Polygamy: is it moral?

[Berzerker]

No, it really shouldn't. For one thing, the legal mess this would bring is astounding. Can you imagine trying to work out a ten, sixteen way divorce?

Polygamists divorce now, but if all 16 wives decided to divorce the guy at once I dont think they'd bother with legal proceedings and just did a grave

More importantly, combined with gay marriage or not, it makes it nearly impossible to distinguish between marriages and tax arrangements.

So what? It aint my job to run around determining if your marriage is heartfelt or not. Telling people they cant marry because you wont know if they're sincere is just Shall we apply that standard to you?

Of course, there's also social pressure. With one of the major legal barriers for groups like the FLDS removed, we're going to start seeing problems. Child abuse aside, in modern majority polygamous societies, you see allot of unskilled males being kicked out the commune that sheltered them their whole life because he wanted his first wife and the pastor wanted his 5th.

Driving polygamy underground helps expose problems?

 

[Miles Teg]

Polygamists divorce now, but if all 16 wives decided to divorce the guy at once I dont think they'd bother with legal proceedings and just did a grave

Cute, but it doesn't answer anything. To bring up more legal woes, imagine someone divorcing one of there partners, while staying married to a mutual spouse.

So what? It aint my job to run around determining if your marriage is heartfelt or not. Telling people they cant marry because you wont know if they're sincere is just Shall we apply that standard to you?

It matters because you get significant tax breaks from the process. Marrying for tax purposes isn't a big deal on a minor perspective, but can you imagine if a large company turned into the world's first family store with more than a hundred thousand employees?

Driving polygamy underground helps expose problems?

The FLDS is an underground society by nature. The only difference is between being a large underground society that can freely recruit, or a small one.

 

[Berzerker]

Cute, but it doesn't answer anything. To bring up more legal woes, imagine someone divorcing one of there partners, while staying married to a mutual spouse.

It answers your concern, people dont divorce en masse. Imagine a man divorcing one wife while staying married to another? Why is that hard to imagine? Polygamists get divorces now and they arrange the terms - I'd think thats open to more abuse than if the divorce proceedings were legal.

It matters because you get significant tax breaks from the process.

Blame the politicians then... Geez, ban everything if a tax break is involved?

Marrying for tax purposes isn't a big deal on a minor perspective, but can you imagine if a large company turned into the world's first family store with more than a hundred thousand employees?

No, I cant. Does that mean all those people get a tax break? Well, can you imagine politicians leaving that loophole in the tax code? No, I cant.

The FLDS is an underground society by nature. The only difference is between being a large underground society that can freely recruit, or a small one.

So driving polygamy underground helps expose problems?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

How is it fundamentally immoral? It isn't. Possibly if someone were forced into it though, but forcing people to do anything that isn't required for society will bring up moral issues.

I'm not into it, even remotely, but I fail to see how it's bad if everyone in the engagement is happy with it.

 

[LucyDuke]

I'm not sure whether it's inherently moral or immoral. It may be amoral.

Anybody who supports same sex marriage should be a no brainer supporter of this

All this shows is that you don't understand support of same-sex marriage.

 

[Berzerker]

forcing people to do anything that isn't required for society will bring up moral issues.

society doesn't define morality, if it does, slavery is moral if society says so... It aint.

 

[Death_Machine]

All this shows is that you don't understand support of same-sex marriage.

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?

 

[Phlegmak]

Come on dude, what is the single biggest argument used by the gays in favor of marriage? I'll give you the answer: consenting adults should be able to blah blah blah.

So if you support gay marriage but not polygamy then you are just a bigot and discriminating against those who's love it too big to be contained by the traditional man/woman relationship. Lets face it, the only reason marriage is defined as a man & a woman is because some superstitious old book about a make believe God tells us that this is correct. We are now in the year 2009, it's time to get with the times & forget traditions. It is time to open your mind and stop being discriminatory. .................... or something like that is how it will pan out once the gays can marry.

Regarding your second paragraph above, polygamist marriages were certainly quite normal for most of human history. It's the monogamous marriages that are new.

Certainly, there can be an argument in favor of polygamy for the sake of libertarianism. I can't deny that. However, I am personally against polygamy since it typically means that women are the property of men.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

No poll for this one.

So, polygamy, the marriage of one person to many. In much of the world, it's associated with cults, stupid people, and spousal/child abuse (sexually, physically, mental/emotionally). On the flip side, there are instances of polygamy in Hinduism (in the Mahabharatha, Draupadi had five husbands; Krishna had thousands of wives), and in Islam (IIRC) it's okay to have multiple wives (up to four) so long as all are treated equally and well - and I think there's some provision regarding widows. Dunno.

So...is it moral? Justified?

In my mind, it's the Western association of it with FLSD (sp?) Mormons in the Texas cult, or Waco (which had polygamy IIRC), and the subsequent allegations of abuse. Plus, the deepset Christian tradition of one man, one woman. In those instances, polygamy is clearly not working out, though those same people probably would have the same problems in a 'normal' marriage (in fact, 'normal' marriages between 'normal' people have the same problems!). I'm seriously reconsidering my views on this subject.

I don't think its immoral. It is probably unwise, though, if you are actually in love with them all, and they with you.

 

[damnation]

It depends. If one's religious faith is not for it, then it is immoral and you should repent. If it is, than go get 400 spouses, I dont care.

 

[Bill3000]

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?

I think you missed the factor of "two" in "consenting adults"

 

[Stolen Rutters]

How is it fundamentally immoral?

Why I think it is immoral. See para. 2387

 

[LucyDuke]

Help me beat back the frontiers of my ignorance.

I don't think I'm qualified for a job like that.

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?

My contention is that it's sexual discrimination. Consenting adults are prevented from marrying other consenting adults on account of their sex.

 

[Japanrocks12]

I think it's amoral, just like polyandry.

 

[Death_Machine]

Regarding your second paragraph above, polygamist marriages were certainly quite normal for most of human history. It's the monogamous marriages that are new.

I think it is pretty obvious that my second paragraph was simply the type of argument that will be used by polygamists & that I modeled it after most of what I hear from the pro gay marriage folks.

I think you missed the factor of "two" in "consenting adults"

Who cares about "two"? Why stop there? Because it is tradition? If the traditional marriage is under assault then why stop at gender, why not embrace the total destruction of the traditional family? Shouldn't consenting adults be allowed to enter into any binding legal agreement so long as nobody is being wronged?

 

[Miles Teg]

Who cares about "two"? Why stop there? Because it is tradition? If the traditional marriage is under assault then why stop at gender, why not embrace the total destruction of the traditional family? Shouldn't consenting adults be allowed to enter into any binding legal agreement so long as nobody is being wronged?

Because it's the system that works best for raising children. Because it's the system that causes the least social pressure. Because it would require the least monkeying with legal system. Because it doesn't create "lost boys". Because it has the least potential for abuse. Because of a dozen different reasons that you're ignoring because you want to play devil's advocate.

 

[Death_Machine]

I don't think I'm qualified for a job like that.

My contention is that it's sexual discrimination. Consenting adults are prevented from marrying other consenting adults on account of their sex.

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?

Because it's the system that works best for raising children. Because it's the system that causes the least social pressure. Because it would require the least monkeying with legal system. Because it doesn't create "lost boys". Because it has the least potential for abuse. Because of a dozen different reasons that you're ignoring because you want to play devil's advocate.

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.

 

[Onionsoilder]

If:

1) The marriage is between two consenting adults, who have been raised to know what it is(I.E., not brainwashed into thinking they have to do it)
2) Both partners have equal rights(If the man has multiple wives, each one of his wives can have multiple husbands)

The big problem with the above, of course, is rapid STD transmission. Ignoring that problem, I suppose I support it assuming the two above conditions are met, however, they so rarely are...

 

[PeteAtoms]

1) The marriage is between two consenting adults, who have been raised to know what it is(I.E., not brainwashed into thinking they have to do it).

Spoiler :

I almost lol'd.

We're all brainwashed into thinking marriage is so utterly important when want to be with someone we love. Our culture has brainwashed us all when it comes to marriage for centuries anyway.

 

[Death_Machine]

If:
The big problem with the above, of course, is rapid STD transmission. Ignoring that problem, I suppose I support it assuming the two above conditions are met, however, they so rarely are...

I don't see why STD's would be an issue if those committed to the relationship stay faithful to it.