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 Arcus on -
How many times must I address this..
Polygamy is the act of one person (male or female) to have multiple legal spouses. There is no direct evidence this is particularly appealing to females, thus it is historically a male dominated activity. This means the debate is, if one is to rely on evidence and not shit pulled out of one's asses, based upon the assumption that evidence usually correspond with real world facts.
One of the reasons for this is because in the last few hundred years, more males die young than females. Especially in societies where many males are killed in wars and by diseases.
-Russia gender balance today is ~0.85 men per women, what will that do to women do you believe?
-France lost millions of men in the Napoleonic/Prussian/World wars, what did that do to French male sexual behavior?
-The US lost a lot of men pretty close to the time of the foundation of Mormonism - HUGE historical coincidence.
Outside these societies, such as in most of the Western world, it is not considered normal. The reason is because there exists approximately 1 man per woman and vice versa, and considering approx 5% homosexuals on both side of the gender gap, and substantially less male willingness to participate in the activity, it does seem like a response to a society where there is a substantial numerical gender gap, This is what I call kindergarten level knowledge.
As this is your main point of contention (otherwise it would not be your first argument), then I see no reason to read the rest as it's probably based upon the same lacking ability to reason.
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Permalink Reply by Viper on -
You're kinda missing the version of polygamy that has 2 guys and 3 girls, or 2 guys and 2 girls... There are many different configurations of poly besides one person of one gender and a bunch of the other.
You're also blatantly ignoring the frequency of bi-sexuality in the general population.
So... in fact it is you who is putting up a straw man. No one here wants to become Saudi Arabia... people just want to have the freedom to arrange their relationships in whatever way they want without being told that some asshat somewhere misused the ability to have a certain type of relationship and therefore they must abide by some backwards outdated model of what historical morons thought should be a relationship.
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Permalink Reply by Arcus on
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That's not polygamy. One spouse having multiple partners involve also a power structure. It is a militaristic hierarchial system, with leader and followers, and not a matrix system. But nice try in redefining it completely and remove the discussion from what is being discussed to what you wish to discuss.
In addition, what you call polygamy sound a lot like a combined sorority-fraternity house, but why must there be legally binding contracts between people anyway?
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Permalink Reply by Eix Man on
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Your responses rock, Viper. It's a shame they're being wasted on a closed-minded wanker. I think we've been wasting our time.
If one discussant isn't even willing to read the dictionary and use the same terms that the rest of the population have agreed on, let alone look at any evidence presented, then it's not really worth having a conversation.
I think the concept of matrix marriage being a form of polygamy, and dominance heirarchies not being a necessary part of relationships is way beyond the brainpower of this one.
*shrug*
I think I'm giving up.
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Permalink Reply by Joreth InnKeeper on -
"thus it is historically a male dominated activity"
No, in societies where women DO NOT HAVE THE CHOICE, it has historically been a male dominated activity.
Here in the US, where women *do* have the choice, not only do women choose this for themselves, but more women do than men.
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Permalink Reply by Arcus on
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Yes, and in societies where women "DO NOT HAVE THE CHOICE" (remember to use inside voice) polygamy is widespread, ever heard of a feedback loop? Where women traditionally have played a larger role, like for example in Europe, it has been historically much less normal in modern times. It's an aspect of the current day near-orient I do not subscribe to as being a desirable value to import.
My own nation, where women have always had fairly free choice, gave the practice up in the Viking era and have yet to see any virtue in bringing it back.
What's wrong with just calling it having a mistress or lover? What's the obsession over it absolutely having to be husband and wife, recognized by law? Seems to me that those who wish it just want to justify infidelity they otherwise cannot justify.
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Permalink Reply by Arcus on
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Not as a substantiation of the claim: "Being abused by your mother doesn't make the society matriarchal."
I said A is B (read: muslim families are often very matriacial), and that C is an evidence of B (mothers yelling at sons are a sign of a matriarchal society). Jared claim is that C does not prove A. I asked why, and received no substantiation of why this would be erroneous, just a random comment that it for some reason just is wrong. Then I supported it with referring to the Oedipus complex without receiving an appreciation of how that ties into my argument.
Attack my arguments as much as you want, but disregarding them without counter evidence is not sufficient as disproof, merely a sign of clear ignorance of how to structure an argument.
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Permalink Reply by Eix Man on
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Yeah... the problem is you're making 'logical' arguments that aren't true. 'Mothers yelling at sons' is not a sign of a matriarchal society any more than children yelling back at their parents is a sign that a society is a child-archy. The fact that the mothers are stuck at home looking after the children in the first place is a sign that the society is *not* matriarchal.
The definition of matriarchal or patriarchal society is where one gender holds the political power to make decisions for the general population. According to your 'logic' then the US culture is also 'matriarchal', since more mothers are the primary carers in US households than fathers are. This is clearly understood not to be the case, however.The oedipus complex has been debunked over and over, and relying on the theories of a 19th century crackpot as your 'evidence' of how the world works today (which would be a red herring anyway, since the oedipus complex relates to sexual development and has nothing whatsoever to do with social power structures) is ridiculous and hardly worth the effort of responding to.
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Permalink Reply by MikeLong on -
Sorry, I can't find the original submission just now, but he or she raised the question of (endless?)"chains" - A, B, and C are married. C is married to A, D, and E. E is married to C, F, and G. Etc. G and A have never met but are "married"?? How could that be managed? Or need it be?
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Permalink Reply by Eix Man on
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Don't think it needs to be managed. Marriage is not transitive. It's up to the individuals involved to communicate if the contracts they enter affect anyone else in the chain.
Think of it like starting a business partnership - If A starts a business with B, and B starts another another business with C, there are two separate businesses there. A is not automatically in business with C. The effect would be the same with chain marriages. Each 'contract' relates only to the people specifically named within it (and of course leaves open the possibility of creating such a contract between three or more people also, either separately, or as part of a further chain).A number of poly households I am aware of have actually gotten around some of the legal issues created by polygamous households not being recognised in law by literally incorporating their household and running it as a business - meaning that property belongs to everyone included in the legal contracts. It's not ideal, though.
(Though as an aside, this is a reason the poly community in general are *extremely* up to date on medical info, and careful about sexual health precautions - marriage contracts or relationship agreements are not transitive, but STIs may well be!)
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