Polygamy, Polyandry, Group Marriage

[Zardnaar]

Well, that's why it's so important you make it a group marriage instead of one of those stupid old poly marriages that are the problematic practices associated with "religious types." A retrograde poly law would be retrograde. If the statute specifies that sister wives are each other's wives and that the dude is an even share of the stuff rather than half, then I don't see a problem with the boilerplate. I'm hard pressed to see how allowing this with rights and protections commensurate is a worsening of, say, mistress culture or all these existent abuses that around around now and will still be around later.

The most cogent arguments I've seen all revolve around "Mormons suck" or "Muslims suck" or "Men suck" or now, I guess, even talking about it is harmful - so shut up and get in line and yes, other people's genitals are definitely my business for their own overridden-self-interest. Pursuit of Happiness, so long as it makes me happy.

Your right to pursue happiness is always curtailed by society. Some people like getting drunk but that impacts society.

This also impacts it. Men gave more money, and thus will impact women more.

You can already live this way if you want, here we gave laws protecting kids born out of wedlock. Something like 1 in 3 kids parents aren't married here.

So yes a women could theoretically have two husband's but that's not going to be as common as the other way around.

 

[Narz]

By all means have at it. I hope you can bring about broader social change as well that makes the potential bad outcomes impossible.

Shoot I'm lucky if I can bring about significant personal change and be a positive influence on my kid and a few friends

As for making bad outcomes impossible that's quite a standard.

People take advantage of welfare programs too, I read about a young guy who kept 3 old men on social security locked in his basement and stole all their checks. Nothing is perfect and things will always go wrong.

 

[Zardnaar]

That was against cultural norms. Except Islamic regions, but the laws were the same for the entire country.
And yes, lots of kids were raised by mothers alone.

Here they became old spinsters. Kids born out if wedlock often ended up in adoption facilities pre 1970s.

Now it's virtually impossible to adopt.

My understanding of it was that it wasn't hard for a male to find a female friend apart from his wife in post war USSR.

It was against cultural norms of course but pragmatically speaking it would have made sense from 1945-55.

 

[Farm Boy]

Your right to pursue happiness is always curtailed by society. Some people like getting drunk but that impacts society.

This also impacts it. Men gave more money, and thus will impact women more.

You can already live this way if you want, here we gave laws protecting kids born out of wedlock. Something like 1 in 3 kids parents aren't married here.

So yes a women could theoretically have two husband's but that's not going to be as common as the other way around.

The idea was that other people's happiness is subordinate to whether or not their being happy also pleases me. It's a reminder of a base principle Americans at least typically pay lip service(ha!) to even if they'll walk a mile to keep it from happening.

You still aren't providing any reasoning for your assumptions about gender structure, nor are you presenting a reason for why that'd be bad. If leaving men unattached actually is a side effect of this, which is an assumption I'm not on board with, and this is a big enough problem to deny poly's their desired legal family structure, then why aren't we taking proactive steps to stave off the implosion of marriage rates among lower income brackets? College educated women are not marrying high school diploma educated men unless they're earning 40 grand or more. They just aren't doing it at rates that adjust with shifts in income and education, the hetero male primary homemaker is light on potential partners. What rights are appropriate to curtail in this fight for equality?

 

[Yeekim]

I'm about as pro-sexual freedom as can be (assuming consenting adults, ofc), but marriage is not about sexual freedom.
It is about codifying joint property rights in a shared household and other mutual/reciprocal legal obligations.
And fairly and clearly regulationg this stuff would become nightmare.
Suppose a...uh... seven-way "marriage", lets say MMFMFMM, because why the hell not.
Should everyone be responsible for taking care of every child? Should children, once grown up, be responsible for supporting all seven of their "parents"?
Assuming people join and leave the "marriage" at different times, what becomes whose joint property, or who might owe alimony to who?

 

[red_elk]

My understanding of it was that it wasn't hard for a male to find a female friend apart from his wife in post war USSR. It was against cultural norms of course but pragmatically speaking it would have made sense from 1945-55.

Yes, for women it was hard to find a man to marry.

 

[Zardnaar]

The idea was that other people's happiness is subordinate to whether or not their being happy also pleases me. It's a reminder of a base principle Americans at least typically pay lip service(ha!) to even if they'll walk a mile to keep it from happening.

You still aren't providing any reasoning for your assumptions about gender structure, nor are you presenting a reason for why that'd be bad. If leaving men unattached actually is a side effect of this, which is an assumption I'm not on board with, and this is a big enough problem to deny poly's their desired legal family structure, then why aren't we taking proactive steps to stave off the implosion of marriage rates among lower income brackets? College educated women are not marrying high school diploma educated men unless they're earning 40 grand or more. They just aren't doing it at rates that adjust with shifts in income and education, the hetero male primary homemaker is light on potential partners. What rights are appropriate to curtail in this fight for equality?

There's examples of it you can already look at.

There's also a man shortage in New York apparently for high income women. They don't like marrying down, men don't seem to care as much.

The way I understand it is something like this. At University there's a gender imbalance in the USA (and here). It's something like 60-40.

A lot if people meet their first partner at University. Say for example half. Half if the university educated men marry university educated women.
. This men's there's around 20-40% of educated women vs men. They can pick and choose who they marry often they don't care in her financial situation. They'll marry a barmaid.

But the university educated women don't want to marry a plumber let alone a barman.

Apparently this is already happening. NZ women are more inclined to "marry down".

It's not so much people care about the others income more what type of social circles people hang out it.

If you drive a forklift your wife probably isn't a chemist.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Other than it being in line with your fantasies, is there any reason the rest of us should "face this" as if it were a given fact?

Bro you yourself just made the argument that marriage can be commoditized (breeder wife). It follows then that due to the massive gender imbalances in both power and wealth in our society that rich white dudes will end up monopolizing no small part of the eligible women that will agree to it, using only the definition of consent you yourself offered.

I disagree fundamentally that all of those relationships will be truly consensual, but for the sake of argument, even if they were, how is this outcome good for society?

Yes, for women it was hard to find a man to marry.

This was a random takeaway from the Korolev bio I just read. Not enough men and lots of men willing to step out on their wives.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes, for women it was hard to find a man to marry.

We had that here after WW1 to a lesser extent. We heard about communist orphanages here but how common was out of wedlock kids post war? Nature will find a way was my theory.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

People take advantage of welfare programs too, I read about a young guy who kept 3 old men on social security locked in his basement and stole all their checks. Nothing is perfect and things will always go wrong.

What I think is especially alarming - and why I am so vocal now about it - is for the massive scale for potential harm that this could have. I don't think welfare fraud (real or imagined) is an equal in terms of potential for harm.

And people are already up in arms over welfare fraud, yet somehow you guys think this will be fine!

No, that's not where we're kind of at, otherwise there'd be no backlash against the Mormon polygamy compounds that we have and they wouldn't be forced to isolate themselves out in BFE in order to function.

They functioned practically in the open for years dude. It took a long time for action to be taken and even then it was not definitive. This happened because it was normalized in that area even if it wasn't made legal.

You think society will adapt poly marriages to be egalitarian; I think it somewhat likely that poly marriages will normalize society to harems and abusive, entrapped relationships.

 

[Farm Boy]

If you drive a forklift your wife probably isn't a chemist.

The title probably matters more than the actual work, it's about big dick status. The lady entomologists around here seem to have at least normative successful marriages with truckers/farmers/operations managers whatever we call the equipment maintainers/operators.

 

[Zardnaar]

The title probably matters more than the actual work, it's about big dick status. The lady entomologists around here seem to have at least normative successful marriages with truckers/farmers/operations managers whatever we call the equipment maintainers/operators.

Some if them make good money. One trucker here gets 250k and you can break 6 figures working at port.

They've basically closed the gender pay fap here with the exception of mother. Having kids is a parent tax in effect.

But because of that and the economic disparity if multiple marriages were legal and in purely consenting non abusive relationship s poor men are disadvantaged along with all women in general.

Every women in effect is a potential wife number 2. Sure rich women might do the same thing but there's less if them and they're less inclined to have multiple husband's anyway and in some cultures they can't regardless if what the law says.

Under the law everyone has the same right to starve under a bridge. If course rich people don't.

So making it legal hurts women more IMHO.

You can have a look at China for social problems when men can't find wives.

The only people who would support this IMHO would be libertarian types. Conservatives would oppose it because tradition and liberals would realise it's bad for women.

Libertarians, arch religious types (multiple wives only) and some Uber liberals who want to marry anything might support it.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Some if them make good money. One trucker here gets 250k and you can break 6 figures working at port.

They've basically closed the gender pay fap here with the exception of mother. Having kids is a parent tax in effect.

But because of that and the economic disparity if multiple marriages were legal and in purely consenting non abusive relationship s poor men are disadvantaged along with all women in general.

Every women in effect is a potential wife number 2. Sure rich women might do the same thing but there's less if them and they're less inclined to have multiple husband's anyway and in some cultures they can't regardless if what the law says.

Under the law everyone has the same right to starve under a bridge. If course rich people don't.

So making it legal hurts women more IMHO.

You can have a look at China for social problems when men can't find wives.

The only people who would support this IMHO would be libertarian types. Conservatives would oppose it because tradition and liberals would realise it's bad for women.

Libertarians, arch religious types (multiple wives only) and some Uber liberals who want to marry anything might support it.

I want to believe that people like @IglooDude's friends will set the model for positive, egalitarian poly marriage but I think factors like this mean it will bring more harm than good at this time. And your points here are purely looking at it from an economic perspective, not even touching on the misogyny in our society that will further tend to tip the scales.

 

[Farm Boy]

Conservatives would oppose it because tradition and liberals would realise it's bad for women.

If they're following your logic on it, then they're both using personal faith to curtail the Pursuit of Happiness of others. A time honored tradition, that. I also don't imagine it will change. They'd walk more than a mile.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Bro you yourself just made the argument that marriage can be commoditized (breeder wife). It follows then that due to the massive gender imbalances in both power and wealth in our society that rich white dudes will end up monopolizing no small part of the eligible women that will agree to it, using only the definition of consent you yourself offered.

Actually I made the point that marriage is by definition contractual. Which is not the same thing as "commoditized." If the terms were actually laid out on paper and women could look at it and see "so all you plan to bring to this is money?" that it would be bloody hard to find many that would sign on, and particularly hard to find many that would sign on in groups.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Ok yeah this is semantics now and I'm not really interested in dragging this argument out to satisfy wordplay. You're not even addressing my point anyways, just took the discussion in another direction. That's fine but I've been doing that all day at this point and I'm over it.

 

[Narz]

I'm about as pro-sexual freedom as can be (assuming consenting adults, ofc), but marriage is not about sexual freedom.
It is about codifying joint property rights in a shared household and other mutual/reciprocal legal obligations.
And fairly and clearly regulationg this stuff would become nightmare.
Suppose a...uh... seven-way "marriage", lets say MMFMFMM, because why the hell not.
Should everyone be responsible for taking care of every child? Should children, once grown up, be responsible for supporting all seven of their "parents"?
Assuming people join and leave the "marriage" at different times, what becomes whose joint property, or who might owe alimony to who?

Almost makes one want to be a divorce lawyer (if I were a sociopath)

And people are already up in arms over welfare fraud, yet somehow you guys think this will be fine!

It's happening anyway so why not legalize it so it's not taboo and it's all on record?

Are you pro drug and prostitution legalization?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Are you pro drug and prostitution legalization?

Yes I am

These are different things than poly marriage. There are completely different social, economic and sometimes even distinct legal systems at play? Entirely distinct sets of cultural baggage and all that too.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Ok yeah this is semantics now and I'm not really interested in dragging this argument out to satisfy wordplay. You're not even addressing my point anyways, just took the discussion in another direction. That's fine but I've been doing that all day at this point and I'm over it.

It isn't "to satisfy wordplay." It's to try and clarify the difference in our intentions.

I get your argument. I don't even disagree with it in principle. I just see it as utopian in practice. Sure, the ideal solution is a world where abuse just doesn't happen because people are better than that, so great, we should moratorium changes until we produce such a cool world. However, my argument is, as it has been from the start, that such a world is not going to suddenly dawn under our feet. In the world we are in, one thing that would make better outcomes more common is if everyone recognized relationships/marriages as contractual partnerships rather than whimsical love affairs. I favor this expansion of "marriage" to include social coops of three or more members because while trying to say "look at your freakin' contract before you sign on" about simple marriages has gotten me branded with innumerable inaccurate complaints and always does, saying "if you are getting into a three or more person social co-op you better make sure all the details are worked out so nobody gets surprised" is seen as obvious to the point of trite.

It remains my belief that if the existence of such social co-ops, and the preliminary work that goes into forming them, became more in the way of common knowledge, that maybe, just maybe, the suggestion that people look at what they are getting into when they are signing a marriage license might not be so resoundingly shouted down.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It isn't "to satisfy wordplay."

You said your wife would have stayed with you if you continued providing for her. You insinuated that she was a breeder, which I objected to as a something else entirely from how you were using the word. But in any case, that you said this implies that marriage can be commoditized. It's something people trade for a spouse's income/wealth.

Then I referenced that earlier exchange to make a point about rich dudes monopolizing women as a potential bad outcome.

Now you're talking about contracts and stuff and that's fine, and maybe it's not deliberate wordplay/semantics, but it's a whole other distraction to my points as if I hadn't made them.

This is the breeder post that I have referenced now a couple of times

Being a "breeder woman" is not abusive at all if that's what the woman wants to be. It's gone pretty wildly out of fashion, but I'd probably still be married to my first wife if I had just kept providing her with a comfortable home and a steady stream of fresh children to adore her as the older ones grew into rebellious ingrates.