"Why not polygamous marriage?"

[Ziggurat]

I am asking for people to marry whoever they like, how is that not wanting equality, the law is unjust, its based on biblical teaching, which is perverse

You are again confusing equality with justice. Stop doing that. It's not unequal, because everyone is treated the same. Your complaint is that it's unjust. Do you think that this is an insufficient complaint? I really don't get your insistence on this being unequal treatment, even though you can't explain how.

And no, being allowed to marry whoever we want isn't unequal. People aren't allowed to drive however fast they want, but people who want to drive fast aren't being treated any differently than people who want to drive slow. Equality doesn't require that we all get what we want.

I got it from wiki

That wiki page isn't using polygamy to indicate an official state-sanctioned multi-partner marriage. If no other crime is committed and the people involved don't try to get multiple state-sanctioned marriages, then there is no crime, so why would there be any prosecution? That's got nothing to do with that sect being granted any special privileges, and everything to do with the state not having an interest in or legal grounds for getting into their bedrooms. It's really no different from your current arrangement in that regard. You aren't committing any crime here, as far as I can tell.

 

[Ziggurat]

Nope, you presume incorrectly.

You could have avoided that confusion easily enough by simply stating what case you meant from the start.

You cited the 'prohibits equally' claim from Pace v. Alabama 1883

No I didn't. That the same two words occur together doesn't make it a citation. Which would be quite hard to do, considering that I wasn't even familiar with this case.

But the premise of your argument is still wrong, because the anti-miscegenation laws did NOT in fact prohibit equally, regardless of what any judgment may have claimed. A white man and a black man were in fact treated differently, and actually prohibited from doing different things, even if the same label was attached to it. But that's not the case here: we're all prohibited from doing the same thing, regardless of who we are.

 

[crimresearch]

You could have avoided that confusion easily enough by simply stating what case you meant from the start.



No I didn't. That the same two words occur together doesn't make it a citation. Which would be quite hard to do, considering that I wasn't even familiar with this case.

But the premise of your argument is still wrong, because the anti-miscegenation laws did NOT in fact prohibit equally, regardless of what any judgment may have claimed. A white man and a black man were in fact treated differently, and actually prohibited from doing different things, even if the same label was attached to it. But that's not the case here: we're all prohibited from doing the same thing, regardless of who we are.

You are spinning desperately, and failing miserably. Again.

 

[Marduk]

You are again confusing equality with justice.

how many times do I need to remind you of the subject we're discussing, this isn't about justice, its just about equality, Justice is a concept of moral rightness, I'm not even discussing morality, I don't think morality is even relevant when you are discussing the needs of rational consenting adults, theres no victim here

That wiki page isn't using polygamy to indicate an official state-sanctioned multi-partner marriage. If no other crime is committed and the people involved don't try to get multiple state-sanctioned marriages, then there is no crime, so why would there be any prosecution? That's got nothing to do with that sect being granted any special privileges, and everything to do with the state not having an interest in or legal grounds for getting into their bedrooms. It's really no different from your current arrangement in that regard. You aren't committing any crime here, as far as I can tell.

I didn't say it was, I used it as an example that some groups get away with it, if some groups get away with it, then its a bit rank that everyone else is penalised. Thats what, unjust ?

 

[bookitty]

You are again confusing equality with justice. Stop doing that. It's not unequal, because everyone is treated the same. Your complaint is that it's unjust. Do you think that this is an insufficient complaint? I really don't get your insistence on this being unequal treatment, even though you can't explain how.

And no, being allowed to marry whoever we want isn't unequal. People aren't allowed to drive however fast they want, but people who want to drive fast aren't being treated any differently than people who want to drive slow. Equality doesn't require that we all get what we want.

Throughout human history there has been every type of family bond possible - paternal polygamy, maternal polygamy, male/female couples with linage traced to either parent, homosexual couples, celibate individuals who benefit a family unit, family groups in which all children belong to all adults, etc, etc for every possible variation.

In the modern west we have pretty much defaulted to male/female with shared linage for children. That is the most common type of family bond now. But given the vast variety of possible human relationships, it's pretty obvious that what is most common isn't necessarily going to work for everyone.

Until recently, the most common response was to deny that alternative bonds were possible and to discriminate against those who didn't conform. Single mothers, even those who had been widowed, were treated less equally than married women with children. Gay couples could be arrested. Polygamy was outlawed.

We're starting to get to the point where we can accept that man/wife just doesn't work for everyone. This is not some slippery slope to marrying dogs and babies because neither of those can consent. It's respecting the simple fact that consenting human adults have different needs and figuring out the best way to allow people to have their needs met without discrimination.

 

[Ziggurat]

how many times do I need to remind you of the subject we're discussing, this isn't about justice, its just about equality, Justice is a concept of moral rightness, I'm not even discussing morality, I don't think morality is even relevant when you are discussing the needs of rational consenting adults, theres no victim here

Ahem.

the law is unjust

First you tell me it's unjust, then you tell me it doesn't matter if it's unjust. Please, make up your mind.

I didn't say it was, I used it as an example that some groups get away with it, if some groups get away with it, then its a bit rank that everyone else is penalised. Thats what, unjust ?

Who else is penalized for having more than one long-term sexual partner? I've never heard of anyone else being penalized. There's certainly no law against it. The law prohibits multiple state-sanctioned marriages. It places no restriction on how many sexual partners you want to have.

 

[Marduk]

Who else is penalized for having more than one long-term sexual partner? I've never heard of anyone else being penalized. There's certainly no law against it. The law prohibits multiple state-sanctioned marriages. It places no restriction on how many sexual partners you want to have.

you are responding to my comment about the FLDS
I was discussing marriage, not as your straw comments suggest, polyamory

 

[Ziggurat]

you are responding to my comment about the FLDS
I was discussing marriage, not as your straw comments suggest, polyamory

But the marriages there are not state-sanctioned marriages. They're only religious marriages, and the state doesn't care about religious marriages. Religious marriages have no legal significance. So what is this double standard that you imagine?

 

[Marduk]

But the marriages there are not state-sanctioned marriages. They're only religious marriages, and the state doesn't care about religious marriages. Religious marriages have no legal significance. So what is this double standard that you imagine?

youre saying that someone who marries in a church has no rights under state law and also that the state doesn't care about religious marriage
well lets see then, if that were true, why can't gays marry religiously
why can't poly groups get married in a church
what are you smoking ?

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

You are failing to see the fundamental sexism in his argument. All women care about is a successful man, ergo they will choose to share a successful man instead of having a less successful man to themselves. That is the fundamentals of his position.

That's just silly. The problem is whether or not polygamy necessarily lead to the problems in the societies and sub-societies it is practiced in, or if the co-occuring women's oppression was merely incidental. I don't think anyone is denying the social problems and oppression of Mormon poly communities or the various other examples.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

youre saying that someone who marries in a church has no rights under state law and also that the state doesn't care about religious marriage
well lets see then, if that were true, why can't gays marry religiously
why can't poly groups get married in a church
what are you smoking ?

IIRC, in the UK the government recognises civil marriages and religious marriages, but in the US we just have civil marriage. I can have a gay wedding in a supportive church if I want, but it doesn't mean anything legally. It is an interesting wrinkle in the debate over there.

 

[Marduk]

IIRC, in the UK the government recognises civil marriages and religious marriages, but in the US we just have civil marriage. I can have a gay wedding in a supportive church if I want, but it doesn't mean anything legally. It is an interesting wrinkle in the debate over there.

ahhh ok, didn't know that
thanks

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

If anyone subscribes, here is an interesting article:

This article investigates the often cited and dismissed, but rarely examined, relationship between legalizing same-sex marriage and polygamy. Employing a comparative historical analysis of U.S. and South African jurisprudence, ideology, and cultural politics, we examine efforts to expand, restrict, and regulate the gender and number of legally recognized conjugal bonds. South African family jurisprudence grants legal recognition to both same-sex marriage and polygyny, while the United States prohibits and resists both. However, social and material conditions make it easier to practice family diversity in the U.S. than in South Africa. Our analysis of the very different histories of polygamy and same-sex marriage in the two societies suggests the centrality of racial politics to marriage regimes, yielding paradoxical narratives about the implications of legal same-sex marriage for the future of polygamy and sexual democracy. If there is a slippery marital slope, we argue, it does not tilt in a singular or expected direction.

Linky.

I found the full version of this article:

Most legal scholarship has approached polygamy in one of two ways. Some have framed it as a constitutional question of religious or privacy rights; others have debated decriminalization based on the contested effects of polygamy on matters ranging from women’s subordination to democracy. This Article shifts attention from the constitutionality and decriminalization debates to a new set of questions: whether and how polygamy might be effec- tively recognized and regulated, consistent with contemporary social norms. The Article begins by describing the diverse stakeholders and critics in the polygamy debate, including not only religious fundamentalists but also black nationalists and radical feminists. Next, the Article refutes the analogy be- tween gay marriage and polygamy, disputing it as a miscue from what is legally distinctive about polygamy, its multiplicity. Unlike gay marriage, which is typically envisioned to adhere to a two-person marital model, mari- tal multiplicity both increases the costs of intimate negotiation and compli- cates it in several ways, including raising questions about how power is bar- gained for and distributed in marriage. The Article next contends that other legal regimes have addressed polygamy’s central conundrum: ensuring fair- ness and establishing baseline behavior in contexts characterized by multiple partners, ongoing entrances and exits, and life-defining economic and per- sonal stakes. It turns to commercial partnership law to propose some tenta- tive default rules that might accommodate marital multiplicity, while ad- dressing some of the costs and power disparities that polygamy has engendered. The Article concludes by showing how theorizing love and com- mitment beyond heterodyadic marriage sheds light on the debates over recog- nition, abolition, and privatization of intimate relationships.

Linky.

About kids:

The objective is to study the influence of polygamous versus monogamous marriage on the mental health of adolescents in an Israeli Bedouin population. Pupils aged 11–18 years attending schools in Bedouin Arab communities in southern Israel were asked to complete a demographic questionnaire and a panel of psychological instruments measuring competence and behavioral problems, anxiety and depression. Findings were compared between pupils of families with one wife and pupils of families with more than one wife. The population comprised 406 pupils of mean age 14.5 years; 56% were female. Fifty-three percent were from polygamous marriages and 47% from monogamous marriages. After allowing for the influence of socioeconomic factors, there were no differences between offspring of polygamous marriages and those of monogamous marriages for any of the psychological scales. When polygamy is the accepted practice in a particular social milieu, it does not have a deleterious psychological effect on adolescents.

Linky.

This paper uses household data from 28 African countries to study the effects of polygyny on child health. We contribute to the existing literature by providing empirical evidence that quantifies the costs of polygyny rather than focusing on its determinants. Our conservative baseline results indicate that ceteris paribus moving a baby from a monogamous to a polygynous household reduces its height-for-age Z-score by 5.8% of the sample standard deviation. For robustness, we provide instrumental variables results by generating exogenous variation in polygyny using fertility shocks experienced by the household head’s first wife. Instrumental variable results are qualitatively similar to the fixed effects results in that child health is a decreasing function of the number of wives. While these results are in line with existing theoretical research, the estimated causal effect of polygyny is moderate.

Linky.

On women's mental health:

This study surveyed a 2009 convenience sampling of 199 women, 93 of whom were first (or senior) wives in polygamous marriages and 106 were wives in monogamous marriages. We deployed the McMaster Family Assessment Device (FAD), ENRICH marital satisfaction questionnaire, SCL-90 mental health symptoms checklist, Rosenberg self-esteem (SE) scale, and Diener, Emmons, Larsen, and Griffin life satisfaction scale, a basic sociodemographic scale, including attitudes towards polygamy. Women from polygamous families experienced more problems in family functioning, marital relations, and reported low self-esteem, less satisfaction with life, and more somatization, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, paranoid ideation, psychoticism and their general severity index was higher (GSI). More women in polygamous marriages agreed with the practice of polygamy, as compared to their monogamous counterparts. The conclusion considers implications for mental health practice, policy, and further research.

Linky.

Personally I have great skepticism about the dominant Western family model (which marriage is just part of, mind you), but making comparisons is quite difficult. We could look at the institution of marriage from back when women were property and compare it to a suburban poly couple in the Silicon Valley. There are just so many variables.

 

[Willowfrond]

an Oz perspective

That's Oz as in Australia,

I was in a polyamorous relationship for several years, the first two years the basis was a couple, me the female and partner male having a few short lived encounters with a third person of either sex.
The final five years was Mff, the same M the same f and the same f.
When the M left us we consulted a solicitor. As I had been the longest term partner I had a case to sue or be sued (as a defacto wife) but my (other defacto wife?) f had no rights/obligations whatsoever.
As it turned out f left me too because we discovered that everything was mortgaged to the hilt....plus I was being a tad witchy.
I ended up struggling for years to pay off the balance of debt after everything was repossessed/auctioned etc.
The winner was f, she managed to walk away after having lived a damn good life for 5 years.
Now I'm thinking if polygamy had been legal, since defacto relationships were recognised, that f would have had some obligations which would have eased my burden.

 

[Ziggurat]

youre saying that someone who marries in a church has no rights under state law and also that the state doesn't care about religious marriage

Many church ministers are also empowered to perform civil marriages simultaneously with a church marriage (but you still need to get a marriage license from the state), so a typical church marriage is also a civil marriage. But if all you want is a church marriage, and you can find an obliging church, then no, a church marriage of that sort has absolutely no legal standing whatsoever and the state doesn't care at all.

well lets see then, if that were true, why can't gays marry religiously

They can. And some do. But that doesn't carry any legal weight (no tax benefits, no automatic inheritance, etc), so this doesn't satisfy most gay rights activists.

why can't poly groups get married in a church

They can, if they can find a church that's willing. It just won't carry any legal weight.

what are you smoking ?

Absolutely nothing.

 

[Marduk]

They can, if they can find a church that's willing. It just won't carry any legal weight.
.

well the english government repealed tax breaks for marrieds some time ago, so from the UK perspective, the only benefit of marriage is as a public declaration of love and a few extra benefits regarding inheritence in regards to an unwritten will
so you can probably see why I think it should be allowed

 

[Mercurial Artism]

The marriage laws and regulations are currently set up for only two people and changing the laws to account for more partners could effect everyones marriage.

Discrimination based on sex is very different from discrimination based on number.

It is legally much more complex. To have gay marriage you just stop discriminating based on sex, but hundreds of laws could need adjustment for poly marriage. For a start you need to clarify what you mean, is it being in more than one marriage or having more than two people in one marriage, or both?

So while I have no fundamental problem with recognizing poly relationships I would want to see the legal structure and its impacts before supporting any specific proposal.

^ This. Also, given human nature and the precedent of polygamous marriages, they do seem prone to abusive/manipulative situations, even though there are poly relationships that are consensual and respecting of everyone's rights. If we can find a way that isn't such a legal headache and protects every member of the relationship as an equal, I would support that, even though I have no interest in being in such a relationship myself (too much potential for complicated misunderstandings, for one thing).

 

[Weird Science]

So why do you care if polygamy is legalized if you wouldn't use it and it would make no difference to you?

Because the real goal of legalizing polygamy, like that of legalizing gay marriage, is really to de-legitimize monogamous heterosexual marriage, not to promote anybody's rights. This is the best explanation I have for the two obvious, yet here ignored, points:

1). That all those who are against marriage as an evil and opressive institution enthusiastically support the extension of this evil and opressive institution to gays and polygamists.

2). That the same folks who, when the called for civil unions, swore that it would never lead to gay marriage, what a ridiculous idea -- only to turn around on a dime the minute they got unions and declare any opposition to gay marriage is absurd; and when it was noted that gay marriage will lead to polygamy declared this is the paranoid delusion of the evil racist right -- only to turn on a dime, the minute gay marriage is approved, and declare polygamy is a human right and anybody who opposes it is an evil racist right-winger.

(1) and (2) make no sense if the goal was merely gay rights, makes perfect sense if gay rights was merely a step in a campaign to dissolve marriage in general.

The experience of (1) and (2) teach one that, quite apart from polygamy's inherently misogynistic and anti-female nature, another reason to oppose polygamy is that it is easily predictable that legalizing incest (at first, between adults) would be the next step -- and then, no doubt, pedophilia and necrophilia. (I wish I could be sure the sarcasm intended by me about these latter two is justified; I fear it isn't).

It would be done using the the same paper-thin, worn arguments: "sure, SOME incest is like that, but what about the case of Ms. X and Mr. Y, who are father and daughter and love each other very, very much, in all senses of the word? Why are you DENYING THEM EQUAL RIGHTS?!?! You must be one of those RACISTS who opposed pedophilia, too! You just oppose it because you consider it ICKY!".

Well, call me an evil racist, but I won't like to see the walls of the nursery and the mourge coming down in the sexual revolution, and that is another reason to oppose legalizing polygamy.

P. S.

Let me get one thing straight. I am NOT opposed to gay marriage per se. But the gay marriage cause, as fair to gays as it might be, had been taken over by those who real goal is destruction of marriage in general; and who use, not arguments about fairness, but threats and excommunications -- "everybody who opposes gay marriage is racist" -- whose purpose is to simply shut down the discussion.

This is why, while I would not be opposed to gay marriage in theory, I fear that, in practice, its legalization would just be a new advanced base for legalizing polygamy, incest, and more, which is a good reason to oppose it, at least until assurances to the contrary about its practical outcome are forthcoming.

 

[crimresearch]

"Because the real goal of legalizing polygamy, like that of legalizing gay marriage, is really to de-legitimize monogamous heterosexual marriage, not to promote anybody's rights.

Several people have asked for an explanation of exactly how the one causes the other.

BTW, what was the real goal of Loving v. Virginia?

 

[Marduk]

Because the real goal of legalizing polygamy, like that of legalizing gay marriage, is really to de-legitimize monogamous heterosexual marriage, not to promote anybody's rights. This is the best explanation I have for the two obvious, yet here ignored, points:
.

ok, just a brief reality check for you, as I am the only person I am aware of in this thread involved in a polyamorous relationship, then I am the one here most likely to be involved in a polygamous marriage at some point which means I am the only one here with a personal vested interest in seeing polygamous marriage legalised. I'm not bothered about marriage as I stated earlier, but that should go someway to legitimising my opinion on this
both your points are meaningless to me
do you understand, they are meaningless to me