"Why not polygamous marriage?"

[Marduk]

You edited the content, not the spelling..

you just did it again, my last post was edited before you posted your responses

No, you claimed they wouldn't. A certain amount of marriages will always end in divorce, the public purse administers the courts, including the divorce courts. Allowing polygamy has the potential to increase the rate of marriage and therefore the number of divorces..

The public purse does not administer divorce courts, please back up your claims with some kind of evidence

There certainly is a potential for that, yes. As we have no model of polygamy being legal in an egalitarian society, neither of us can know for certain how it would impact the wider society..

so because we don't know something we shouldn't try it, there goes 2000 years of civilisation then

I suggested nothing of the sort, I couldn't care less what you do. I just pointed out the fact that everybody in your society has the right to be married to one person at a time only, and that there's no law against extra marital relationships. Therefore, you are not being discriminated against..

and I told you that is morally outrageous, on one hand you're trying to suggest that divorce would cost tax payers money and in the next breath recommending a course of action that causes more divorces than anything else

You know nothing about my morals.

really, you've been pushing them at the JREF since you arrived, everyone has. They are apparent in your words. Well in your case not so much as you think cheating on your partner is ok, because other people do it
theres a name for that

In logic, an argumentum ad populum (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many or most people believe it; which alleges: "If many believe so, it is so."

 

[ponderingturtle]

I get that, but putting them back on the marriage market would only make them more attractive, and therefore increase the competition.

And they are already on the market for either trophy wives or other partners, if their current wives are ok with it they are looking for girlfriends or if not mistresses.

Why does legal recognition mean that you expect it to become popular?

 

[ponderingturtle]

No, because we can actually look at societies where polygyny is allowed. There are also a few examples where polyandry is allowed, but I can't think of a society which legalises polygamy in a sexually egalitarian way. If you can, please tell us what happens there.

And as has being pointed out why do you think that has any meaning? We destroyed traditional marriage through such changes as letting women own property and refuse their husbands sex, why can't we do the same to polygamy?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Most women would see being a mistress as a less attractive option than being a wife.

Even if it is a second or more wife? After all as a mistress you can always hope he will pull a Newt and leave his wife for you, thus being the only wife. And you have not made it clear why first wives don't seek a divorce.

 

[ponderingturtle]

You have yet to establish that that's what would happen if polygamy was legalised. And people in group relationships already have the same rights as everybody else.

They do not have the capacity to have the reality of their relationship legally recognized. A trivial example would be a married couple who adds a third equal partner. That third could not get a marriage visa.

 

[Cain]

You are misrepresenting my argument. I think polygamy will first and most directly harm low-status men. I think that harm will cascade outwards so that it also harms women, but the most immediate harm, as I think I made clear, is indeed to men.

I don't think that was clear, but I welcome the clarification.

 

[bookitty]

I checked this very forum and found people who think necrophilia wouldn't be a big deal, under the "who does it hurt"? pseudo-argument. I wouldn't say that's a common position, but once you only accept absolute proof from first principles as the one and only argument against you doing something you like, then the squabbling over which logical principle applied ("it hurts nobody" vs. "consent is necessary") inevitably means the permissive version wins out, since it's always possible to find SOME argument (by vague analogy, if nothing else) to make whatever one wants to do this week kosher and paint anybody who opposes as "being against freedom" or "just being against it because they personally consider it yucky" or whatever.

So, after polygamy and incest -- I notice you didn't say anything against that, presumably since you realize you'd have to allow women marrying daddy so long as they want to -- I suspect necrophilia would be the next to go.

You know, a few months ago there was someone on this very forum arguing that children should be able to have sexual relationships with adults. So obviously anything that is said "on this forum" is a pretty stupid basis for an argument.

I know it has already been mentioned but seriously, dead people can not consent, children can not consent. Adults can consent and can make rational decisions.

Aside from scare tactics and the weirdest misogyny I've ever seen ("Women are all money-grubbing whores and if polygamy is legal I wont be able to get one!!!elevensies!!!) no one has put forth any argument that shows how polygamy would negate rights women already have in the west, how it would automatically be more popular for men to have multiple wives*, or and I really want the answer to this one, how it would affect good-old vanilla marriage.

* I mean really, if women were just all about money, wouldn't it make sense for them to marry two middle-class dudes?

 

[crimresearch]

You know, a few months ago there was someone on this very forum arguing that children should be able to have sexual relationships with adults. So obviously anything that is said "on this forum" is a pretty stupid basis for an argument.

I know it has already been mentioned but seriously, dead people can not consent, children can not consent. Adults can consent and can make rational decisions.

Aside from scare tactics and the weirdest misogyny I've ever seen ("Women are all money-grubbing whores and if polygamy is legal I wont be able to get one!!!elevensies!!!) no one has put forth any argument that shows how polygamy would negate rights women already have in the west, how it would automatically be more popular for men to have multiple wives*, or and I really want the answer to this one, how it would affect good-old vanilla marriage.

* I mean really, if women were just all about money, wouldn't it make sense for them to marry two middle-class dudes?

Or simply become a financial dominatrix...

;-}

 

[Strawberry]

Fine, I give up. Legalise polygamy and don't blame me for the consequences.
*Puke*

 

[Ziggurat]

"In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution of law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it way. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

The truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, or that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion."

Source

 

[Marduk]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_complex#In_evolutionary_theory

The only constant is change.

 

[let`s talk]

I actually never really understood why some people are for gay marriages but against polygamous marriages. Both are not traditional and the first one is even not demographically productive.

 

[Marduk]

I actually never really understood why some people are for gay marriages but against polygamous marriages. Both are not traditional and the first one is even not demographically productive.

in some cases, the latter one makes up for the formers shortfall

 

[JJM 777]

the first one is even not demographically productive.

Quite the contrary, gay marriage is an answer to global overpopulation problems. An answer to our prayers!

 

[JJM 777]

dead people can not consent, children can not consent. Adults can consent and can make rational decisions.

Equalling the mental abilities of "children" (an undefined and thus vague = meaningless concept, by the way) with those of dead people is not a very good example of critical thinking.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I actually never really understood why some people are for gay marriages but against polygamous marriages. Both are not traditional and the first one is even not demographically productive.

Look over the start of this thread for reasons why they are different. It tends to be a pragmatic objection rather than a moral one. Though you are seeing here moral arguments against it based on the idea that women are horrible.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Equalling the mental abilities of "children" (an undefined and thus vague = meaningless concept, by the way) with those of dead people is not a very good example of critical thinking.

There is also predeath consent forms of the kind used for organ transplant, scientific research or art.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Fine, I give up. Legalise polygamy and don't blame me for the consequences.
*Puke*

Why do you think that legal recognition would change behaviors? I know if no one claiming that marriage will change homosexual culture or behaviors, just permit them rights that heterosexuals enjoy.

 

[Ziggurat]

Quite the contrary, gay marriage is an answer to global overpopulation problems. An answer to our prayers!

Developed countries don't have an overpopulation problem, but some of them do face an imploding demographic problem. I don't think gay marriage has anything to do with it, but we don't need to further suppress developed country birth rates.

 

[Ziggurat]

I actually never really understood why some people are for gay marriages but against polygamous marriages. Both are not traditional and the first one is even not demographically productive.

I'm not against polygamy because it's non-traditional (an argument which is nonsense because it's very traditional in many place). I'm against it because I think it does harm, as I've already explained. And the harm which I think it does isn't applicable to gay marriage. So why would I oppose gay marriage?