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 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
I'm just confused about whether d-usa was being facetious when he said

 d-usa wrote:
Polygamist can marry a person, same as everyone else. They can't marry more than one, same as everyone else.

which is an argument that people are using against gay marriage right now.

People are using the argument that you cannot marry multiple people at once against gay marriage?

I want to see the first case of polygamist interracial gay marriage. That should blow so many minds it'll be like a nuke strike. Make the Gitmo detainees watch the wedding. Yes!

I could be wrong on this, but is not polygamy legal in the states with very high mormon(I think its mormon anyways) populations?

Mormon's today generally don't practice polygamy and haven't for some time baring a few fringe groups. It's been this way for over a century I think.

 dogma wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

Do we really want a child to be in shared custody with five different 'parents?'

King Solomon would need to spend some time working at a Japanese steakhouse first.

...Wait, what?

 Squigsquasher wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

Do we really want a child to be in shared custody with five different 'parents?'

King Solomon would need to spend some time working at a Japanese steakhouse first.

...Wait, what?

I feel terrible you can't appreciate this awesome joke so I'll give you a hint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_of_Solomon

 LordofHats wrote:

 Squigsquasher wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

Do we really want a child to be in shared custody with five different 'parents?'

King Solomon would need to spend some time working at a Japanese steakhouse first.

...Wait, what?

I feel terrible you can't appreciate this awesome joke so I'll give you a hint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_of_Solomon

...Ah, now I get it.

I was looking for the relevance of a Japanese steak house, and then it clicked. Goddamnit I'm dim. All the more unforgivable considering I'm learning Kendo...

 d-usa wrote:

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
I'm just confused about whether d-usa was being facetious when he said

 d-usa wrote:
Polygamist can marry a person, same as everyone else. They can't marry more than one, same as everyone else.

which is an argument that people are using against gay marriage right now.

People are using the argument that you cannot marry multiple people at once against gay marriage?

"Gay people can marry someone of the opposite sex, same as everyone else."

Why do bigots want to deny someone the right to marry a person whom they love?

angsty teenager

You think its bloody jail time with just one wife.......you thinking 14 wives or something silly......you be hanging yourself in a closet....after you make room/hangar space from all your wives cloths and shoes...

 LordofHats wrote:
Mormon's today generally don't practice polygamy and haven't for some time baring a few fringe groups. It's been this way for over a century I think.

That is correct. Any Mormon that practices polygamy gets excommunicated.

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
I'm just confused about whether d-usa was being facetious when he said

 d-usa wrote:
Polygamist can marry a person, same as everyone else. They can't marry more than one, same as everyone else.

which is an argument that people are using against gay marriage right now.

People are using the argument that you cannot marry multiple people at once against gay marriage?

"Gay people can marry someone of the opposite sex, same as everyone else."

So you didn't really read, or make a rebuttal to, the argument that I actually made.

Which man is insane enough to want legal polygamy?

Unless you are part of the 0.01% of the population who could attract multiple good looking mates AND provide them enough material wealth that they would be willing to all marry you, the logical choice is to go for monogamous marriages. In a population where sexes are divided amongst the middle, every women that decides to marry an already married man 'condemns' a single man to celibacy. Allow a man to marry a limitless amount of time, and you'll soon have everyone trying to emulate Ismail ibn Sharif. Which leaves a few thousand men to plot your bloody murder.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
Which man is insane enough to want legal polygamy?

Unless you are part of the 0.01% of the population who could attract multiple good looking mates AND provide them enough material wealth that they would be willing to all marry you, the logical choice is to go for monogamous marriages. In a population where sexes are divided amongst the middle, every women that decides to marry is an already married man 'condemns' a single man to celibacy. Allow a man to marry a limitless amount of time, and you'll soon have everyone trying to emulate Ismail ibn Sharif. Which leaves a few thousand men to plot your bloody murder.

As a balance, if they completely legalized polygamy, they could make to where if you wanted a divorce from one, you got a divorce from all!

Re: OP

Not going to happen in the foreseeable future. Religious polygamy has way too much abuse to ever get widespread support, and the average person isn't really aware that there's any other kind of multi-person marriage. So, regardless of how fair it is, I don't expect anything to change.

The idea that we can't possibly adapt the legal structure of marriage, however, is complete nonsense. We have no problems making vastly more complicated legal agreements in the business world, making a multi-person marriage contract would be easy. And we even have a lot of the work done already. For example, let's look at medical decisions, which would supposedly become too complicated if you have multiple spouses getting the default right to make decisions for you if you are unable to. That's only a problem if you forget that we already have similar cases where, for example, a person's spouse is dead already and their two surviving children have to make the end-of-life decisions for them. If we can handle that we can handle a case where it's two spouses instead of two children.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
Unless you are part of the 0.01% of the population who could attract multiple good looking mates AND provide them enough material wealth that they would be willing to all marry you, the logical choice is to go for monogamous marriages.

Take a look at the average people involved in secular polyamory sometime, I think you'll find that "top 0.01% of the population" isn't really an accurate description. They're just average people with average looks and financial status. The whole "the elites of society get all the wives" thing is only a problem if you limit the discussion to extremist religious polygamy where multiple wives is done for status, not out of two-way love.

In a population where sexes are divided amongst the middle, every women that decides to marry is an already married man 'condemns' a single man to celibacy.

Only if you only consider religious polygamy. If you take a broader view of multi-person marriage then men with multiple wives can be balanced out by women with multiple husbands (or more complicated arrangements), and the "condemned" men are still free to be one of those multiple husbands. The "availability" problem is based entirely on religious beliefs that the only acceptable multi-person marriage is one where a high-status man collects multiple wives.

 Peregrine wrote:
Only if you only consider religious polygamy. If you take a broader view of multi-person marriage then men with multiple wives can be balanced out by women with multiple husbands (or more complicated arrangements), and the "condemned" men are still free to be one of those multiple husbands. The "availability" problem is based entirely on religious beliefs that the only acceptable multi-person marriage is one where a high-status man collects multiple wives.

It can also be historically attested to in several cultures. Ironically for your post, one of them is pre-Islam Arabia. Islam instituted rules on polygamy in part to deal with problems their culture was experiencing with large numbers of unemployed unwed men (they had a tendency to get into trouble XD). EDIT: Primarily this was in Medina. I'm actually not sure if the problem pervaded the whole region. It's also not hard to realized that 'marriage monopolization' (something not unheard of in pre-Colonial Africa) would result in an higher class gaining a great deal of control over marriage by the virtue of having more offspring, resulting in both social and economic advantages over others. Modern anthropology has also identified this problem in some contemporary cultures, and even modern states (Kenya).

Granted I'm unaware of any culture that practiced both polygymy and polyandry (usually its one or the other for whatever reason they have to practice it) and cultures with group marriage are exceedingly rare.

 Peregrine wrote:


Take a look at the average people involved in secular polyamory sometime, I think you'll find that "top 0.01% of the population" isn't really an accurate description. They're just average people with average looks and financial status.

I find doubtful that the secular polyamory population represents properly the potential population of secular polygamous relationships.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
I find doubtful that the secular polyamory population represents properly the potential population of secular polygamous relationships.

Why doesn't it? The idea of having large numbers of people getting into multi-person relationships* just because they get format legal recognition makes about as much sense as the conservative paranoia that large numbers of people will abandon their straight marriages and turn gay just because gay marriage is officially recognized by the government. The more likely answer is that most people who would be interested in those relationships are already in them without government recognition and changing the marriage laws would primarily be a matter of granting the formal benefits to those existing relationships.


*Let's exclude ridiculous "relationships" like manipulation of the tax laws or criminals marrying each other so they can't testify against each other in court, since they aren't relevant to the point being discussed.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
I find doubtful that the secular polyamory population represents properly the potential population of secular polygamous relationships.

Why doesn't it? The idea of having large numbers of people getting into multi-person relationships* just because they get format legal recognition makes about as much sense as the conservative paranoia that large numbers of people will abandon their straight marriages and turn gay just because gay marriage is officially recognized by the government. The more likely answer is that most people who would be interested in those relationships are already in them without government recognition and changing the marriage laws would primarily be a matter of granting the formal benefits to those existing relationships.


*Let's exclude ridiculous "relationships" like manipulation of the tax laws or criminals marrying each other so they can't testify against each other in court, since they aren't relevant to the point being discussed.

Ah, but I'm not saying there's no cross-over between the two populations. I'm saying that the majority of people involved in relationships that allow libertinage are either young 20-30s currently uninterested in marriage, or already married swingers, or something else. Hence why it makes a bad example, and why I think secular polygamy remains a minuscule fringe phenomenon. That and the fact that sexual jealousy is a likely a cognitive feature.

The bigger phenomenon seems to be sectarian and religious polygamy, and if anything else, laws against polygamy protects from those which are abusive relationships.

Now I'm confused. When you said "I find doubtful that the secular polyamory population represents properly the potential population of secular polygamous relationships" was the second "secular" a typo?

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
Ah, but I'm not saying there's no cross-over between the two populations. I'm saying that the majority of people involved in relationships that allow libertinage are either young 20-30s currently uninterested in marriage, or already married swingers, or something else. Hence why it makes a bad example, and why I think secular polygamy remains a minuscule fringe phenomenon. That and the fact that sexual jealousy is a likely a cognitive feature.

And definitely confused. The comment that started this was your statement that multi-person marriage would be limited to the 0.01% of the population with the wealth and status to attract multiple spouses, and my response that the people who are currently involved in secular multi-person relationships are not that elite 0.01%. I don't see how any of what you just said has any relevance to the statement you quoted.

The bigger phenomenon seems to be sectarian and religious polygamy, and if anything else, laws against polygamy protects from those which are abusive relationships.

But do they really? Is a law against polygamy really doing much when a religious extremist can marry one wife and keep several other "wives" that are just roommates legally? And does a blanket ban on polygamy really do a better job of preventing abusive relationships than laws specifically aimed at the abusive acts which can occur in any marriage, monogamous or polygamous? After all, I think you'd have a hard time arguing that women in a religious polygamous marriage are really much worse off than women in monogamous quiverfull/christian patriarchy marriages.

Polygamy is not, in fact, at the top of my list of things I hope are legalized next.

I'm not personally convinced that the move to accept polygamy is going to come as quickly as gay marriage. And I think this is for the simple reason that there just aren't that many polygamous marriages out there. Acceptance of homosexuality started moving really fast when people felt comfortable coming out - and then once people could see these people were just like everyone else a lot of the bigotry just dropped away.

With polygamy I can't see the same effect. Sure, it might become socially acceptable for people to say they're in a polygamous relationship, but that doesn't mean that many people are every going to meet someone in an open polygamous relationship, because they're just not that common. Maybe I'm wrong, though, maybe they are a lot more common than I'm aware.

As for whether it should be legal, well I've got to say that the legal problems seem pretty considerable to me. Though the other side of that legal issue is that polygamous relationships are happening already, whether legally sanctioned or not. So perhaps some kind of legal recognition might actually be needed to bring some kind of legal clarity to the situation.

 Ouze wrote:
Yes. In my opinion, there should be no tax benefit or penalty for being married, or not.

While I agree with the general principle, how this works in practice becomes a lot trickier.

Consider, for instance, a woman with earnings in the year of $0 and three kids. Society is absolutely going to help that woman, if not for her sake then certainly for her children. But now consider that same lady, $0 income and three kids, married to a guy who makes $150,000. It doesn't make any sense to send her aid, because with her husband's income she's she's living as well or better than most of us. So, for fairly logical reasons, we consider the husband's income in determining the wealth of the wife.

And while that causes some problems (such as some people not getting married so one partner can keep claiming welfare) we haven't really thought of a better way of sorting this stuff out.

Add in the possibility of polygamous marriage, and it gets to be a nightmare pretty quickly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I wonder, though, how widespread polygamy and the desire for polygamy really is.

This is a big part of the issue, yeah. I mean, it will take many, many hours of legal study and much of parliament's time to produce a bill that might properly treat polygamous relationships, and is that necessary when the reforms will benefit very few people?

 Peregrine wrote:
Now I'm confused.

Well, I wasn't clear, and come to think of it, probably wrong. Having a minority of males holding on to a majority of the available females works when there's a ridiculous disproportion of wealth between the individuals in a society, and while there's a disproportion right now, only a very small portion of the male population cannot hope to provide and support for one female and a few children. And women have about the same capacity of males to provide and support for their children. The logic I was refering to was probably valid in pre-modern times, but a lot has changed since then.

But do they really? Is a law against polygamy really doing much when a religious extremist can marry one wife and keep several other "wives" that are just roommates legally? And does a blanket ban on polygamy really do a better job of preventing abusive relationships than laws specifically aimed at the abusive acts which can occur in any marriage, monogamous or polygamous? After all, I think you'd have a hard time arguing that women in a religious polygamous marriage are really much worse off than women in monogamous quiverfull/christian patriarchy marriages.

Well, a quick search for 'polygamy lawsuits' only comes up with that 'Sister wives' show, which, since its a reality show, can probably be dismissed as a example since it has nothing to do with reality. It's probably as you say, and nothing more than an additional charge to stick on someone. A nice thing to have, but not reason enough to deny someone marriage rights.

As for the danger, step-parenthood is the greatest risk factor for domestic abuse. The dynamic might be different in polygamist families, but wouldn't each additional spouse be an additional step-parent? I imagine there's also forms of favoritism at play, sometimes.

 Ouze wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
inb4 marrying animals or buiildings afterwards

However, not between being intentionally obtuse with a puerile argument that requires you to not-read everyone saying these laws should apply to consenting adults.

An animal cannot consent to a legal arrangement.

A building cannot consent to a legal arrangement.

So thanks for "contributing" on that front, someone sure had to.

That's what happens when you don't re-check twice before posting -_-. My bad.

I did not want to express any opposition to gay relationships, let alone even trashtalk them. I am very much in favor of same-sex lifelong relationships (but oppose financial support by the government for those) - I don't think anyone should be punished if he, or she, choose a path of life (or sexuality) if he / she does not directly violate other person's rights.

I made that comment because said kind of "marriage" is a point often brought up by...certain people. What bothers me, personally, right now is that "Why not?" attitude (mostly) leftists spread. Mind you, I am a very conservative person and that laisser-faire attidude is something I really detest and would like to see getting rid off.

This goes for polygamy as well - what's the point? What actual benefit is there to polygamy? Is it worth breaking with your (previous) culture, upsetting others?

So sorry, that really came off as rude and not what I wanted to say. It was late :(

 Sigvatr wrote:
I made that comment because said kind of "marriage" is a point often brought up by...certain people. What bothers me, personally, right now is that "Why not?" attitude (mostly) leftists spread.

And where exactly do you find these straw man "leftists" that think you should be able to marry animals or buildings? If there's anyone arguing that marriage should cover more than consenting adults (a pretty obvious limit given that marriage is a legal contract and your pet dog can't sign those) they're a tiny and irrelevant minority.

Mind you, I am a very conservative person and that laisser-faire attidude is something I really detest and would like to see getting rid off.

Don't you have that kind of backwards? Aren't conservatives supposed to be in favor of a hands-off attitude and allowing people to live their lives with as little interference from others as possible?

This goes for polygamy as well - what's the point? What actual benefit is there to polygamy? Is it worth breaking with your (previous) culture, upsetting others?

Just to state the obvious, what if you happen to love two (or more) people and don't want to be forced to make an unnecessary choice between them just because someone else thinks marriage should only be between two people?

Also, who gives a if it upsets others. If someone is upset because you're in a relationship with more than one other person they need to learn how to mind their own business.

 Rainbow Dash wrote:

 Shadowbrand wrote:
That would confuse the feth out of me.

It's been said before but I'll also chime in that in would be hell to deal with in court cases and what not.

Its simple, say there are 5 people, lets call them
Jon
Frank
Lisa
Mary
Susan

Jon is married to all of them, but down the line, Frank married the 3 women as well, then Mary and Lisa got married, as well as Mary and Susan and Susan and Lisa.
Then comes along another chain of, lets say 7 people, and Jon decides to marry one of them, lets call her Tara, who is married to the 7 people in her chain...

We're gonna need a bigger bed.

Well - if you're looking at a polyamorous marriage and the composition of partners looks challenging; just remember the golden rule and you'll be OK.

 Ouze wrote:
Well - if you're looking at a polyamorous marriage and the composition of partners looks challenging; just remember the golden rule and you'll be OK.

Spoiler:

PG-13 language

Just like the Dutch Rudder!

Oh wait...

I find, in my legal mind, that the prior basis for a 'marriage' to be between two consenting adults to be too large an obstacle to be overcome by any generation that has lived while interacial marriage was banned. Precendence is only as strong as the era in which is was created (for the most part).

In my philosophical mind, I see marriage being less of a rock solid concept and more of a fluid legal partnership that will will make such decisions unneccessary.

So... does that mean swinging would be more socially acceptable?

(not that I'm advocating this)