voices the concerns that bother me the most about polyamorous unions. At the outset, I’ll say that I am strongly in favor of marriage for gay couples, but extending these benefits to multiple partners does not sit well with me.
As as noted, this is not just an idea that someone dreamed up. Polygamy has a history, and to advocate it effectively, a supporter will have to do something to overcome the problems that we have seen demonstrated. So much of polygamy rests upon women not having full rights. And if I am speaking to mww relationships, well, it’s because those are the models that we have seen function.
My other objection is more logistical than anything- this will be a nightmare to regulate. I consider how horrible some divorces/custody/inheritance battles can be, and don’t think that they are helped by adding additional parties.
It’s not a religious, or even a moral issue for me- it’s simply a bad idea that had its time. And I respect those of you that have made it work, but as we all know, the SD is not the best cross-section of the general population. Just because it works in an individual case does not mean that a policy should be made encouraging it.
I can’t provide a cite for this, it’s just something I remember reading once: At some 19th-century equivalent of a cocktail party, Abraham Lincoln got into a debate with a Mormon over the issue of polygamy. Finally the Mormon said, “But can you cite any Scripture which expressly forbids polygamy?” Lincoln replied, “Certainly! ‘No man can serve two masters’!”
Are you sure about that? My understanding of the situation was that, upon the mass emigration of Sephardim from Arab Lands to Israel in 1949, the Sephardic Rabbis agreed to bind their communities to Rabbeinu Gershom’s ban. Existing polygamous marriages were “grandfathered in”, but I don’t think any communities still exist where polygamy has official Rabbinic sanction.
At least legal recognition (or intervention), I agree, I don’t think it should be the purview of the government. Leave marriage to the churches.
The OP didn’t ask for non-religious objections to the government’s recognition of polygamy. The problem is the government prohibition against such living arrangements, which creates equal protection problems.
I find it interesting that you still refer to male-female marriages as monogamous, even if you don’t require sexual exclusivity. Seems to me that by denying a mistress equal legal status to a wife, you further the partriarchial system that creates inequities for women.
Now let’s hit a couple of quick points…
Which, as I support above, is an artifact of edicts by the Pope, but otherwise spans across many ancient western cultures.
And as I also stated, even where polygamy is accepted/tolerated, it isn’t common. As for evidence of polygamy being accepted in early Christian society, please note that many priests often had multiple wives (prior to about 300 AD, when ascetism came to vogue). In 726 AD, Pope Gregory II said, “when a man has a sick wife who cannot discharge the marital function, he may take a second one, provided he looks after the first one.”
Good question, let’s review:
So I understood you to argue that since polygamy was successfully suppressed, the monogamous (sic) model of marriage is very well suited to western society, and this was somehow “true”. Your argument is based on nothing more than tradition. I’m sure such arguments were made against Gallileo (and against giving women the vote, and supporting slavery, etc).
I will agree with the statement that social institutions do not generally survive unless they meet the practical needs of society. And every social change is an indication of a failure of the previous institution to address those needs. And I posit our society’s lack of acceptance of polygamous (or polyamorous) unions reflects such a failure.
I won’t argue that polygamy, or polyamory, should be encouraged by the government. I would argue that accepting polygamous-style unions (whether legally recognized as marriage or not) is in the best interest of society. And I limit my argument to those unions composed of mutually consenting adults.
But this thread isn’t for me to lay out those arguments. It is for those that believe such non-religious arguments exist to state and defend them (heck, I’d like to see religious arguments too, but alas, that is also for another thread).
Uh, no. Polygamy can and does exist with women having full rights. For a current example of such a model, see Africa.
So your argument is that because traditional marriages often have “horrible” endings, then polygamous unions should not have the right to exist?
You mean Africa, the continent? Home to a large number of different nations and an even larger number of different ethnic groups with their own customs? Africa is not a monolithic culture and it is insulting to talk about it like it is. Would it have been so difficult for you to at least type out “South Africa”?
That said, I just read the article and I do not think there is enough information presented to tell if women in polygamous marriages in South Africa now have what I would consider “full rights”. They may have the same right to divorce as women in civil marriages in South Africa (is this the same as the right to divorce that an American or British woman might have? is it equal to the right to divorce that a South African man might have?), and it says they may “oppose polygamous marriages if they chose to” (whatever that means), but it is not at all clear that all women in polygamous marriage are fully consenting adults. It also does not say anything on the subject of women taking multiple husbands. If men can have mutiple wives but women cannot have multiple husbands, that’s not full rights for women.
If people want to see legalization of polygamous marriages in the US, they’re first going to have to explain how these marriages will work in practice. What specific rights, benefits, and responsibilties with regard to each other and any potential offspring should the parties involved have? You can dance around it all you like, but there’s no way there’s going to be a law passed in favor of something if no one will say what it is first!
How does the government prohibit polygamous living arrangements?
More generally, as I understand polygamy, it’s not just people having multiple sexual partners (polyamory). It’s multiple marriages; it involves legal and other social recognition of the polyamory relationships; it involves those relationships having consequences other than for the people involved. That’s how I undetstand the OP.
But, conversely, by denying a woman the opportunity to enter into a exclusive union with a man, you further the partriarchial system that creates inequities for women. Let’s face it, the societies which practice polygamy aren’t noted for their theoretical or practical commitment to equal status for women, are they?
Not quite. I would argue that, since polygamy was successfully suppressed for so long, the monogamous model was (not “is”) suited to western society. I’m willing to be persuaded that it no longer is, but I have to be persuaded. I don’t make any statement about “truth”; it was you who introduced that concept, but I don’t think it’s a helpful or relevant one.
No. It’s based on experience. The experience of monogamy has met the needs of western society. It’s certainly open to you to argue that it no longer does, as I’ve said before, but I await your argument. Alternatively you could argue that, experience and practicality aside, moral or ethical reasons require us to accept polygamy, and my sense is that you’d prefer to make that argument. Am I right?
I’m not sure that anybody argued tradition against Galileo; I rather think they relied on scripture. Tradition certainly was argued against women’s suffrage and against the emancipation of slaves; we of course accept that those arguments were unfounded. It doesn’t follow, however, that all arguments based on tradition or experience are unfounded.
I’m not following you here; can you set your argument out in a little more detail? In your second sentence you say that social change demonstrates the failure of the preceding social institution. In your third sentence you seem to say that our non-acceptance of polygamy (i.e. the fact that we haven’t changed) reflects the failure of a social institution. Is there a contradiction there?
Hmm. If you’re not looking for legal recognition, what kind of acceptance are you advocating for polygamous unions? A general social tolerance, or something more?
If you think that the African model of polygamy involves full rights for women, think again. Where a man has the right to take more than one wife but a woman does not have the right to take more than one husband, how can you possibly regard that as “full rights for women”?
Well? Isn’t that why the institution of marriage exists? That is, the reason why it was invented in most civilizations: Marriage creates a legal distinction between a man’s lawful children by his wife or wives, who have a right to inherit his estate; and his bastards by mistresses or one-night-stands, who have no right to inherit. This makes the bride’s family feel better about handing her over to this man for keeps; they know she, and her children, have some legal protections, and will not have to share their wealth with the offspring of the groom’s inevitable extramarital fun and games. (Bastards are no longer subject to such disabilities in most modern societies – but we still have the concept of bastardy, in culture and in law.) I can’t find any cites for this right now, but it’s something I remember reading in more than one place.
All this goes back, of course, to times and places when a woman really needed to be supported by her family or her man; she had almost no prospects of earning her own living independently, except as a whore. I think the main reason Jesus spoke out against divorce was that he considered it cruel to women: In the Judea of his time, a Jewish man could divorce his wife for grounds ranging from adultery to bad cooking, and that effectively ended her prospects in life; what other man would want her? If her own family wouldn’t take her back, she could become a whore, or sell herself into slavery, or starve.
We live now in a society where a woman’s economic prospects are much better – but still generally inferior to a man’s. And in practical terms, mothers still bear more childrearing responsibilities than fathers – the sexual revolution and the feminist revolution have not changed that and might never change it. Nowadays the law does require a man to support his bastards, where his paternity can be proven – but even so, his (non-cohabitant) mistress and her bastards still get a raw deal, compared to his wife and her children.
Which relates, indirectly, to the OP: If we’re going to make fundamental changes in the institution of marriage as we are accustomed to it – e.g., by making it polygamous – then we need to start by rethinking the economic purposes and functions of marriage. Does a society that strives for total sexual equality, but hasn’t gotten there yet and might never get there, need the institution of marriage to protect the economic security of mothers and their children? Assume that we do. Then, if a man can have two wives, they must share in his economic resources equally – which both of them might resent. But if he can have only one wife, and if we take the idea of equality far enough to give his mistress equal status with his wife in her economic claims – then why should a woman marry him in the first place? It provides her with no guarantees. But if a mistress does not have claims equal to a wife’s – well, we know all about the results of that state of affairs [rimshot], because it’s what we’ve got now.
None of this, by the way, relates to the question of whether we should recognize gay marriage, monogamous or polygamous – simply because gay people almost never produce children unless they make elaborate plans for the purpose. Casual bastardy is not a problem for them.
I can’t say that it’s the most common case among folks I know, but that’s because the most common case is that people don’t talk about what turns 'em on in that context. It’s common among the folks who do talk about such things.