I know there are defenders and advocates of polygamy on this board, so I guess this isn’t really addressed to them because they must view this as welcome progress.
Within the debate concerning civil unions and gay marriage in the US, some marriage traditionalists have argued that by re-defining marriage to no longer mean the union of one man and one woman, we are initiating a process to strip it of all meaning altogether. If it doesn’t have to be a “man” and a “woman”, why does it have to be “one” and “one?” Pretty soon, it was argued, we would be recognizing polygamous civil unions, then… incestuous civil unions? unions with minors? or animals? where would society draw the line?
This “slippery slope” argument was pooh-poohed by proponents of civil unions, but now in the Netherlands we already see civil unions of mulitple partners (which the participants refer to as a marriage) taking place. How long before we see this in the US? Could three people bring suit against Vermont or Connecticut or another civil union state because the state is violating their rights by refusing to recognize their three-way union?
I want to make it clear that my personal position on civil union laws is ambivalent. I really can’t get too worked up about it one way or the other. But I think that this news story is justification for the marriage traditionalists to say “See? We told you so!”
Why do people insist on hanging on to the classical/traditional definition of marriage so tightly? I just don’t see why it matters to a traditional straight married couple how two or more (unrelated) consenting adults of various gender combinations decide to define their marriage as. Marriage is a union. Just leave it at that.
Marriage is a legal contract. Other legal contracts are drawn up between three or more parties - why ought not individuals be free to enter contracts of their own devising?
Of course, some individuals (minors, animals etc.) are democratically judged not to be of appropriate cognitive function to enter any such contracts, be they regarding financial assets, sexual activity or anything else. But for consenting adults, the only problems here are those of complexity. I advocate polygamous marriages so long as all parties are assessed in order to establish that they understand the contract they are entering, that they are truly “consenting”, and that they all agree on the IF-THEN consequences of any party breaching any part of the contract.
I guess I kind of skipped ahead a bit. Since we are mostly talking about governments which are elected through a democratic process by the people, it’s the people’s wishes that they express and it’s often the majority opinion of the constituents that marriage remain classified as a traditional union of a man and a woman. Given that sufficiend laws exist against marriage to (of) minors and between close family members (though I’m still unsure that’s all that bad…), I think laws preventing marital unions between various combinations of consenting adults are a bit outdated.
There is something to be said about the social counter argument that widespread polygamy of a one man/multiple wives variety may be bad for society because it may leave some men out of the genetic pool. Robert Wright makes this argument. I’m just not convinced that this will become a real issue globally.
Well, those social consequences already exist in that there are lots of guys who can’t get laid. And the ‘genetic pool’ argument is surely for polygyny (but perhaps not polyandry) in that the most successful males gets to breed more, at the expense of the mediocre who must rely on polygamy being outlawed?
Morally, I have no problem whatever with legal threesomes. If all parties involved are consenting, who’s to say nay? The problem with the slippery-slope argument is that you select a completely arbitrary falling-off point. After all, you could argue that traditional marriage (one man, one woman) was the beginning of the slippery slope, taking us away from the Godly ideal of celibacy.
But Sentient has a good point here. Contractually, three is a lot tougher than two, particularly if there are kids and property involved. I know laywers and the law deal with hellishly complicated contract issues all the time, but they’re drawing on an established legal framework. Something similar would need to be in place – I would think – before plural marriages (is that the right term?) become permitted.
The Netherlands case appears to have used the phrase “civil union”, not the word marriage. Marriage is usually defined in English dictionaries as a union of a man and a woman, so in that sense, “marriage it ain’t.”
I think there would have to be a point where - in the process of changing the details of how the thing works - you stopped calling it marriage, otherwise the term would become meaningless, because it could include everything
Except it is clear in the article that the participants, if not the state, consider it a “marriage.”
Traditionally marriage has been a life-long union of a man and a woman. We’ve already jettisoned the “life-long” stipulation by removing the stigma from divorce, we’re getting rid of the man/woman stipulation, and here we see the first steps toward including more than two individuals. What’s left that gives the word “marriage” any meaning at all?
Let’s say you have a civil union of four people all of the same sex. No skin off my nose, says I, but it should not be confused with marriage. How exactly is this really anything like a marriage, as traditionally understood?
AFIAK in the Netherlands, only two people can marry, regardless of sex (since 2001). Civil unions (lit. “living-together contracts”), are regarded as regular contracts, and can be entered by any number of people. cite (Dutch)
So if I love my car and want to live with it forever, could I form a civil union with it? If so, could I get medical benefits for it as maintenance and repair?
How about the joining together of persons who love and support one another as a family and who become the closest kin to each other through a social contract?
At this point, I’m coming to the opinion that the government should just get out of marriage altogether. Let everybody have civil unions with the same degree of legal recognition, and they can call them whatever they choose.
So what? People will play ‘gotcha’ with any news story. The questions are, I think: does it matter?, is this an inevitable consequence of civil unions?, and is this something people should worry about?
I think if you check out the accepted conventions in many other parts of the world, you will find many millions of people who disagree with you. They will probably be not only mystified by your attitude, but somewhat annoyed by your implication that since their societies have been practicing polygamy for hundreds or thousands of years, they are all bastards unto the nth generation.
In related news, the entire population of the world do not subscribe to the exact same viewpoint on cultural matters :eek: more at eleven.
As noted above, contracts can only be entered in by adults.