But the OP asks for objections. How can we object (or, for that matter, support) “American” polygamous marriage if we don’t know what it is?
It must be different, if only because “traditional” marriage is mutually exclusive, and the law recognised and enforces that. Plainly, the law is going to have to treat polygamous marriages differently.
If it’s not for this thread, it’s an essential precursor to this thread. How can we object to polygamous marriage if we don’t know what kind of an institution it is?
Pardon my ignorance; I’m not American. Some states have laws prohibiting cohabitation? I’m appalled! You guys should move to some place where human rights are protected!
As for laws dealing with adultery, the only ones I’m aware of – happy to be corrected, of course – are incidents of the laws of marriage, e.g. laws which make adultery a matrimonial wrong, entitling the “wronged” spouse to seek a divorce (in jurisdictions where divorce is fault-based). Plainly, such laws don’t deter polygamous relationships where all the parties consent. Are there other laws on adultery?
The laws on bigamy, as I understand it – and again I’m happy to be corrected – have nothing to do with “familial structures”. They penalise people who go through a second marriage ceremony while a first marriage subsists. But I don’t think there’s any penalty for establishing a second, or extended, or multiple-partner family, is there?
I accept I used the term wrongly, and in fact I spotted that shortly after pressing “submit”. Damn!
You mean the consequences of marriage for person other than the spouses? Eeryone else is required to accept that the spouses are married and this has lots of consequences, major and minor. To take a few at random, the hospital is required to accept that Mrs A is Mr A’s next of kin, and accordingly defer to her wishes rather than the wishes of Mr A’s parents or siblings where the wishes of the next of kin are relevant. Ms B, who passionately loves Mr A, is unable to marry him while that marriage subsists. Mr C. who loves Mrs A, is similarly affected. In the event of a dispute between the As, courts must recognise the relationship between them and (among other things) consider awarding maintenance to Mrs A. Mrs A may get legal aid in this endeavour, so affecting taxpayers. Mrs A’s children are entitled to have it presumed that Mr A is their father, unless the contrary is shown, and to assert their rights against him and, on his death, against his estate; they are not put to the burden of proving paternity. This obviously affects not just Mr A’s children, but those who would inherit his estate if he didn’t have any children (or if paternity was required to be proved and couldn’t be). Similarly Mrs A’s inheritance rights affect those who would inherit if Mr A were unmarried. I could go on.
The point about these is that they largely depend on Mrs A being the only person who is Mr A’s spouse. If Mrs A has three husbands, there can be no presumption that any one of them is the father of her children. If Mr A has two wives, who is the next of kin so far as next of kin decisions are concerned? Mrs A’s right to maintenance must be affected if Mr A has a parallel obligation to maintain other wives (and if she has a parallel right to be maintained by other husbands). And so forth.
I’m not saying these issues can’t be addressed, but we need to know how. As I understand it, most societies which practice polygamy have the concept of a senior spouse and position, whose rights are different in nature from the rights and positions of secondary spouses, with consequent implications for the rights and status of the children of the different spouses. Is there any functioning example where this is not the case, or do we have to build one from the ground up?
Indeed they are. Polygamy is legal. Mrs A marries Mr A. What assurance does she have that Mr A will not subsequently marry someone else? This is not an exclusive relationship.
Again, you’ll have to excuse my ignorance as a non-American. What makes you believe that most people interested in practicing polygamy in the US fully respect the rights of women? How can you form this view if they haven’t articulated their vision of how polygamy would work?
I’m afraid I didn’t make myself clear. I think you are contradicting yourself. Look at these two statements from your earlier post.
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.
The first statement is that a change in a social institution indicates the failure of the institution. The second is that the fact that we *haven’t * changed monogamous marriage reflects the failure of monogamous marriage. The second statement doesn’t seem right on its own terms, and in any event it is directly contradicted by the first.
The new South African law referred to in the piece to which you linked relates to the legal recognition of marriages celebrated according to the customs and usages of South African indigenous communities, and since the the social rules relating to customary marriages are not written down, I haven’t been able to find a cite which states explicitly that the South African tradtional indigenous marriage customs permits polygyny but not polyandry. But the discussions of it I have found through Google all talk about it in terms of polygyny – one husband, several wives. I can’t find anything which suggests that polyandry is accommodated.
In any event, it is you who assert that the South African arrangements afford equal rights to women; surely the burden is on you here?
