Can anyone name a single legitimate reason why polygamy is illegal?

Ok.

So, explain verbal and handshake agreements.

Does the government not involve itself in those disputes?

 

People should be able to enter into any sort of marriage agreement they like, just the way they are now as long as they don't get involved with legal marriage.

If you want to have several wives that's perfectly fine with me, just as long as they can leave you any time they wish

Marriage is a financial/property arrangement anyway. Our attitudes about it go back to when property ownership was by birth and family instead of simply buying it

The Hapsburg Family was one of the most powerful entities that have ever existed in the world for over a millennium because they devoted themselves to arranging marriages to their advantage.

 

What's to explain?

Only if it considers them enforceable contracts.

 

Lots of complicated messes happen with monogamous marriages, too. Countries where polygamy is legal have no particular problem with it.

I've already made the argument: many women have shown a definite preference for sharing relationships with the most desirable men rather than having inferior or even average ones to themselves. Society would be better off if the best husbands and fathers were able to look after more of the women and children, and the worst ones did without. As it stands, too many women are faced with the stark choice of a bad husband and father or none at all. There are very good reasons why almost all hunter-gatherer and nomadic herding societies were polygamous. What needs explaining, rather, is why that natural pattern has been disrupted.

 

As to your first point, the complications, in a two person union, are proportionally fewer, than in a three person union; which are less than, potentially, those intrinsic to a four person union. This is just patently obvious, common sense. Hopefully, then, it is not beyond you. You are still interpreting some limitless element, in the idea, now, of how deep into complications a nation, or our country's government, must go, if they are willing to deal with any complications, at all, in legally certifying the institution of marriage, of a single partner. It is therefore incumbent on it, to adjudicate all the marriage issues in a 39 person union, in which 32 of the people are also part of other utterly different "marriages," as well, encompassing hundreds of people, who all would then become relevant, in a divorce case, in the marriage of 39, in which all children were raised communally? I don't think so.

I am not suggesting that what I just stipulated, would not be a very odd, & rare situation-- but not an impossible one. If you are going to just brush this off, then you are, hypocritically, switching to @jcarlilesiu 's argument, that the government need not be involved, unless there is a problem. My point had been, that limiting the potential messes that government is willing to sort, in relationships, is not only reasonable, but is based on masses of precedent, regarding all manner of issues. To show the fecklessness of your argument, let us apply it to guns, to wit: since there is risk involved with a population owning just hand guns and hunting rifles already, there is therefore no justification for restricting citizens' access to assault rifles, or to bazookas, for that matter. Sensible-- or ludicrous?

Just because there are problems that must be dealt with, even when there are only two marriage partners, does in no way validate the idea that, then, it would be no more trouble to do the same thing, regarding multiple spouses. You are effectively arguing, that because I loaned you lunch money, I must now buy you a refrigerator. Therefore, my response, is to repeat my original-- still untouched by rational counter argument-- point: all limits, are not, ipso facto, abnegations or grievance- worthy restrictions, of any given "right," or privilege, granted by society.



Your second point, above, about "countries where polygamy is legal," is totally irrelevant, because those countries have different cultures.



Since it took so much space, to address these first two issues you cite-- which really are hard to imagine anyone needing to have explained to them-- sufficiently, I hope, for you to understand how baseless were these contentions of yours, I will take up the rest of your post, in my next reply.

 

So, this is a chicken before the egg situation. What came first, the contract or the governments involvement in enforcing it?

You are making the claim a marriage license is necessary because government has to be involved if a dispute arises and that contracts are written for that purpose.

Well, what happens if people don't get married but still engage in a verbal agreement of partnership... the courts still get involved there in case of dispute.

So why is a license required in the first place?

 

Contracts pre-date governments; they were just extremely awkward and inefficient.

It makes things clearer and simpler in the event of a dispute.

 

I didn't realize that this was your attitude, as I did not see it, in any of your earlier replies, made to me.

It was, I thought obviously, not the legal aspect I was curious about; in fact you'd already told me the arrangement, of two heterosexual marriages. I'd wondered if you all were a bisexual foursome, essentially, or if it was more like the men both having two wives, and the women each having two husbands. Again, I realize this is your personal, private business, and nothing I am entitled to ask you to share, so no problem, if you'd just prefer not to say. All I ask is that you say that, rather than, if you kind of give a non answer, assuming that I'll take the hint. I will generally take a person at their word and if they miss the point of my question, without my having a good reason to suspect another cause, I will usually take it to mean simply that they had missed my point.

That seems to me, as if you are putting the cart, before the horse. So you would like people to agree, in principle, that polygamists deserve legal marriage (you'd previously said the opposite), but not until we sufficiently iron out the additional legal considerations? The problem with that is it is like telling slaves-- your analogy will work, in this instance-- you are entitled to your freedom, and we plan to give it to you, eventually, but you need to remain slaves, until after we've settled all of the particulars, involved. Obviously, that would only add to polygamists' sense of being treated unfairly, and would heighten their impatience, for those solutions which they would take as being promised, from that point onward, even before we knew whether or not there could be workable solutions found, for all the necessary issues. I guess this is your attitude, because you assume, all difficulties can be satisfactorily overcome. I do not take that, as a given. Therefore I feel that it would need to be shown to be at least feasible first, before we bother discussing whether or not, we should actually do it. But, of course, who else is going to give serious thought to sorting out these additional legal complications, before society has resolved to solve them, other than polygamists?

Just so you are clear, I am listing the legal consequences, because it seems like a more tangible, and objective aspect, around which to build a logical case. That does not mean that I see these as the only snag, holding this back. I do not think society is ready for such a change, for one thing. And regardless of anyone's picture of "objective" fairness, ideals and realities, are rarely the same. Part of striving for the ideal of legal polygamy, if that's what you consider it, is the struggle to get there. Ideals do not generally just pop into existence, but need to, usually, be fought for.

I do not want to start on all the reasons that society has its qualms with polygamists, of varying merit, since this deserves its own post, rather than being an appurtenance, added to my grab bag of responses, to your assorted points, (answering my various assertions).
Just a reminder-- I am waiting for you to tell me you are ready to do a reset.

This is interesting to me, because I have always believed "common sense" to mean, what is manifest to a person, through using just natural intelligence. You are defining it as what I would call, conventional wisdom (or in some cases, just popular opinion). These are two very different concepts: one implies impartial reasoning, the other involves almost thoughtless acceptance of an idea, which may or may not, be correct (or even logical). The funny part is that Einstein has a quote in which he seems to be talking about conventional wisdom, but calls it common sense. Because English was not his first language, I had always assumed that Albert E. had been using the wrong term. Now, I have to wonder if either "common sense" can refer to both of these, very different, things; or if, perhaps, I have always been mistaken, as to what that term means.

 

So what? The fact that good public policy is potentially more complicated than bad public policy is not a reason to adopt bad public policy. Having lots of small parks in a city rather than one big park is also more complicated. But it's better.

There is no reason to think such legal complexity would be any harder to deal with than the interlocking ownership structures of corporations. Do we throw up our hands and tell them they have to make do without government-enforceable contracts because "it's too complicated"?

Ludicrous. But lots of countries actually have legal structures for polygamy, and it is not a particular problem.

It might be more trouble, just as it is more trouble to deal with corporations that can legally own shares in other corporations.

Nonsense.

True but irrelevant. Consider the analogy with corporate ownership law.

Yes, every culture is different; and if polygamy were legal here, our culture would be different, too. So what?

 

It is too bad, then, that you are not arguing for more city parks. You have yet to show, at least in your argument with me, how limiting marriage partners, to one at a time, is "bad public policy," and/or how it is good public policy, to allow more than one.

That is incorrect, and very specious logic. Has our religious freedom, which of course permits followers of Islam to practice their faiths, turned our culture into anything resembling a Muslim country? I think the obvious answer is no. But allowing people to worship as they choose-- even to have multiple religions, if they like-- does not involve any other part of the community, and does not present legal challenges, complications, or dilemmas, for our government or society. The same cannot be said of adding to the number of partners, who can be considered, and so must be treated, like legal spouses, including with regard to things like parental rights. Allowing any given practice does not imply that this practice will be accepted by Americans, and so that our culture will merely adapt to it, permitting said practice to operate here, as it does in places it has been practiced for thousands of years.

You'll need to find a different argument.

Your reference to corporate law, is the irrelevant point. Yes, law can potentially be very complicated for a corporation, albeit in much different ways, than for married couples. That is why "corporate law," is a separate domain, its own specialty practice, within the law (as opposed to, say, divorce law). Not only is this an apples to oranges comparison, but note that, in order to handle all these potential legal complications, any large, multinational corporation, has its own legal department, employing many, high priced attorneys. Hardly a practical expectation, or model, for most married couples to follow.

 

Ok read this and just had to comment briefly. I feel like I am going to end up writing a book when I get the chance. Probably tomorrow night after work if nothing comes up. Got the grandchildren to deal with tonight. But you are giving me a lot of things to comment on that I think will make for even more interesting debate/conversation.

And I am gaining a respect for you moreso than before. I have a feeling we could end up on complete different sides of an issue (here I think we're butting heads on just certain aspects), and still have a good respectable debate. I think I am going to have to add you to my list of people to meet IRL if the opportunity presents itself.

 

@DEFinning
Third time’s a charm hopefully. Twice now I have started to do this and I’m several lines in and then I hit something, and it all goes away. So this time I am doing this is a word processor and the copy and paste. And this will end up as at least 2, if not 3 posts.

First some terms just to make sure all are on the same page when I use them:

Ethical Non-Monogamy (ENM): The practice of having multiple partners in a sexual and/or romantic relationship simultaneously. The ethical aspect is indicative of all persons involved are aware of each other, although not necessarily on the details of the other relationships.
Open Relationship (OR): A subset of ENM that typically is sexual in nature.
Swinging: A specific type of OR that involved a married unit (usually couples). Initially the term referred to couples who engaged in an OR with one or more other couples. In the current era, there is a portion of the community that used the terms to indicate a married person who has sexual relationships outside the marriage, But the use is not universal.
Polyamory (poly): A subset of ENM that is typically romantic in nature. Sex may or may not also be involved, but usually is.
Polygamy: A subset of Polyamory where marriage occurs within the unit. The term has no indication of the number or sexes/genders involved.
Polygyny: A subset of polygamy where there is only one husband and 2+ wives.
Polyandry: A subset of polygamy where there is only one wife and 2+ husbands.

From there I need to then touch upon marriage itself. Marriage comes in three basic forms: Legal/civil, religious, and social. Within these forms there can be variations, such as polygamy, monogamy, ghost marriage, same sex, opposite sex, and others.

Marriage of one form does not automatically mean recognition by another form, although most times it does happen. For example: A couple who gets married by a cleric of their religion but does not file the appropriate paperwork with their government has a religious marriage, but does not have a legal marriage. Likewise, the couple being married by the government is not necessarily recognized by their religion as married if they don’t go through the religious ceremony. Friends and family can recognize the marriage as a social one, even if the government and their religion does not recognize it.

Even within each form, two entities within that form are not required to recognize the same marriage. For example: A legal marriage in one country is not automatically recognized in another country. A couple married by a Wiccan High Priestess is not necessarily recognized as married by the Catholic Church. My family (social group) might recognize my married, but our friends don’t necessarily.

Now for the purposes of this thread, we are pretty much exclusively discussing legal marriage, save maybe where some opponents want to try to force the other forms to be illegal as well. But I will only talk about that as it comes up, and the other forms as needed for contrast/comparison.

When it comes to marriage in the legal sense, within the US, there is actually nothing that compels the US or any state to have the legal form of marriage. It is an option, but it is not a requirement. What is a requirement is that, if offered, then the legal form of marriage cannot be denied based upon the protected demographics, which include, sex, race, religion and others. It is this basis by which the banning of interracial and same sex marriage were unconstitutional. The number of people in the marriage unit or their relationships prior to the marriage are NOT protected statuses. Therefore, it is perfectly constitutional for the government to say that people within 2 degrees of separation or more can get married or that there has to be at least 6 degrees of separation (person to parent or sibling would be 1 degree). Likewise, they can say that each marriage unit is limited to 2 or 4 or 18 people, or no limit. So while it is allowable for the government to have incest marriage or polygamy as legal, they are not required include it with their legal form of marriage because those things are not protected by any law, at least as of this writing. So the poly community can fight for the ability to legally marry in units greater than 2, but we don’t actually have any right to such a marriage, even though there are those within the community who think so.

Now when it comes to arguments for or against polygamy, there are arguments as to why it should be illegal and then there are arguments as to why it would be problematic to make it legal again. I say again, because anything that is not made illegal by law is by default legal. The main difference between the two types of arguments is that the second type focuses in on what would happen if polygamy were made legal today based on having been illegal before. They would not necessarily hold up under the premise of polygamy never having been made illegal and the laws developed around a system that allowed it. Arguments of the first type hold up under either premise, because they would work whether the goal is to make polygamy illegal, or to keep it illegal. Most of the time that I make counters with the claim that the argument is not a good reason to make/keep polygamy illegal, they are of the first type. For example, if the argument is that God said polygamy is a sin, that is not a good or valid reason, in the US at least, to make/keep polygamy illegal. With arguments of the second type, my position and that of many others within the poly community, is that we would have to change other laws first before we bother to fight for the actual ability to marry in 3+ marriage units.

 

Part 2:
Now to some of your other questions. And if I miss something, please either ask them again, or point me to a post number. It may be that I think I am answering your question, but you don’t feel that I did.

As I noted above. Polyamory is more focused on the emotional or romantic aspect of a relationship and sex might not actually enter into the relationship. Of the 4 of us, only the wife K is bisexual, although she leans heavily towards men. Now I don’t remember if I mentioned it on this forum, although definitely not in this thread yet, my sexual attraction is towards woman, be they cis women or transwomen. Some might call that bisexual and others won’t. Regardless, my husband, A, is without doubt a man, so I hold no sexual attraction towards him, nor he towards me. But we do love each other very much, and other than the sex, pretty much interact as spouses. A also is not sexually attracted to the other wife, D, even though she is a woman. But that fall nicely with the observation that while we (people in general) may be sexually attracted to a given demographic, we are not attracted to all within that demographic. So romantically speaking, we are all attracted to each other, but for sexual attraction it looks more like an N or a Z (which is just an N rotated 90 degrees) with A and D at the ends and K and myself at the angle points.

I did note this above, but just to be clear, it’s not actually the same. The slaves’ rights were being violated. There is no right of ours being violated here. Now if the government were to say, “Because you four are living together in a claim of marriage in the religious sense, we will be denying you the two separate legal marriage that would have otherwise been granted.” then rights of ours would be violated. The government, per the equal rights amendment and laws, cannot use sex as a condition of whether one can be married to another or not. Those laws and amendment do not cover number of people. It can be offered, but it is not required like interracial is. And honestly, I see no problem with the government starting with a limit of 3 or 4 people in a single marriage unit and no legal marriages outside that unit (they can have all the religious and social ones they want, like we do now), and seeing how that goes and then deciding if they want to go any higher. In my experience, 3 or 4 is the most common number, with 5 a bit behind. While you might find polyamory groups at 6 or larger, polygamy units that large or larger are very rare.

ENM supporters. Just as the LBGT community has lots of supporters who are not LBGT themselves, so too do we. People who say, I don’t want to do it, but there is no reason they shouldn’t be able to. And honestly, I do think that the obstacles can satisfactorily overcome. But it would take time, effort, and probably a good large paradigm shift of society as a whole or at least among those who want to make it happen.

Indeed, they are different concepts, and the term is used both ways. In some cases, it’s the difference between soda and pop. But even in the concept of what is manifest to a person though just natural intelligence, that common sense is still going to be based upon the premises of life that the person has grown up with and the opinions they have formed in life. Common sense in the way you mean it will be different between a person raised Christian and one raised Jewish. It is also based up the knowledge of the time. Common sense at one time would tell us that we existed in a geocentric system, even though that was not the truth. But it was what the evidence of the time showed, until new evidence showed different. And even then, it took a while for the new proofs to be accepted and believed.

If you feel that I did not address this sufficiently above, please let me know.

The right to something is independent of whether society accepts it or not. Think of how much of society didn't accept blacks as legal equals or interracial marriage. Things that are religious or social institutions cannot be touched by law save where they interfere with those who do not consent to them. Mind you that hasn't stopped laws that violate such rights from being passed or enforced. Look at sodomy laws. Besides being a violation of privacy, what happens between two consenting adults harms no one else. Yet that same act between one person and another who does not, or can not, provide informed consent, harm is happening to them. My polygamist marriage, religious and social based (noting my part above about recognition within any given single form) harms no one, therefore there is no reason to make it illegal when we don't try to engage in the legal form.

I think this should cover most of what we were trying to cover and were hitting on misunderstanding and such. As my one wife notes between her and I sometimes, we may have been coming at the same thing from different angles and it seemed like we were in opposition. Hopefully, I have made my position more clear, and have addressed most of your concerns. I look forward to your next response.

 

This is all quite informative. Thank you. It tends to reinforce my view that marriage per se is not government's business, whereas creating appropriate institutions to support good environments for child rearing -- which could obviously look a lot like marriage -- is.

 

I hope you read the first part too. It is and isn't. Marriage across history has never been any one thing save the joining of two or more people for whatever reason. Procreations, politics, love, whatever. So it's not outside the interest of government to provide an institution that can better the overall citizenry. One of the studied benefits of marriage is that the participants tend to live longer and be healthier, even those without children. They also tend to be more financially stable. Now, it would be interesting to see if that is still the case, but I think such a study needs to account for both marriages that last only a short time and those that last for years. And with polyamory and polygamy (social not legal) on the rise outside the radical religious groups, we should also be seeing more studies about them coming out relatively soon.

 

Or maybe healthy, financially responsible people are just more likely to get married and stay married than unhealthy spendthrifts.

Such studies are fraught with methodological issues, as explained above.

 

That's pretty much the argument against any study one disagrees with. You need to show the methodological problems for any given study, and for each study individually for that argument to hold any water.

 

Fake News. In our system of religious freedom, religous views are absolutely legitimate.

Your anti-Mormon bias aside, the problems with Mormon polygamy have been common to polygamy for centuries.

You ask for a discussion then you promptly try to rule points out through assertion rather than reasoned argument, not an auspicious start.

In our Constitutional Liberal Democracy, marriage is regulated by the State. And in none of these United States do the majority of the people desire to regress to the inferior form of polygamy that we have advanced from. Under extraordinary heavy survival pressure humans can resort to polygamy, and through this convention, a few men can serve a lot of women, and in desperate times this practice has prevented human extinction. Today we are not facing human extinction. The total weight of all humans alive today exceeds by a hundred times, the gross weight of any other species that has ever existed. We are the most successful species to ever inhabit the earth, do try not to screw that up. Just be grateful. You won the genetic lottery. You are free to pick and win any woman you like and then spend your life making her the happiest person you can. You don't need additional women, deprive other man of that same privilege.

- '70,000 years ago, give or take a few thousand years, an enormous eruption occurred in what is now Sumatra, leaving behind Lake Toba (the crater lake pictured). The eruption coincides with a population bottleneck that is often cited as the reason for the relatively low genetic diversity across Homo sapiens sapiens. Research suggests as few as 2,000 humans were left alive by the eruption and its aftereffects.'



More recently, 7,000 years ago, dna studies show that the number of men producing offspring were massively outnumbered by the number of women producing offspring, mathematically it works out one man per 17 women, and this continued for 2,000 years.



It left us with far less diversity on the Y chromosome than the X chromosome and could contribute to why women tend to outlive men, they are more genetically fit due to their greater genetic diversity.

Military aged males tend be much more violent if they are not engaged in marriage and family. In a polygamous society older, wealthier, men with social connections, who are not necessarily the most physically fit, get the women and reproduce while the young men, and the sons of the earlier wives are very soon closer in age to the younger wives than the husband, are run off to remove sexual competition. With so many women taken, there is an imbalance, and these packs of roving disconnected military aged males become a dangerous destabilizing force until they destroy the unjust system that excludes them.

When a small group of powerful men control far more than their share of the women, inbreeding and overall drop in genetic fitness weakens the human population. A weakened population tends to be conquered and destroyed.



Reliable research suggests consanguineous marriage rates in many Arab nations are as high as 50 percent.

'Salha al-Hefthi, a 17-year-old Saudi girl was profiled by the New York Times in 2003. Ms. Hefthi’s parents told her how lucky she was to be marrying someone from her own tribe, her paternal uncle’s son—her first cousin. The couple had two healthy boys but their third child, a girl, was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic disorder that usually is fatal. The couple would have three more children born with the disease.'

'Ms. Hefthi told the Times she had no idea inbreeding often leads to genetic defects. This is not uncommon in Saudi Arabia, which is why genetic disorders are so rampant.'

If you want to live in a polygamous society, many of the Islamic states are polygamous, and I wish you luck. We have the stronger, better, and more just arrangement, and we'll keep it.

Genetic diversity is good!

 

What? Same sex marriages have nothing to do with the gene pool. The gene pool is affected by conception.

 

They are not legitimate as a basis of civil law.

Correlation causation fallacy. There is nothing about polygamy that causes any problems. The societies in which people claimed polygyny caused problems for women were ones that would have treated women poorly even if only monogamy was practiced, as we can see by the monogamous societies that treated women badly.

He is making the point that one cannot look at only the Mormon form or the Islamic form of polygyny to form a view of polygamy overall, especially when polygamy is now being entered into by even atheists.

First, you are using subjective opinion values. Secondly, you will find that the numbers of people engaging in all forms of Ethical Non-Monogamy (ENM) are on the rise. So this is a valid topic to discuss now since we could soon be seeing that majority.

This whole section is running under the false premise that polygamy only consists of polygyny. You completely ignore other forms such as polyandry, and the marriages where there are 2+ of both husbands and wives (before we drag any concept of NB into it)

Again the false premise. With polygamous marriages consisting of all women and all men, as well as those others I mentioned before, the issue of "balance" is not really an issue. Further there is also not the issue of forced polygyny as there are in the religious sects. Add to that, that most people prefer monogamy, so when not forced to participate in polygamy, the majority will choose monogamy over polygamy, while still leaving the choice for those who prefer it to choose polygamy.

Again you are working from that same false premise. You are looking at polygyny as if it were the only form and you are using an example from societies where women are not treated equal to begin, and where the concept of marry within the family/clan is emphasized. These are factors that are not present in most first world countries. The idea of marrying even second cousins is anathema to many.

 

???

 

They also conflict with one another between different religions.

Where are you getting that the majority prefer monogamy? I think many men would prefer multiple wives, until they realized making it accepted would mean most of them would be left without any. And I think many women would rather share a high status high wealth top genetics man than have a lesser one all their own.

I think the reason monogamy is forced may be that without it you get many desperate single men who then turn to violence.

I would like to see proper research on this.

 

I'm thinking the only reason would be one of 'benefits' (insurance, for example). Also rights of the spouse(s) when it comes to legal decisions about the life of the partner.

 

Because in most such societies there is an excess of women, because men were killed off early in battle and dangerous work. Throw young men into the meat grinder and you have unmarried women, who in these cultures needed men to survive.

 

If it's true that married couples are healthier than single people, and that polygamy is more likely than polyandry, then that may be another argument against polyamory being legal. It yields poorer health outcomes for men.