What's Wrong With Polygamy
Personally, I'm in favor of marriage. The public declaration of fealty steers the focus of any marital problems onto resolution rather than dissolution. However, I don't think the question should be, "Should gay couples be allowed to marry?". It should be, "Why is the government involved, AT ALL, in how people wish to structure their households?".
We should be relying on government for assistance in enforcing contracts. But how these contracts are structured should be entirely up to the people involved. This, of course, includes people who wish to structure their households around participation by more than two individuals.
I guess there needs to be a set of default contracts (to protect children and establish ownership of chattels, etc.) which are deemed to be in effect when people share a household; but, other than that, the government should have no role.
I know that polygamy facilitates some injustices that never occur in "traditional" marriages <joke>, but is polygamy sufficiently evil by its nature to require the government to ban it?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Lucius Scribbens on -
My reply was to Steve. I agree with you.
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Permalink Reply by Lucius Scribbens on
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No worries. Usually I am confused. };^)~
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Permalink Reply by Steve on -
I know about polyamory. But it's partly the traditional perception of polygamy that still exists in religious cults that prevents its acceptance. Especially when a man says he has relationships on the side. But just have certain perceptions about that stuff. Maybe less so in the case of polyandry.
And I think you'd need some kind of protection for the wives of the religious nutcases. So that the improvements for truly polyamorous and egalitarian relationships doesn't come at the cost of sanctioning the abuse that happens in patriarchal households. Abused that's largely mentally, so not really protected under the law, which rather covers physical abuse.
If the US weren't so ridiculously religious that wouldn't be a problem, but unfortunately that kind of stuff still exists - and more often than people may think.
>"Many women are just as powerless in monogamous one man/one woman marriages."
Psychologically yes, certainly. But not legally.
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Permalink Reply by Dylan Alexander Fick on -
I agree, legal nightmare. It would have to be gender unbiased and you could end up creating an endless chain of people being married to someone who is married to someone who is married to...etc. Inheritance would be a wreck. Child custody? A thick web of confusion.
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Permalink Reply by Robin on -
Our government in the USA are still under the assumption that we are still all Puritans.
What consenting adults choose to do, should never been banned by the government.
Polygamy is no different. If their marriages could be done legally, they could pay a family premium for each spouse. This way the children and spouses could be covered by insurance and not have to use medicaid.
When will the insanity end???
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Permalink Reply by oneinfinity on -
I concur.
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Permalink Reply by Jason Ward on -
Why institutionalized marriage to begin with? Why does there need to be a government sanction at all? A basic contract between partners should suffice, shouldn't it? I can't get over how disturbing that sounds, two people (or more) who wish desperately to be together not for any other reason than love must inevitably enter a contract.
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Permalink Reply by oneinfinity on
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Someone posted this link in another discussion somewhere around here and I thought you might find it interesting. I did :)
http://www.beyondmarriage.org/
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Permalink Reply by Robin on
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Thanks.. It was very interesting...
Alot of families are 3 generations. I have my mother and kids living with me. Mom's old and sick and the kids aren't ready financially to leave...It would be awesome if they recognized that in some way.
They don't even recognize that people are born gay ... They claim it's a life syle choice. Just like being an addict is a weak character flaw.
They dispute science for religion when it suits them.
Its just unbelievable... like their god
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Permalink Reply by MikeLong on -
Thanks. Yep, just what I had in mind.
Another interesting thing (sort of in reply to Steve, above), I didn't count but by way of a quick squiz I'd say that 80% of the signatories are women.
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Permalink Reply by Joreth InnKeeper on -
No, *religiously mandated polygamy* facilitates some injustices, just like *religiously mandated monogamy* does. It's the religion that's the problem here, not the multiple partnerships.
Banning polygamy is ridiculous. We already have laws against rape, against child molestation, against incest, against marriage to a minor, and against abuse. These are the problems that are usually responsible for polygamy making the news. What we need is better enforcement of actual abuse, regardless of the relationship structure.
If we did not live in a society that protected religion and religious beliefs, to the point of giving them exemptions from adhering to secular laws, these kinds of abuses would not go under the radar as often as they do ... and make no mistake, these exact same abuses happen in monogamous relationships as well, particularly those that are religiously mandated.
When you remove the special protection from religion, and you prosecute the actual abuses, then the structure of the relationship becomes irrelevant. When the participants are of sound mind and legally consenting, without the social stigma that comes with certain insular religious sects that practice certain forms of polygamy that forces people to adhere to that form of abusive and barbaric "marriage", then how many people are in the relationship is not inherently harmful any more than monogamy, with its history of arranged matches, patriarchal structures, religious pressure, and contractual obligation is "inherently" harmful.
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