Dunno.
Please cite the actual cases of people requesting general legal recognition of consanguineous and plural marriage, and we can look at the arguments they themselves are presenting in favor.
Then, and ONLY then, we will be able to evaluate whether it boils down to an issue of “all marriages between (or among) consenting adults should receive legal recognition” and consider that question.
Their arguments will be simple and predictable. They are in love, and they want and expect all the rights and privileges the marital contract entitles any other couple of competent adults. Govt has no compelling interest in denying access to the contract between two or more independent and competent parties. Being ‘icked out’ by the sex and relationship just does not suffice. Govt is obliged to show why not .
For parent-child relationships, there’s a clear state interest: allowing such marriages will give certain horrible parents a reason to engage in some pretty horrifying grooming of their kids. For non-twin sibling relationships, there’s a lesser but similar danger of the older child grooming the younger. In both cases, there’s a totally legitimate state interest in curtailing such relationships, an interest that has nothing to do with ickiness.
Not sure why. Living together, sure, but that’s pretty uncommon. Spending all their vacations together? I spent all my vacations with the exact same group of (unrelated to me) kids until age 13, and I was certainly considering the female members of this group as perfectly valid partners after this age. I’m not sure how them being cousins would have changed anything (but then, I have no first cousin my age).
I always considered first cousins perfectly fair game. I was really surprised after joining this board, to see that Americans universally perceived such a relationship as being skeevy. Quite recently, I discovered in a pool that a non neglectible part of the French population (say 1/3, I don’t remember the numbers at all) had the same feeling. I’m still not sure why.
Again, it’s well known that kids raised together tend to not have any sexual attraction to each other, and being siblings create a peculiar dynamic, so I can understand how incest between siblings can be perceived as repulsive, but first cousins not raised together? No, I can’t see why a hot first cousin I see during vacations would become less attractive than a hot neighbour’s daughter I see during vacations.
And since I don’t have a sister, nor any child, I’m not even skeeved, in fact, by the idea of siblings having sex.
Not the same thing. Let’s assume two elderly celibate brothers lving together for mutual support. Despite not having any incestuous reltionship, they certainly would have many practical interests in benefitting from the privileges granted by marriage that don’t exist for mere siblings.
This is the best argument so far, but when do we actually assume that the adults have put away childish things. Is this argument as valid at the age of 40 as it is at 18?
I don’t think it is. I’m not sure where the cutoff is. This is probably best put to the legislature, in the same way that other age- and maturity-related matters are.
Sorry, I’m not satisfied with predictions, so the predictability of any putative arguments is not relevant. I am demanding cites that such activists actually exist in real life and we are not just theorizing about unicorns.
If you’re so certain that those privileges exist, I’m certain you’ll be happy to tell us what they are.
I missed the edit window:
While you’re at it, I would be much obliged if you would produce the celibate elderly gentlemen in question (not a demand this time, merely a request).
I really need to? Not being expelled from the appartment unpon the death of the sibling who signed the lease was in fact the first one I had in mind, because it’s a common issue (at least over here, your laws may vary). If the house is instead owned rather than rented, reduced (probably even non-existent) inheritance tax, again allowing the survivor to stay in the house rather than having to sell it to pay the taxes. And even if staying in the house isn’t an issue, it’s always advantageous to pay less taxes, isn’t it? Reduced income taxes too if there’s a significant income difference. The ability for either to make decisions on behalf of the other, medical decisions, custody in case either would become incapacited without having to resort to a family council, a court decision, or whatever that could result in guardianship being granted to, say, some institution rather than the other brother. Survivor benefits (surviving sibling/spouse getting part of the deceased retirement benefits, especially important again if there’s a significant income difference. Not sure it exists in your country, but it does over here).
OK, I support SSM but am opposed to state recognition of polygamous marriages.
My reasoning is this: we all deserve at least a fair chance at happiness in a long-term romantic and sexual relationship. Most of us will find that, some of us won’t. But we’ll at least have the same chance as anyone else.
Polygamy has the potential of being a game-changer in that regard, especially in a time of great inequality with respect to wealth and income. If some men are wealthy and many men can’t find work, then the wealthy men (and it’s more likely to be a guy thing, both because men still dominate the ranks of the wealthy, and because that sort of behavior is more of a guy thing) might well collect wives the way they collect other valuable things. And at the bottom of the income distribution, you’d have too many men chasing too few women.
To a certain extent I’m sure that happens anyway. But the fact that marriages are legally between just two people keeps it in check.
Well, that’s an interesting argument. I’m not sure what the logical conclusion is though. Do you favor eliminating the bans on incest or continuing the bans on SSM? Or are we in general agreement, but you just don’t support my reasoning?
In any case, I’m still sticking with it. Banning incest is a small curtailment on personal liberty, and it there is factual justification for it. Banning interracial marriage would be a large curtailment on personal liberty, and so would need a correspondingly larger factual justification, but it has none whatsoever. Banning SSM marriage, even in the weird hypothetical case where all homosexuals were actually bisexual, would be as big a burden as a ban on interracial marriages, and also would not carry any justification.
I favor eliminating the bans on SSM. I am not opposed to eliminating the bans on incest, but I find that it, probably for the reason you point out—that it’s a pretty small burden—not particularly important to me. I don’t have any justification for opposing it, so I don’t oppose it, but I don’t find that I really care very much. If it were never legalized, I wouldn’t think “What a great injustice.” I think iiandyiiii’s point about needing to see the faces/hear the stories is not true for me to accept something as unjust in theory, but it is true for me to accept that something must be done because of its major impact.
Yeah, I have the sense that the legal ramifications of next-of-kinship in our two countries are sufficiently different that my challenge to your assertion is not useful. Consider it withdrawn.
I really need to add a disclaimer to any post I make. “Warning: This poster is a married, white, middle-class professional from Connecticut. All opinions expressed tend to presume that this baseline represents the normal situation.”
I find this reasoning factually mistaken, sexist, and anti-freedom.
First, in order for this to be a problem, there needs to be a large contingent of women out there who really want to be one of multiple wives to a rich dude–a large enough contingent that it’d skew society the way you suggest. I see no evidence at all that this contingent of women exists. Factually mistaken.
Second, sexist: it both imputes ugly motives to women (they’re looking for a sugar daddy!) and ignores the equivalent ugly motives that you can stereotype men with (they’re looking for a hottie!) Wouldn’t an equal problem be that hot women would have a harem of men, and less stereotypically attractive women would have trouble finding dates? The ugly suggestions about how you think about women, coupled with the lack of equivalent ugly thoughts about men, is sexist.
Third, it’s anti-freedom. Let’s stipulate points one and two: there really is a significant group of women who just want to be part of a rich dude’s harem, and there really isn’t an equivalent group of dudes who want to be part of a hot woman’s harem. Who the hell are you to tell those women that they can’t do the thing they want, that they have to marry a poor guy instead?
There may be reasonable objections to polygamy, but this category of objection–concern that working-class stiffs can’t get laid–is not among them.