Polygamy: is it moral?

[Smellincoffee]

I think it depends on the culture, because it shapes people's expectations of what 'marriage' is. If women or men are OK with being one of many partners, then I don't see anything wrong with it -- but forcing people into a relationship where emotional attachment is shared is a bad idea in a culture where people have expectations that marriage is about two people committing to one another.

 

[scherbchen]

"moral"? that is an odd way of asking the question. which set of morals are we talking about? mine?

do I oppose it? no. consenting adults (!) can do as they please. it is none of my business. as with gay marriage I neglect to take "religous" PoVs on the matter a) with a heavy dose of salt and b) ignore it. your religion supports polygamy? so? your religion frowns upon homosexuality? who cares?

consenting adults.

PS: those adults will have to realize that, laws being laws, divorces and inheritance issues are going to be a botch.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Help me beat back the frontiers of my ignorance. I thought the premise of the pro gay marriage crew was that gays were being discriminated against because consenting adults were not allowed to enter into a binding legal agreement, is this not the case?

Well, they're both contracts of sorts. Marriage as a term...doesn't it have religious implications? I can see the catholic church not allowing either or something . But I don't see the problem contractually. Government interference to a huge extent in private affairs does make this issue more convoluted than it needs to be, admittedly.

 

[Death_Machine]

Well, they're both contracts of sorts. Marriage as a term...doesn't it have religious implications?

Only by bigots who wish to force their view on the world.

 

[civ_king]

I want to sound edumacted so here I go
1) If we allow polygamist marriages then we must allow polyandry too or it is discrimination
2) what if a woman is in a marriage with more then one guy? and they each are married to more then 1 woman, how do you do divorce or matrimony or paternity suits (yes you can but that can get expensive) or survivors benefits??? or or or??? do you get my drift?
3) if you are married to some one and they are also married to someone else and your spouse gets stds and then you get stds and you pass that to another spouse.....

(note, those are my legitimate reasons...)

 

[Lillefix]

I want to sound edumacted so here I go
1) If we allow polygamist marriages then we must allow polyandry too or it is discrimination

That's a weird question. It's like asking if we legalise marriage between homosexuals, should we also legalise marriage between lesbians.

 

[Imperialmajesty]

Yes, it is, as long as polygamy applies equally between sexes. In other words, a Man can have 6 wives, but a Woman can have 6 husbands also.

 

[Miles Teg]

I would suggest to you that while I am playing devil's advocate that any problem you listed is also encountered in traditional marriage and the only reason any problem you listed increases is due to the fact that there are simply more people involved in the marriage contract. Just like an entrepreneur will have less entangling issues than a partnership, which has less than a corporation. I say this because when you strip the issue down to the bare basics all we're talking about is a legal contract between people.

I'm not interested in some hypothetical libertarianistic point of view. Homosexual marriage solves more problems than it causes. Polygamous marriage doesn't. As long as that basic principle holds, so will my option for polygamous marriage.

 

[GenMarshall]

I find that it is immoral. Too much competition from my point of view (not to mention hogging the women )

 

[Lillefix]

I find that it is immoral. Too much competition from my point of view (not to mention hogging the women )

Not if they take several husbands

 

[LucyDuke]

If the traditional marriage is under assault then why stop at gender, why not embrace the total destruction of the traditional family?

Nobody wants to hurt your traditional marriage or your traditional family.

(The traditional family, that is, the type with the longest history, is not the nuclear mom-dad-kid-kid. It's mom and dad and kids and cousins and uncles and grandmothers and sisters-in-law... we've already lost that.)

In regards to the first comment, I feel like a shot has just been fired across my bow.

About the second comment: so you oppose discrimination based on gender, but you're perfectly willing to embrace it if the number of people in a consensual relationship exceeds the number of people that you deem fit. In short, your stance would suggest that you are no better than those bigoted Christians in the respect that they discriminate based on faith & you do on your world view.

The gays say they are discriminated against based on sexual preference & that nobody has the right to make that choice for them............ for polygamists just substitute "sexual preference" for "number of partners". Once we go down this road, who makes the call on that to tell the polygamists that they are wrong?

Yeah, I kind of skated the line there, sorry. Didn't like the taste of it.

You say "perfectly willing to embrace it". What is "it"? It sure isn't sex discrimination. (If it were, one would be opposing one-woman-many-husbands or one-man-many-wives, but not both.) It "it" discrimination in general? Don't be silly - nobody is allowed to have more than one spouse at a time, just as nobody is allowed to marry a cactus.

You folks insisting that allowing a woman to marry a woman would dilute the meaning of marriage are hardly in a position to suggest same-sex marriage is comparable to polygamy. You object that it loses its significance when its sex restrictions are lifted... then you say

I say this because when you strip the issue down to the bare basics all we're talking about is a legal contract between people.

I don't believe that. Most same-sex advocates don't. There's a sacred (not necessarily Christian) element to marriage between two people that laws can't touch.

Anyway, I don't think I'm going to keep up with this. I don't really care one way or another about polygamy. I don't find it unreasonable to prohibit it, nor do I have much objection to making it legal (with proper protections against abuse). You want to lump them together to make married gays sound all floodgates and evil, but the arguments against polygamy aren't the arguments against same-sex marriage.

The best part is that thing that pissed off everyone in California... whether you like it or not.

Enjoy!

 

[Earthling]

I have to agree it makes ZERO sense to see gay marriage as an issue of rights when polygamy is not. I'd think anyone who supports gay marriage as a legal institution because it's a person "right" to be married should support polygamy or is being a hypocrite.

That said, I don't think the state should recognize ANY marriage. I've never seen a convincing argument that marriage is required from a legal standpoint, in modern society. Consider the list of historical things related to marriage:

-Can't have sex without being married, as in you'd be imprisoned/pyred - False in modern society
-Can't have children without being married - False in modern society
-Can't have custody of a child without being married - False
-Can't live in the same house without being married - False
-Can't own land without being married - False
-Can't own slaves without being married - False (LOL)
-Can't inherit property without being married - False
-Can't have a job unless married/or not married in some traditions - False
-Businesses allowed to hire a person "because he's a married man with a family" or other similar standards in public spheres- False

So what do we get for having state marriage?
-Random Tax Benefits and/or Penalties
-Ability for the state to recognize Divorce (LOL again)
-Increased Complications to sue for property/inheritance/child custody/medical care/etc...

It just serves no purpose anymore. And frankly I do feel discriminated against that the tax system or healthcare system or something has huge differences about marriage. Everything covered by marriage should be covered by other means as it is for other citizens- inheritance, jobs, taxes, etc... Why, even married people nowadays often sign pre-nups and other legal stuff anyway - having all this marriage law is just a complication.

The one thing the state DOES have interest in is the welfare of children - future generation of citizens. But this is strictly separate from marriage today anyway as far as stuff like tax credits, guardianship is concerned. And unfortunately this is an argument against gay marriage since that won't produce any children for society, while for polygamy this isn't true. So the simple answer is I'd rather do away with "marriage" altogether, allow for specific legal agreements about raising children (which also apply to adoption), and increase ease at the federal level for the few other things that may need smoothing out (like residency/joint ownership of property etc...).

And furthermore I'd like to head off complaints about unnecessary complication because I see no way this could possibly be more complicated than our current system. No need for marriage/divorce etc... would be much simpler than now (people just have non-official religious ceremonies or something). Our society on the whole has already adapted all sorts of other similar traditional laws - we don't have anything about firstborn sons inheriting property anymore nowadays so I don't see why we need antiquated marriage laws cluttering up everything.

 

[PeteAtoms]

3) if you are married to some one and they are also married to someone else and your spouse gets stds and then you get stds and you pass that to another spouse.....

Don't know why you included this at all... Are you suggesting people only have marital sex? As if STD's couldn't be spread by extra-marital sex...

 

[Fifty]

It's not immoral as such but it is correlated closely enough with a certain sort of domestic subjugation that it is proper to think that it ought not be allowed.

Simple stuff people.

You can argue about the factuality of the correlation claim, but doing so requires bringing empirical evidence for and against that view to bear... you can't settle it from the armchair (or the deskchair).

 

[Death_Machine]

I'm not interested in some hypothetical libertarianistic point of view. Homosexual marriage solves more problems than it causes. Polygamous marriage doesn't. As long as that basic principle holds, so will my option for polygamous marriage.

Opinions are like buttholes, everybody has one........ and that is all that you have submitted here. Out of curiosity, what problems does homosexual marriage solve?

 

[LucyDuke]

And unfortunately this is an argument against gay marriage since that won't produce any children for society, while for polygamy this isn't true.

Gay couples have and raise children.

 

[Imperialmajesty]

It's not immoral as such but it is correlated closely enough with a certain sort of domestic subjugation that it is proper to think that it ought not be allowed.

Simple stuff people.

You can argue about the factuality of the correlation claim, but doing so requires bringing empirical evidence for and against that view to bear... you can't settle it from the armchair (or the deskchair).

I tend to agree, I don't think anyone here seriously thinks it should be legalized, even with the caveat I proposed, that it is sexually equal.

A posteriori, it is quite evident that any polygamous arrangement would have a "leader", the person marrying 4 or 5 people. It would basically be a form of de facto subjugation. After all, who would argue that 1 of the wives of a man has the power of the single man in the polygamous marriage? Opposite of that who would argue that 1 of the husbands of a woman has the power of the single woman in the polygamous marriage?

 

[Earthling]

Gay couples have and raise children.

Can't have biological children. So if the state's goal was to produce/care for more children there's no need for gay marriage. Or if the state's goal was to promote the religious traditions of having/raising children then that's also true. But that's a hypothetical viewpoint which I'm not saying I endorse - my specific point is that having and raising children is already separate from marriage in modern society, which is another reason we don't need to recognize marriage in our legal systems/taxes and the like at all.

Edit: Also people still aren't thinking outside the box, I see no reason why a polyamorous marriage couldn't include two men and two women for instance, or really any combo.

 

[Death_Machine]

You say "perfectly willing to embrace it". What is "it"?

It is discrimination against people wishing to have multiple spouses.

You folks insisting that allowing a woman to marry a woman would dilute the meaning of marriage are hardly in a position to suggest same-sex marriage is comparable to polygamy. You object that it loses its significance when its sex restrictions are lifted... then you say

Same-sex marriage is comparable to polygamy in the fact that it assaults the man/woman/children definition of a traditional family.

Then I say................................... what?

I don't believe that. Most same-sex advocates don't. There's a sacred (not necessarily Christian) element to marriage between two people that laws can't touch.

So why limit it to two people? Other cultures don't. It is just the outdated view of some Christians that forces this one man/one woman idea of marriage on all of us.

Anyway, I don't think I'm going to keep up with this. I don't really care one way or another about polygamy. I don't find it unreasonable to prohibit it, nor do I have much objection to making it legal (with proper protections against abuse). You want to lump them together to make married gays sound all floodgates and evil, but the arguments against polygamy aren't the arguments against same-sex marriage.

You don't think that polygamists will use the passage of same-sex marriage to further their own agenda? They will copy the tactics used by the gays, and cry discrimination to make polygamy legal. It has nothing to do with "floodgates and evil", but rather the consistency in arguments that the polygamists will duplicate from the gay movement. If you don't believe that then you are in denial.

The best part is that thing that pissed off everyone in California... whether you like it or not.

Enjoy!

I wouldn't say everybody was pissed, it looked mostly like the gays to me.

 

[LucyDuke]

Can't have biological children.

Not together, no, but gay =/= infertile. Besides, raising children is a hell of a lot more significant than creating them.