How is my argument similar to the one against SSM? Unless we wish to force naturally gay people into marriages and parenthood, they may or may not take themselves out of the gene pool. Plus, today there is ample opportunity for them to bear or father children.
The subject under discussion is whether there is a rational basis for banning polygamy. I think the argument that laws governing it would be just too darned hard to write is a non-starter. Genetic diversity seems to be at least a somewhat rational argument. And we’re not talking about the people in polygamous marriages, we are talking about those who would lose access to members of the opposite sex because they have been “acquired” by the rich. To be crass, it is a simple matter of asset allocation. If there is a limited amount of a resource, letting those with more money acquire lots of it freezes out those with less money. Simple economics.
Good point. Women past child bearing years might acquire multiple husbands, though. Which would lock them out of the gene pool, at least for a while. I wonder if there ever has been a culture allowing women to have multiple husbands.
Yeah, that’s the point. I was trying to give a rational argument against polygamy, not having to do with either difficulty or religion.
ETA: Now, the hero sneaking into the seraglio meme shows that women in this kind of relationship might wind up impregnated by someone other than their husbands, which would improve the situation a bit, but I think it would be a bit tough to argue that polygamy is okay because it would increase the incidence of adultery.
Indeterminate. Psychologists have devised a theoretically sound test, but using it would be a serious felony in every jurisdiction in the Western Hemisphere except Haiti (where researchers are bound to run into other problems).
It won’t happen often enough to matter is a decent counter-argument. It would be interesting to see a survey about it. I do think that in the current climate it would happen less often than say 60 years ago, since a woman in a polygamous relationship is in someway unequal to the man, and this is increasingly socially unacceptable.
The government is quite happy to make things more complex in areas having nothing to do with morality, so I don’t buy this one.
Even if allowing SSM required the rewriting of laws, banning it would still be wrong for exactly the reason you give - there seems to be no argument against it not involving religion or lack of comfort. The health care bill was complex also - is that a reason not to pass it?
Forget about polygamy for a second. An unmarried person has 3 children. Who is the next-of-kin? Who gets to make medical decisions if parent is in a coma? The law has already taken these situations into account. What is the difference between this situation and a person with 3 spouses?
Community property: You get (1/n) of the money while you are married. So man marries Ann in 2000, Betty in 2005 and Cheryl in 2008. Ann files for divorce in 2010. She is entitled to one-half of the assets (2000-2005), one-third of the assets (2005-2008) and one-fourth of the assets (2008-2010). But wait Cad! With 4 people now involve in the assets, it’s too complicated. Anyone who has been through a divorce as party, attorney or judge where the two cannot agree on how to divide up the assets can tell you this shit already happens when only 2 people are involved and that there are procedures in place the court will implement.
The kids in a divorce: A man has a child from a previous marriage. He remarries and they have a kid. They divorce. Does the kid go with mom because of the advantages women have in custody battles or the dad to keep the family together. AGAIN these are issues that the legal system today already deals with. Polygamy adds nothing to the complication.
The one area I see a legal problem (though easily dealt with through legislation) is in event of divorce or death, would the spouses still be married to each other? Clearly if a man had three wives and one of the wives files for divorce or dies, yes. But what if the man divorces all three or dies. Are the sister-wives still married to each other?
The government, or the people via direct propostions is perfectly capable of making poly marriage legal. It can make things as complicated as it desires, it is not Constitutionally required to do so in all cases.
Look, all of these things are solvable. I am not arguing otherwise. I am just saying that it would be more difficult. Additional laws, regulations, and court resources would be required. If enough people want it to happen it can and will. But I contend that courts will not force the state to act because that difficulty raises a rational basis to limit it.
Think about this, the person who inspired this thread, CitizenPained, has outlined how she thinks legal poly relationships should work. You have outlined another. I have brought up situations that fall outside of both. All of these things would need to be worked out. The more inclusive you get the more complicate it gets. Should poly marriages be considered one unit, or one person be married to two others who are not married to each other?
Rational basis is not a high bar. The reason is real. It is not onerous, it could be solved, but it doesn’t have to be.
I’ve worked on software for problems a lot more complicated than this. I think you underestimate the cleverness of lawyers - not to mention that corporate mergers/divestitures are many times more complicated than this could ever be.
Though I’m mostly in favor of married people having shared bank accounts and assets, I might change my mind in this situation. Community properly scales easily, as you said. Now, if there are negotiations involved, sure it gets more complicated - but so what? Plus there are always pre-nups, even more useful in this kind of situation.
Uh - yes, the two person situation is no more complicated than the > 2 person situation. Your point?
I don’t think marriage is necessarily transitive - A M B, A M C does not imply B M C. So no. Unless there is also SSM, in which case B and C can independently marry each other.
Anyhow, all of this has been figured out years ago by that great legal scholar Spike Jones.
Now, I must go away somewhere and figure this thing out.
I was speaking of SSM there. I think there is a basis for saying laws banning SSM are unconstitutional, due to equal protection. I don’t see that for polygamy, unless there is an innate drive for polygamy in the same sense as people being born of various sexual orientations. I doubt this myself.
As for complexity, unless you are of the Cain “any bill over 3 pages long is too complicated and shouldn’t be passed” variety I don’t see complexity as a good reason against polygamy. It could be applied to lots of other laws also if it worked here.
I don’t think we are are necessarily disagreeing here. Neither of believe that poly marriage seekers are a protected class.
I think I have said repeatedly that poly marriages could by allowed if the legislature and/people wanted it. That is not the question in this debate. The question if not allowing it meets the rational basis bar. As I understand it, it does. If poly marriages need on average 1.1x the court resources couple marriages do, that is a rational basis. If one page of additional regulations are required (as opposed to changing one word) that is a rational basis. And that is why I think poly marriage will not be allowed by court action unless those desiring it are found to be a protected class.
Saying, ‘oh, it would be too hard to change the laws’ is not a valid argument. I feel that the abolition of slavery, changes in family law concerning women, changes in law regarding same sex couples and parenting, and so forth and so on have proved that.
Hahah! Seriously, though, I’m not so inclined to believe that people are absolutely born gay. At least not for women. Too many social and behavioral aspects mark lesbians different from gay men.
Regardless, we’re not born to be monogamous.
I guess it all boils down to our definition of rational. I was coming from the angle of, if for some reason lots of people wanted to legalize polygamous marriage, what reasonable arguments could I make against it - realizing that the reasons for might outweigh the reasons against. I’d personally feel comfortable with the diversity argument, but not with the complexity argument. I haven’t heard of any others.
However, throughout history many, many gay people were compelled to act on their feelings at great personal risk. While even more showed themselves not to be monogamous by having affairs, very few set up multiple partner households. It is far from clear to me that men with mistresses would even want to turn the relationship into a polygamous marriage. So, the drive to not be monogamous argues against laws banning adultery, which makes sense to me.
Well, without the risk of an inconvenient pregnancy, either of the husband’s mistress or of the wife by her lover, I can see why homosexual marriages need not be as uptight about monogamy.
Big deal.
Any real difficulty at all is enough to meet the rational basis test. I will repeat again: I am not saying that we could not legislate a legal status for multiple marriages. I am saying that unless those seeking poly marriage get defined as a protected class (like racial minorities and women) then the courts will not mandate it.
And SSM and SS adoption bans seem to fail the rational basis test. They cannot cite extra complexity because the laws banning them were actually adding complexity. Poly marriages put an additional burden on the courts and legislature. The burden is not insurmountable, but it does not need to be for a rational basis.
Am I being unclear? My position is not poly marriages should be illegal. Let me be absolutely clear:
I am not debating whether or not poly marriages should be legal. I don’t care. If you can get a law passed allowing them I will applaud.
I think some proponents under estimate the challenges and effects, but that is not a good reason to make it illegal.
BUT, and this is a big but, none of that has any bearing on the topic raised in the OP. That topic is if the policy and statutes limiting marriage to two persons will pass rational basis scrutiny:
The purpose of this debate was to show that poly marriage is not in the same judicial situation as SSM. Prop 8 was overturned for failing to meet the requirements of rational basis. I do not believe the same is true for the ban on poly marriages.