# 'Slippery slope' steepens: Netherlands registers civil union of three people **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 30, 2005, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189 "2005-09-30T13:04:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/21 "2005-09-30T17:03:46Z")
I can’t say it better then others on this thread, but first I need to know something. Anyone who claims that people should be allowed to marry their car, do you have sex with said car? Oh, and I want to say “Hurrah” to the thought of a (bald) man being married to not one, but TWO chicks. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/22 "2005-09-30T17:28:20Z")
_sigh_ I wonder if a moderator would be kind enough to fix my thread title, so that people don’t come into the thread thinking that it is a debate about comforable leisure footwear? ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/23 "2005-09-30T17:37:01Z")
I’m no expert, but I was of the belief that what these people have is a **more** traditional form of marriage, monogamy (as a normative characteristic of marriage) being a mere 2000 year or so novelty. If monogamy is actually defenitional to marriage, were Abraham, Moses, and Solomon (as described in the Bible, not looking for debates on historicity) not married? Perhaps we should recognize two categories of marriage, “modern,” i.e., monogomous, and “traditional,” i.e., polygamous. What would the family values crowd think of that? ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/24 "2005-09-30T17:40:34Z")
**Scott** , that is a complete red herring. Would it matter if the answer is yes? This is the Internet! Do a search. ( **I’m** not about to!) Do you really think there’s **anything** someone out there isn’t having sex with? ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/25 "2005-09-30T17:41:35Z")
Now _that’s_ a divorce trial I would be fascinated to see. No moral qualms here (and I don’t think they’re relevant even if I had them, as it’s none of my fucking business who wants to shack up with who). But not for me, thanks. Legally, this looks like “angels fear to tread” territory, and, humans being what they are, a small harem looks like a tough arrangement to sustain healthily in a Western culture…even in the “free wheeling” Netherlands. Best of luck to 'em, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/26 "2005-09-30T17:55:58Z")
> [@Scott Plaid](#): > > Anyone who claims that people should be allowed to marry their car, do you have sex with said car? Just a hypothetical situation to see how far down the slippery slope goes. Not that far, apparently. I am wondering, though, about other odd combinations–can corporations, in effect, sign contracts, or is it always, legally, a person signing for the corporation? Are there any instances where something not-human can sign a contract, or have a contract signed for it (I’m thinking of those rare, extreme instances–say, somebody leaves ten million dollars to her cat, and appoints a legal guardian for said cat…)? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/27 "2005-09-30T17:57:59Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > _sigh_ I wonder if a moderator would be kind enough to fix my thread title, so that people don’t come into the thread thinking that it is a debate about comforable leisure footwear? Especially since we’re talking about the homeland of wooden clogs. ---
**Author:** ![Lilairen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lilairen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lilairen)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/28 "2005-09-30T18:00:58Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > 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? The easy and obvious retaining wall is, of course, “Able to enter into a legally binding contract”. Anything that ignores that is, in my opinion, nothing more than fearmongering. If the slippery slope folks want to argue that some day there will be two-year-olds, dogs, and cars deemed capable of and competent to sign a contract, they will have to come up with a justification other than “but more adults get to do it now!” Adults have been marrying adults for a very long time without the standards of legal competency changing to include automobiles. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/29 "2005-09-30T18:29:33Z")
People marry their cars all the time. It’s called “holding title”. ‘Traditionally’ the wife is the property of the husband, this has changed only in the past few generations. You can get health insurance for your car it’s called “Comprehensive” coverage. The thing about a car is that it doesn’t need to legally consent to the arrangement. My wife and I recently married. A lot of people were baffled by the fact that we weren’t legally married, that we just made vows to each other in private, and that was it. We both consider it a real marriage, our life has changed as though such an event has occurred. We are going to make sure to give one another power of attorney and all that sort of thing. We can already easily argue a general partnership as far as mutual ownership of property is concerned. It amazed me that people were more concerned about the legal contractual aspect of marriage than the spiritual union. To me marriage in the legal sense is an awful thing and is a cause of so much unnecessary anguish in our society. I hate to break it to skammer, but his opinion about whether or not other people are married is utterly and wholly irrelevant. He can keep a strict definition of marriage based upon his particular bias toward the word, and it won’t affect that dutch trio at all. Why is it that this niggling little semantic issue is of such importance to so many people that millions and billions of dollars have been wasted debating it? Why has it become so publicized that it was a welcome subterfuge to the doings of the government for a good portion of the past few years? Really it doesn’t matter, incorporate. You don’t even need to get the state involved to form a general partnership. Erek ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/30 "2005-09-30T18:54:38Z")
> [@Scott Plaid](#): > > Anyone who claims that people should be allowed to marry their car, do you have sex with said car? Who says a marriage must of necessity involve sex? It’s nice, but it’s not necessary, and there are some celibate couples out there who’d be pretty pissed off to be told they aren’t actually married just because they choose not to bump uglies. If a person is paraplegic and incapable of “normal” sexual functioning, is marriage then off limits to them? Marriage is a civil contract; the government should either accept that it’s only in the business of acting as a clearinghouse for the registration and enforcement of said contracts or admit that marriage is a purely religious issue and stop issuing licenses altogether. So how exactly does the government mandating that marriage is only between one man and one woman NOT violate the separation of church and state? ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/31 "2005-09-30T19:15:04Z")
Alan: > [@](#): > > If monogamy is actually defenitional to marriage, were Abraham, Moses, and Solomon (as described in the Bible, not looking for debates on historicity) not married? Not entering the debate re: the Netherlands situation, merely clarifying the Biblical situation: Abraham and Solomon and others were married to more than one woman. However, those were not multi-party relationships, they were multiple two-party relationships, each independent of one another. Obviously, the same man was the male partner in all the relationships, but he could divorce one wife without affecting his legal relationship with the other wives. There is no Biblical precedent for any form of three-party marriage, in which the relationship binds three people, and its dissolution frees three people. (I’m assuming that that’s the nature of this 3-way civil union the OP refers to.) BTW, Moses only had one wife. I got the gist of your statement despite the bad example, so maybe I shouldn’t nitpick, but I’m just doing that ignorance-eradication thing the Straight Dope is intended for. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/32 "2005-09-30T19:23:47Z")
The slippery slope started with the legalization or inter-racial marriage. BTW: that is irony for the humor impaired. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/33 "2005-09-30T19:44:10Z")
The slippery slope started with the legalization or inter-racial marriage. BTW: that is irony for the humor impaired. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/34 "2005-09-30T20:43:47Z")
> [@slaphead](#): > > Oh really? > > 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. Where are these places where millions of people believe that a three-person union constitutes a “marriage”? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/35 "2005-09-30T20:52:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Why is it that this niggling little semantic issue is of such importance to so many people that millions and billions of dollars have been wasted debating it? Why has it become so publicized that it was a welcome subterfuge to the doings of the government for a good portion of the past few years? Because the legal aspect affects the distribution of property, the assessment of taxes, the custody of the children, and a host of other issues that are real while the couple (trio, whatever) remain in love and together but become _crucial_ when one or more decide that the love has gone and they wish to follow it out the door. People do not seek laws because they love lawyers, they seek laws because they need a better way to resolve disputes than bashing each other. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/36 "2005-09-30T21:26:20Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > Where are these places where millions of people believe that a three-person union constitutes a “marriage”? You have changed **slaphead** ’s language, here. He responded to **Debaser** ’s comment that three people who wanted to live in harmony was not a marriage. In fact, without resorting to the Dutch “union” of the OP, millions of people in Muslim and Animist nations of southern Asia and Africa do recognize polygyny, which qualifies as three (or more) people attempting to live in harmony, recognized as marriage. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/37 "2005-09-30T21:31:12Z")
> [@Alan Smithee](#): > > **Scott** , that is a complete red herring. Would it matter if the answer is yes? This is the Internet! Do a search. Search term=autoeroticism. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/38 "2005-09-30T21:54:41Z")
> [@Alan Smithee](#): > > I’m no expert, but I was of the belief that what these people have is a **more** traditional form of marriage, monogamy (as a normative characteristic of marriage) being a mere 2000 year or so novelty. If monogamy is actually defenitional to marriage, were Abraham, Moses, and Solomon (as described in the Bible, not looking for debates on historicity) not married? > > Perhaps we should recognize two categories of marriage, “modern,” i.e., monogomous, and “traditional,” i.e., polygamous. What would the family values crowd think of that? It should be noted, here, that monogamy is neither merely 2000 years old nor is it the creation of Christianity. In fact, Judaism, from which Christianity sprang, recognizes polygyny while the Greek and Roman societies into which Christianity spread recognized only monogamy, so there is at least the possibility that Christianity adopted monogamy from the _secular_ societies in which it grew rather than enforcing a _religious_ idea on the people it converted. (The references in 1 Timothy 3 that bishops and deacons should be the husbands of “only one wife,” while often interpreted to mean that divorcers and widowers should not remarry could easily mean that polygyny was accepted among the people, but that the leaders should remain monogamous.) ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/39 "2005-09-30T21:58:35Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > Where are these places where millions of people believe that a three-person union constitutes a “marriage”? The Middle-East ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189/40 "2005-09-30T22:27:33Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > Where are these places where millions of people believe that a three-person union constitutes a “marriage”? The Middle-East, Africa, Asia. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slippery-slope-steepens-netherlands-registers-civil-union-of-three-people/324189.md?page=3)