Polygamy

[oatmeal fetish....]

Apparently a bunch of you are against this, so I figured I'd make a thread.

I don't have a whole lot to say on the subject other than I see no reason why polygamy shouldn't be allowed. If it is how adults in their right minds want to live their lives, than I believe they should be able to. Can someone who disagrees with me tell me why they are against polygamy?

[Larry Flyntz]

I'm not sure where I stand on this issue, but I think a lot depends on the meaning of "in their right minds." I'm not sure exactly how we should define that in this case. I mean, I think that a man would have to be out of his mind to be willing to put up with multiple wives, and a woman would have to be out of her mind to be willing to be treated as just "one of many." I think it is degrading to women, but so is porn, and you don't see me bashing porn.

[Shire Le Buff]

It could also go the other way though, couldn't it?   Multiple husbands for one wife?   Or every a big mucky spiderweb of husband and wife relationships.

I agree that it should be legal, but there's lots of creepy stuff involving polygamy that goes on in the upper west of our fair country.

[Rhino......................]

a woman would have to be out of her mind to be willing to be treated as just "one of many." I think it is degrading to women, but so is porn, and you don't see me bashing porn.

Wouldn't it only be degrading if they weren't consenting adults, but people who were forced into it?

[oatmeal fetish....]

but there's lots of creepy stuff involving polygamy that goes on in the upper west of our fair country.

Absolutely. But there's also a lot of creepy stuff that goes on with regular marriage too.

[GREGORIAN CHANT!!!]

I have no problem with polygamy at all, if you want the problems that multiple wives give you and your wives are into that more power to you. Same goes for females. I myself am not in a rush to pick up another serious girlfriend.

[Rhino......................]

Well, since it doesn't look like there's going to be much disagreement here... what about the SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE THAT THE POLYGAMOUS QUEERS ARE TRYING TO STEAL?? NEXT THEY WILL WANT TO FUCK ANIMALS IT'S THE ONLY WAY THINGS CAN GO FROM HERE!

[Larry Flyntz]

a woman would have to be out of her mind to be willing to be treated as just "one of many." I think it is degrading to women, but so is porn, and you don't see me bashing porn.

Wouldn't it only be degrading if they weren't consenting adults, but people who were forced into it?

It may not be degrading to the individual woman, but it could still be degrading to women overall. It could foster a mentality within polygamist men that says "Hey, this is how you should be treating women." Sure, the women (who are likely indoctrinated - I don't imagine there are many people who convert from run-of-the-mill protestantism to polygamy because of its claims of logic) may not mind being treated that way, but the men will still interact with other women and possibly treat them poorly.

It's a weak argument, I know. I'm just trying to provide some fuel for debate. It seems any argument along the "it's degrading to women" line would have to ban porn, too. And I can't jive with that.

[Rhino......................]

It may not be degrading to the individual woman, but it could still be degrading to women overall.

Well, if the law were gender-specific, then absolutely, it would be degrading to women. I think in terms of the law, we ought to be defining polygamy as the condition or practice of having more than one spouse at one time. In this case, we're not specifying that women and men play by different rules and have separate rights. One woman could marry many men or vice versa. Many men could marry many women. I mean, whatever, who cares? What the fuck business is it of mine?

I think the official problem that the national government has with polygamy is the same as the problem it has with gay marriage, in that "marriage" is considered a church-sanctioned union, so forcing a church to sanction an activity it fundamentally disagrees with would violate the church's freedom to express its own beliefs. That's a fine argument, I guess, but it doesn't even begin to explain why the government also has a problem with civil unions. Also, if we're going to say flat-out that marriage is a religious practice, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for married couples to receive special benefits from the government just because they choose to participate.

[Larry Flyntz]

I think marriage should be left up to the individual religions. If a religion wants to sanction a gay wedding, go ahead! If they want to sanction polygamy, go ahead! Given that marriage is inherently religious, any government attempt to define marriage is a violation of the First Amendment.

If government wants to give out certain benefits, I think they should call all unions "civil (meaning 'of the state') unions" and wash their hands of this religious nonsense that they have no business messing with. Leave the civil part to the government, and leave the religious part to the churches.

[CadmiumYellow]

i dunno guys, something about polygamy rubs me the wrong way. i wouldn't say the practice is degrading towards women specifically, but i definitely think it makes them small. and i think a woman growing up in a society where polygamy is not only allowed- it's common- would absolutely affect the way she grows up and the way she views herself and her views on how men treat her and her opinion on marriage. i think it's hard to go either way on this topic because it's hard to be general about it. i did however think it would be interesting to point out that the word 'polygamy' refers just to men having multiple wives- women having multiple husbands gets a different word (polyandry). i tried to find polygamy statistics but they are hard to come by because when it happens, it's rarely documented. but i did find that when mormons started practicing what they called 'multiple marriages' it was polygamy- men having multiple wives.
anyway i don't really like it. i realize though that pretty much everything i just said can be refuted by a simple "WELL JUST LET THE GIRLZ HAVE A LOT OF HUSBANDZ TOOO DUHHHHHHHHH". of course then there is the whole question of the likelihood of any man agreeing to be one of several husbands but that might not be debatable. and i guess it would depend on the girl.

[Larry Flyntz]

i wouldn't say the practice is degrading towards women specifically, but i definitely think it makes them small.

Are you saying it isn't degrading, but it does make women "smaller?" I don't see the difference between the two words. Indeed, it seems that "degrade" means, at least in the sense of dignity, "make smaller." I don't understand the distinction you're trying to make.

[CadmiumYellow]

well saying something is DEGRADING TOWARDS WOMEN ! implies generalization (ie, all women or most women). i guess the fact that polygamy is so difficult to talk about generally caused me to have an aversion to using those terms.
pretty much all my negative feelings towards polygamy can be summed up in terms of my view of marriage as an equal partnership.

[Larry Flyntz]

How does saying "it makes them small" avoid that sort of generalization? Here, "them" refers to all/most women, too. I can't tell if this is just an issue of semantics, or if this is an actual disagreement we have.

[CadmiumYellow]

all i meant by the generalizing thing was there are too many ifs (if men and women were allowed multiple wives, if they were all ok with it, if the multiple wives still maintained their self respect, if women even have multiple husbands usually or if historically men do usually, etc) to comfortably say a blanket statement like 'polygamy is bad for everyone.' however the only way i'd marry anyone was if it was 50-50, so i see being one of several wives as being less than half (small).

[Rhino......................]

I think it's important to distinguish between what we think is morally right and what should be legal. I can't imagine myself ever wanting to be one of multiple husbands or have multiple wives, and I'm pretty sure I don't know any women who would want to place themselves in the position of being one of many. But in the probably rare circumstance where a threesome or foursome or whatever actually wants to get married, I don't see the rationale in denying them the right.

Of course, I'm of the opinion that marriage in general should be none of the government's business, so to me the fact that there are any laws surrounding the issue of marriage is fucking obscene.

[FAGGOT WATCHIN TRON]

I think for polygamy/polyandry to be the most "morally" acceptable, we would have to change the way we think of it entirely. Right now we are thinking about polygamy (from here on out I'm just going to refer to it as polygamy, but understand that I believe that both should be legal and I mean to reference both) as unequal partnership - 50% to 25% and 25% or something along those lines. And granted, this is more or less what a polygamist relationship is. In fact, its even less so, since the wives are usually ranked against each other as well. However, what I imagine as a modern polygamist relationship is one of equal partnership, where each spouse, regardless of sex, would have an equal say in all decisions. Not one man with multiple wives, but multiple spouses engaged in one relationship. I don't see how that could possibly be degrading to anyone involved.

But really I feel people should be able to do what makes them happy, in so far as it relates to marriage, etc. If a bunch of women decide that being part of a traditional polygamist marriage is what will make them happy, then I don't see anything wrong with that either. It doesn't hurt me, or anybody else, and if the women involved are happy then it doesn't hurt them either! The only thing people shouldn't be able to do in my mind is marry children or animals. And even the animals things is only because there's no way to prove that the animal is happy in the relationship. If sheep could talk, then I'd probably be cool with that, too.

[Larry Flyntz]

I understand your point, but the only problem with the "If it makes them happy..." argument is that it's nigh impossible for a government to actually regulate/enforce happiness. What I mean is that government has no way of actually knowing whether a polygamist relationship is done out of free will or if it is coerced. On the whole, though, I agree with what you're saying. It just runs into some practical problems.

[Rhino......................]

No one's talking about regulating or enforcing happiness. Traditional heterosexual marriage ends in divorce over half the time, and I'm sure a significant portion of the couples who decide to stay married until death aren't happy most of the time either. But sometimes people still want to get married, often because they believe it will make them happy. What is the rationale behind making certain forms of marriage between consenting adults illegal?

[Larry Flyntz]

The rationale is that some forms of "consenting" marriage aren't really consenting at all. I'm sure some polygamist marriages are consenting, but I'm sure some are the products of intense coercion as well. I don't know the details of the marriage practices of fundamentalist Mormons, but I wouldn't be surprised if marriages were closer to the arranged marriages of old than what we consider to be modern marriage.

Basically, I'm just saying that if the premise is "let them do what they want," we need to know if it is really "what they want."