Time to Allow Polyamorous Marraiges

[ponderingturtle]

Yes, you are absolutely right. That is why we are here pleading this case.

You need to do more though, you need to provide a framework for how to change the laws and regulations around marriage so that they would fit poly marriage. Some rules that work well for couples and might work passibly for triads could create more incentive for marriages that are only for immigration or tax purposes. Binary marriage limits this potential complication.

Perhaps, but hottness is in the eyes of the beholder. I am no paragon of prime male; if I were "available" and had the option of joining with a "45 year old woman" who knew how to keep me comfortable while I stared at the monitor screen 16 hours a day, I'd probably be blissful, as long as I lasted. That would be hot enough for me. Different strokes for ...you get the idea. In my case, women are only as hot as to how useful thay are. Sex? Occasionally, if I can find the time.

Maybe, but I wasn't the one disparaging the marrying potential of all 45 year old women, with the clear idea that 25 year old women are more marriageable. Now the fertility issue is possible, but it seems the physical attractiveness is at the core of most of his position.

 

[shadron]

Postulating that a state uses a pseudo-corporate law to manage marriage just as they do business corporations. I think that has several advantages.

For one, it puts the responsibility for a successful marriage where it belongs - in the hands of the partners. No longer would the state apparatus have to make judgments about infidelity, abandonment and "irreconcilable differences" - just, did the person act up to the spirit/letter of the agreement? The partners would be liable to make agreement workable, and then to live up to it. Instead of buying a rock, they would spend a couple of thou on getting heir relaionship defined. Right now the agreement is buried in the marriage laws and in tradition; almost no knowledge is required to exercise it today, and the result is stunning divorce statistics. There's an odd mix of strictness in the existing laws, and an alarming loosy-goosiness to them at the same time because the agreement is inflexible and inherent in the law, and grew like Topsy starting with Moses.

It should make it very explicit what is an offense against the marriage, and what the penalties are. If the partners agree to strengthen divorce practice, then they'll have to stick it out. If otherwise, then their partner will have to keep an eye on his manners so as not to give sufficient offense. Middle of the road will win out in most agreements, of course. Where will the children go upon divorce? What will the arrangements be? Read the small text. Studying contract law so as not to be a naif at he negotiating table wouldn't hurt anyone; one might learn how to interact with others better for it.

What is one party changes their mind? Well, it should be there in the contract how changes are to be made. Perhaps the change will be so fundamental that the contract has to end; it's all there in the fine print, and it's always possible to include ways to keep the agreement alive (through later re-negotiaion and rewriting of parts of the contract) as time goes on. Like all contracts, this is an agreement between the parties; the government, beyond guaranteeing the contract, has no part in it.

The nice thing about contract law is that it assumes equality of the individuals agreeing to the contract; marriage law, as it is now, does not.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Postulating that a state uses a pseudo-corporate law to manage marriage just as they do business corporations. I think that has several advantages.

So we permit corporations all the rights that are now limited only to marriage?

 

[Meadmaker]

After all, if she is that weak today, we have a much more pressing problem, don't we?

What? Mortality? It's a big problem, but no solution seems to be in the works.

What have we postulated here (at least Slingblade and myself)? Replacement of existing marraige / civil entanglement with some sort of incorporation law. If you don't tow the line of the agreement, then your weak-kneed super-maid need only seek out a lawyer to cut you off at the ankles.

I actually agree with this line of argument. I used to argue on these boards that the marriage vows themselves were a contract, and should be considered so. They are uttered in public, in front of witnesses, for exactly that reason. However, enough people told me that I was full of it, and that those things were just cheap sentiment with no legal value whatsoever, that I had to admit they were right.

In that case, they ought to be upgraded to a more modern sort of agreement.

We, the undersigned, being fully aware, agree to form an economic partnership contingent on participation in an exclusive sexual relationship....blah, blah, blah.....Failure to accept these terms will result in forfeiture of any right to any jointly held property.....blah, blah, blah.

It would take a few pages, and would mean exactly the same as the wedding vows, but everyone would undestand that, no, really, you meant it. I think making that agreement binding in court is an excellent idea. Then, if everyone was really ok with modifying the terms to add another person, who am I to argue?




Re: Relative hotness of middle aged people of different genders.

45 year old men aren't, on average, great catches either. However, if they are rich and thin, they can find a mate much more easily than similarly situated women of the same age. Just nature at work.

 

[BTMO]

45 year old men aren't, on average, great catches either. However, if they are rich and thin, they can find a mate much more easily than similarly situated women of the same age. Just nature at work.

Never heard of cougars, huh?

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

It all depends on how the marriage laws are rewritten to fit multi partner marriage. Gay marriage changes no laws or regulations that create and define the legal status of marriage. Multiple marriage does require rewriting them. So we can not say that there will not be changes in the legal status of binary marriage until we see the proposed rewritten laws.

Agree completely...

Because it is always best to have two separate but equal institutions, that is truly fair.

...awww, and then you had to snip what I posted about equal protection and set me up as a straw man.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

To get back on track, this discussion is about polyamory, not polygamy. Polyamory also allows for a women to take on an additional partner, with her husband's consent.

That evens the playing fields a bit, doesn't it?

In the mythical, magical sexual libertine world that some want to live in, but reality and things like jealousy and romantic propriety unfortunately intrude upon. Why is it that swinging is considered a product of the 70s - a time of social malaise? Have you ever seen the documentary I noted earlier Sex with strangers? Why is it that, not to divert back to polygamy, it's strongly religious groups like Muslims and Mormons that have, ostensibly, polyamorous relationships that last (though within the context of marriage) while "free love" tends to descend into chaos?

There are numerous examples of long term, committed couples where one partner accepts and often accedes to the infidelity of the other, but they tend to be the exception, not the rule.

 

[Lonewulf]

So thus, the only solution is to force your idea of ideal relationships onto others? Because they can't possibly ever function in any other way than the way you imagine it to?

I mean, with such a high divorce rate between "normal" couples, you'd think that you would put the same standards onto marriage. Hey, people that are younger divorce far more often than people that are older -- considering your logic, we should ban everyone beneath the ages of 30 to 35 from marrying, right?

How dare you use magical sexual libertine world-logic instead of real-world logics? Marriages fail constantly, so we should get rid of them altogether.

 

[arthwollipot]

Wow. The conflation of polyamory with polygamy is only the beginning of the problem with this discussion.

 

[shadron]

So we permit corporations all the rights that are now limited only to marriage?

OK, I used "pseudo-corporate" where I should have used "contract". No, the laws don't have to be identical (for one, the different sorts of contract entities, like S Corps, LLCs and partnerships aren't necessarily useful), but one in which the laws aren't saddled with divorces, child support and the like because these issues are handled by the contract.

After all, if she is that weak today, we have a much more pressing problem, don't we?

What? Mortality? It's a big problem, but no solution seems to be in the works.

Let's start with plain old abuse of women. You wouldn't have used a 45 year old man as an example of a weak partner, now, would you have? I think we can work on that, and I think a contract solution to marriage might be a step in the right direction.

We, the undersigned, being fully aware, agree to form an economic partnership contingent on participation in an exclusive sexual relationship....blah, blah, blah.....Failure to accept these terms will result in forfeiture of any right to any jointly held property.....blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, except that it would be wider ranging than just economic - it would be a marriage partnership, in the traditional meaning of the word (minus religious overtones): how to dissolve (including, of course, disbursement of chattels and offspring - sounds cold in these terms, but look at what we have today), how to increment, major agreements about raising children, remedies of breach of contract, how top handle major changes of status (breadwinner cannot find a job), etc. How money is to be handled. How to handle disagreements - binding arbitration, perhaps. Yup, perhaps more than just a few pages, but not more than a will might contain, and certainly after a short period some of it will become boilerplate or parameterized.

Now all he courts have to worry about is, is the contract being fulfilled, and are all the actions speciied in it legal (the legality of the provisions of any contract is assumed in business law; any illegality makes the contract null and void), something they do now with great regularity.

 

[Symbol]

Polygamy does too, the term for male exclusive multiple marriage is polygyny.

No one is suggesting legalizing only polygyny and not polyandry.

Thanks ponderingturtle, I was confusing polygamy with polygyny, and trying to recall the word polyandry.

All clear now.

All this discussion about the relative hotness of 45 year old men and women may be fun but it's certainly adding nothing to the debate.

I think what's being missed is that in the proposed triad (for example) Person A is married to Person B and to Person C, And Person B is also married to Person C. It's a contract entered into by every party.

So the silly example of one person married to nine who are each married to twenty, well, that couldn't happen in the sort of scenario proposed in the OP.

 

[shadron]

Wow. The conflation of polyamory with polygamy is only the beginning of the problem with this discussion.

Got a comment, Arth? Join in.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

Wow. The conflation of polyamory with polygamy is only the beginning of the problem with this discussion.

Why? Do the issues that come up in a polygamous marriage never come up in a polyamorous relationship? Wouldn't a polygamous marriage enforced by religious tradition be more likely to stay intact than a loose and consentual polyamorous "relationship"?

I state again, watch Sex with strangers.

 

[arthwollipot]

Got a comment, Arth? Join in.

No, I think I won't. The only things that I could contribute are from my own experience in a legally-recognised four-person relationship, which is pretty nonstandard to begin with. There are a lot of legal issues that I'm not qualified to talk about and to which my experience does not apply.

One thing I will say however:

Why? Do the issues that come up in a polygamous marriage never come up in a polyamorous relationship? Wouldn't a polygamous marriage enforced by religious tradition be more likely to stay intact than a loose and consentual polyamorous "relationship"?

I state again, watch Sex with strangers.

Poly <> Swinging.

Polyamory has absolutely nothing to do with having sex with strangers. In fact, the very idea is repugnant to me.

Like I said. My experience only. May not generalise very well into the rest of the world. I'll return to lurking now.

 

[ponderingturtle]

...awww, and then you had to snip what I posted about equal protection and set me up as a straw man.

Because I don't see the point in "A is not B, but A must always be the same as B". And if you get rid of sex and gender concerns you make marriage and its rights more available to people who do not want to define themselves as either male or female legaly. With marriage and the indistinguishable but always seperate civil unions you need to make those distinctions.

 

[ponderingturtle]

OK, I used "pseudo-corporate" where I should have used "contract". No, the laws don't have to be identical (for one, the different sorts of contract entities, like S Corps, LLCs and partnerships aren't necessarily useful), but one in which the laws aren't saddled with divorces, child support and the like because these issues are handled by the contract.

Except that child support has nothing to do with marriage. So you want parents to be able to remove rights from their children by contract. Again you are opening up issues that are limited to marriage for good reasons, and permitting them from being in contracts. I want no personal entanglement with this person, but I would like to give them the right to immigrate to this country as if we were married.

The fact that these rights and responcibilities are bundled together is a feature not a bug.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I think what's being missed is that in the proposed triad (for example) Person A is married to Person B and to Person C, And Person B is also married to Person C. It's a contract entered into by every party.

Why are you interested in forcing that model of marriage onto people who might not want to be married? Should people who want to practice religious polygyny be forced to use marriages designed for polyamourous groups or not? Why should one get their view of marriage written into law and not the other?

So the silly example of one person married to nine who are each married to twenty, well, that couldn't happen in the sort of scenario proposed in the OP.

Yes it is a discriminatory view of marriage, limiting it to only forms that fit what they want.

 

[Meadmaker]

All this discussion about the relative hotness of 45 year old men and women may be fun but it's certainly adding nothing to the debate.

Certainly not. And yet, I think there might be a closely related point that might be worth discussing.

One of my biggest problems with proposed marriage liberalizations is that the proponents seem to be nearly oblivious to certan basic traits of human nature. One of those traits is that men and women behave differently, including choosing mates differently.

In the idealistic fantasyland where some people seem to dwell, men and women approach the marriage process by contemplating what would be in their best interests in forming a long term partnership, and seeking out appropriate partners and/or situations in which the needs of they and their partners will be met. By contrast, in the real world, men often seek mates with nice hooters.

It's not something to be proud of, but it is the way real people really behave. There are plenty of exceptions, to be sure, but people really do behave that way.

Meanwhile, in the real world, youth and beauty really do fade away, and while this is true for both men and women, it doesn't affect us identically, and, due to this and other differencs between men and women, what happens is that people enter middle age, and a man dumps his wife, who then has limited financial support, few prospects of finding a mate, and, possibly, still has a great deal of responsibility for raising children. Of course, the now absent father will still have to help financially on that account by sending his child support payments, but the presence of children will hinder the woman's efforts both to become financially secure, and to seek a mate.

In my opinion, any view of marriage that fails to take into account this basic reality is a lousy view of marriage. Skeptic's point was that polygamy, in practice, could allow a man to dump his wife without really dumping his wife. He's right, and anyone who thinks this won't happen hasn't been watching real world human beings long enough.

 

[Rasmus]

In my opinion, any view of marriage that fails to take into account this basic reality is a lousy view of marriage. Skeptic's point was that polygamy, in practice, could allow a man to dump his wife without really dumping his wife. He's right, and anyone who thinks this won't happen hasn't been watching real world human beings long enough.

Yes, this could happen.

How this should be dealt with is a question that needs to be answered by the proponents of polygamous marriages, regardless of their specific form.

But I don't see this as much of an argument against it - the woman would not be worse off, would she? Her husband could just leaver her now, too. Why is it worse for her if he stays technicially married to her? (And, if so, what's stopping her from getting a divorce?)

 

[martu]

One of my biggest problems with proposed marriage liberalizations is that the proponents seem to be nearly oblivious to certan basic traits of human nature. One of those traits is that men and women behave differently, including choosing mates differently.

Can I see a cite for this please? My bold.