Polygamy: is it moral?

[Arwon]

I think the problem with polygamy (and there is rarely polyandry) is that it's generally built on an assumed inequality between the sexes. From a legal perspective, it kind of requires this assymetry - the wives are all seen as pertaining to the husband in some sort of "hub and spoke" arrangement... in many cases it's pretty close to direct ownership. It's hard to square this with the idea of a marriage of equals.

It would be very hard to legislate for in a western context based purely on these gender equality grounds, but also, given the cultures in which it occurs (mostly fringe religions and weird communes), there's too many issues of power imbalance for it to be a simple question of consent.

 

[Earthling]

Gay couples are a potentially huge market for orphans and children up for adoption, since they have to adopt to have kids. Don't tell me that's not a force of good.

I'm a little disappointed that quote mining got my point entirely ignored. I'm not here to argue about adoption or gay people raising children or anything - my point was in fact that anyone can do it regardless of "marital status." And there's certainly nothing we can do to stop people from having polygamous relationships just without official legal "marriage," unless you want to go down that route. So let me reraise the question with a few hypotheticals:

1) Is it ok for a business to hire one otherwise equally qualified person over another because of being married? Like hiring a single man is better than a married woman or something?

2) Is it ok for the government or other service providers (like health insurance) to provide different benefits or costs to people based on marital status? Completely regardless of whether there are any children dependents, that is?

3) Should the government/legal system arbitrate property or other disputes on the basis of "marital issues" like sexual relationships?

4) Should the government persecute people for somehow "phony" marriages to take advantages of benefits or the above? How should this be managed?

MY answer to all of these questions is a resounding no. If you answer yes to the above I think it's really hard to justify why marriage should only be limited to two people. And so here's where the anti-gay marriage advocates have a point - the only reason a legal sense of marriage exists is to recognize the traditional religious/man+woman aspect. And so I say do away with that entirely, everything else can be handled by other aspects of law.

 

[IglooDame]

Why should I consider the Bible authoritative in regard to morality when it teaches that women are ritually unclean during there period while condoning and encouraging genocide, along with a panoply of offenses to human dignity and reason?

If you don't believe in the Bible, don't worry about it - I was citing the Bible as a reference for those who use it as a reference themselves.

At least in traditional marriage there is the illusion of equality, a possibility of it. How can there be equality in a polygamous relationship when the person who marries all these people is the obvious center and crux of the relationship? That if that person dies 4 or 5 marriages are absolved while if one of the wives(husbands) dies, that person can be replaced like a cog?

Who says it has to dissolve? The polygamous marriages I'm referring to are "web" rather than "hub&spoke" marriages. But that aside, I'll ask again: is there inherently wrong with having a "leader" in a personal relationship of two or more people (and I'll add - consenting adults)?

 

[LucyDuke]

But that aside, I'll ask again: is there inherently wrong with having a "leader" in a personal relationship of two or more people (and I'll add - consenting adults)?

I don't think it's inherently wrong, provided that it's legitimately consensual all the way around. In a partnership as intimate as something like marriage it still makes me very uncomfortable.

 

[Fifty]

But that aside, I'll ask again: is there inherently wrong with having a "leader" in a personal relationship of two or more people (and I'll add - consenting adults)?

Of course there is nothing inherently wrong with it, the position of people who are against it (the smart ones at least) is that it is correlated closely enough with a subservience or subjugation role that, in practice, it ought not be allowed.

Just like there's nothing inherently wrong with letting 5yr olds play with loaded guns, but its so closely and obviously correlated with potential danger that we don't allow it.

 

[Neomega]

Ok, I'll be the first to admit that my knowledge of Islam is small & not likely to increase any time soon, so: If women in Islamic society are pretty much treated like pieces of meat that exist only to serve their man what makes you think it would be any different in the bedroom?

sex == procreation in many parts of the world. The particular documentary I saw about the Iraqi war widows was not polygamy per se, but more like wife renting. Basically, the man took on many women (in Iraq, and other African countries, unlike America, it is the rich men who generally are polygamists) whose husbands had been killed. One particular recent story was in Saharan Africa with something like 14 wives. They aged in range from like 18 to 45, he looked like he was about 65. I am sure he has had sex with all of them, but unlike some American polygamists, I doubt he was having orgies.

1. How many documentaries have you seen? Is this a subject which you have studied?
2. If a man has a wife & live in girlfriends then it is not polygamy, but an agreement by stupid women to be manipulated by a man.

1. About 5. I was raised in a religious cult, so I have particular interest in them. 3 of them were about American polygamists, and 2 were about Islamic.

2. yes. In general, women are more prey to religious cults then men.

 

[Onionsoilder]

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

Actually, even that might not be a problem for long. Scientists figured out how to convert an egg cell to a sperm cell while retaining most of the parent cell's genetics. It won't be long before the reverse is true. Granted, said baby will have to be raised in an incubator, but the child would have two biological fathers.

 

[Imperialmajesty]

If you don't believe in the Bible, don't worry about it - I was citing the Bible as a reference for those who use it as a reference themselves.



Who says it has to dissolve? The polygamous marriages I'm referring to are "web" rather than "hub&spoke" marriages. But that aside, I'll ask again: is there inherently wrong with having a "leader" in a personal relationship of two or more people (and I'll add - consenting adults)?

No, but there does seem to be a positive correlation between polygamous marriages and domestic abuse and subjugation. Examples of Polygamy as a barbaric practice are much more widespread then as a civilized practice. Granted, the same thing can be said of marriage. Historically, however, it seems that polygamy has always been worse then normal marriage. Combine that with the fact that the US simply does not have much in the way of polygamist precedent, and it seems obvious to me that it would be a grave social ill.

 

[GenMarshall]

I think the problem with polygamy (and there is rarely polyandry) is that it's generally built on an assumed inequality between the sexes. From a legal perspective, it kind of requires this assymetry - the wives are all seen as pertaining to the husband in some sort of "hub and spoke" arrangement... in many cases it's pretty close to direct ownership. It's hard to square this with the idea of a marriage of equals.

For me, It's the guy hogging the women and not letting the other males have a chance "Teh too errr women!". A successful male would have more high quality women where as the unsuccessful male ether gets the bottom of the barrel or none at all. Then cones the jellousy factor (if the woman is polygamist) when the guy would rather have a woman faithful to him and be exclusive.

(Dont mind me, I have gone through a period of a poverty mentality in dating as well as hurt in the past by cheating women)

 

[Arwon]

Ah yes, the "polygamy is an unfair distribution of property" argument.

Probably not one of the stronger ones.

 

[Neomega]

Polygamy certainly is dangerous in the shrinking of available women, as is prostitution... I guess that is what wars are for.

 

[carmen510]

Polygamy is moral, so long as its a safe and healthy relationship, with one side not being abusive to the other.

I really don't see the problem with it, after all, humans used to practice polygamy extensively.

 

[Berzerker]

From a social engineering perspective polygamy is not preferable to monogamy in our society IMHO. It's based on a concept of male proprietorship over multiple women and their family property. (As opposed to male proprietership over just one woman... until recently). I would assume it also discourages social mobility and individuality, as opposed to the classic "nuclear family."

Not that having more extended family around is necessarily a bad thing, in some respects I think our society could benefit from encouraging increasing the roles of extended family networks in child rearing, such as is common in most other societies around the world besides ours.

I can't really say I would be outraged if polygamy was legalized.I mean, would the world as we know it collapse if Polygamy was allowed? Probably not. Is the social engineering perspective enough to justify it being outlawed? Dunno. I would not really think morality alone is enough to outlaw Polygamy. (Even assuming it is immoral, which I have not really developed an opinion on one way or another.)

The extended family was the norm for eons, the nuclear family is far from "conservative" and I dont consider it an improvement. But then again, I'm not a social engineer.

 

[Berzerker]

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.

letting women marry into that relationship gives them more autonomy than a single wife. I saw an interview with polygamists near Lake Powell and some of the women were feminists and they were happy to have time for themselves.

 

[illram]

The extended family was the norm for eons, the nuclear family is far from "conservative" and I dont consider it an improvement. But then again, I'm not a social engineer.

Where did I say anything about the nuclear family being conservative? I meant classic as in the thing American culture has considered the norm for about 2 or 3 generations or so, including ours.

Maybe social engineering is poor wording on my part. I was trying to get at the idea of having multiple wives being wrong more for reasons of encouraging male dominance and ownership over women and their property than anything else. Having multiple wives was not about having tons of women to have sex with, it was about owning lots of women and their stuff, and their families' stuff. Not necessarily immoral but not really in line with modern times, as are most ideas about marriage prior to oh, say, 1950.

And yes I realize extended families have been around forever, that was my point. Same goes for nuclear family not necessarily being an improvement. Again I am probably not being very eloquent, my heart maybe just isn't in it these days perhaps.

 

[IglooDame]

Of course there is nothing inherently wrong with it, the position of people who are against it (the smart ones at least) is that it is correlated closely enough with a subservience or subjugation role that, in practice, it ought not be allowed.

Just like there's nothing inherently wrong with letting 5yr olds play with loaded guns, but its so closely and obviously correlated with potential danger that we don't allow it.

Perhaps the correlation is more due to the fact that currently only whackjob culty people engage in it, rather than due to an inherent issue with polygamy? Anyway, if the subservience/subjugation role is consensual, then where's the issue again? This isn't going to Africa to drag people into slavery or buying unwilling sex slaves, and (unlike the culty whackjobs) it's not immense social peer pressure to conform.

And yes there's something inherently wrong with letting 5yr olds play with loaded guns. You want a metaphor for comparison, raise the age by 20 or 30 years.

No, but there does seem to be a positive correlation between polygamous marriages and domestic abuse and subjugation. Examples of Polygamy as a barbaric practice are much more widespread then as a civilized practice. Granted, the same thing can be said of marriage. Historically, however, it seems that polygamy has always been worse then normal marriage. Combine that with the fact that the US simply does not have much in the way of polygamist precedent, and it seems obvious to me that it would be a grave social ill.

As I noted above, historically polygamous marriages have been perceived as the dominion of religious fringe groups that bring with them social peer pressure and an inherently male-dominated worldview. When you have an adult of either gender that could choose to marry into a poly marriage that has from zero to whatever of either gender, the social expectations (and soft coercion) by definition must fade.

For me, It's the guy hogging the women and not letting the other males have a chance "Teh too errr women!". A successful male would have more high quality women where as the unsuccessful male ether gets the bottom of the barrel or none at all. Then cones the jellousy factor (if the woman is polygamist) when the guy would rather have a woman faithful to him and be exclusive.

(Dont mind me, I have gone through a period of a poverty mentality in dating as well as hurt in the past by cheating women)

So you're a hetero-couple sort of guy. Hey, me too! But that's no reason not to let the rest of them have their fun.

 

[Bill3000]

Perhaps the correlation is more due to the fact that currently only whackjob culty people engage in it, rather than due to an inherent issue with polygamy? Anyway, if the subservience/subjugation role is consensual, then where's the issue again? This isn't going to Africa to drag people into slavery or buying unwilling sex slaves, and (unlike the culty whackjobs) it's not immense social peer pressure to conform.

I believe his point is that consensual oppression shouldn't be allowed. We don't allow people to voluntarily become slaves, for example.

 

[Dragonlord]

Why is everybody assuming that in a polygamous relationship there would be one man and several women? Why not one woman with several men?

If your knee-jerk reaction was: that's disgusting! ... ask yourself why. Double-standard time?

Personally, I believe that any kind of relationship between consenting adults is moral - heterosexual, same-sex, polygamous in any combination. The only consideration should be to the well-being of children involved - and I fail to see that children are necessarily worse off in a polygamous relationship than in today's "monogamous male-female-only soon to be divorced' society.

 

[Arwon]

Firstly, that's what polygamy means (as opposed to polyandry).

However more importantly, excluding the endless combinations and recombinations that occur in the polyamory community in the west, polyandry only really occurs in some tribal and other traditional contexts. Polygamy, however, is very compatible with the patriarchy that constitutes most complex societies and is both far more common and, I'd argue, far more prone to abuse and exploitation and other power imbalances.

 

[bhsup]

Scenario 1
Legendary football star for the Kansas City Chiefs has four children with four different women. He has never married nor lived with any of them. He just gets off spreading his 'oats'. He dies in an accident because he was driving recklessly on ice and not wearing a seatbelt. City mourns his loss and praises the foundation he set up for inner city kids, but nobody says anything about recklessly having kids left and right with women he has no future with.

Scenario 2
Man lives with three women in a polygamous relationship. Has children with all of them. All three women love all of the children and all view themselves as mothers to the children. In the eyes of the rest of the world, they are reviled.

Yeah, scenario 2 is a rosy picture of polygamy that may not typically be realistic, but for the sake of my post, which scenario is better? Here is a hint: It sure as hell isn't scenario #1.