Are there any reasons to disallow polygamy that have any more merit to them than reasons previously given to disallow homosexual marriage?
I have heard mention of issues created if the gender balance gets thrown way off from too many men taking multiple wives but I cant imagine this becoming a real issue since most women, especially in Western society where women are empowered to be seen as equals to their husbands, would not be willing to "share" a husband.
There are also issues with the practices of some extreme religions that result in marrying off children; however, that hardly seems like a reason to ban the practice all together. In essence that would be no different from banning gay sex because some guys are gay pedophiles... I think we can all agree that that is ridiculous.
I think we can all agree that your question is about gay marriage, not about polygamy.
If you look at the world, you can see that some societies allow polygamy and others don't.
Laws are made by the people.
Support for polygamy in the US is low; less that 20% of Americans are in favour. An even smaller part would start polygamous relationships.
Support for gay marriage in the US is a lot higher. About 50-50 and probably rising. Gay marriage is happening.
If you and your special ones want to have a polygamous relationship, you should really consider moving, because it doesn't look like polygamy is coming anytime soon to the US. Wikipedia has a list with countries where polygamy is practiced/legal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_polygamy
Mauritania is on the list. There is still slavery over there.
If you want to compare gay marriage to other stuff too (marrying animals, marrying objects), you should take a look at these clips from John Stewart. He's really funny.
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These are the decks that I have constructed, and are ready to play:
01. Ankh Sligh to be exact.
I think we can all agree that your question is about gay marriage, not about polygamy.
If you look at the world, you can see that some societies allow polygamy and others don't.
And some societies allow gay marriages and some don't. What's your point?
You seemingly misunderstood the central point here. Gay marriage is illegal because of our sensibilities. Now our sensibilities are changing, and so gay marriage is more and more accepted.
The same is true for polygamy. There is no actual, functional reason why it should be illegal besides the fact that it'll wreak havoc on certain laws that exist today. Which can be rectified to work.
Yes, the public seemingly wants gay marriage today. But they didn't 20-30 years ago. The concept that laws are made by the people is true, but it is equally true that something starts them. Ideas and change of thought don't happen spontaneously; you need something to kick-start them.
I think gay marriage should be legalized in the U.S. because I can't imagine why we should deny the rights to a legal marriage to gay people. But, under that same logic, people should be allowed to have multiple spouses.
I think we can all agree that your question is about gay marriage, not about polygamy.
Not at all. I am a supporter of gay marriage. But maybe for different reasons than many people... I think it's none of my or anyone else's business who other people marry. I also think the government needs to approach marriage for what it is... a legal contract between consenting people. I see no good reason to not allow that contract to be between more than 2 parties.
I see no good reason to not allow that contract to be between more than 2 parties.
But most people don't see it like that. Probably because it leads to tensions, unstabilities and because it is linked to age discrimination.
Do you think the US would be a better place if polygamy was allowed? I'm not sure about that. Unlike gay marriage, there doesn't seem to be a lot of demand for polygamy.
It would be very cool if you would start a 'PAC for polygamy'. I would send you a cheque.
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These are the decks that I have constructed, and are ready to play:
01. Ankh Sligh to be exact.
Are there any reasons to disallow polygamy that have any more merit to them than reasons previously given to disallow homosexual marriage?
There have been studies that show that these types of marriages are can be dangerous. Women are more apt to be abused and or trapped in the marriage. The kids usually suffer the most since at some point in time each wife wants their kids to be put first.
not to mention the jealousy issues that can arrive between spouses.
in most cases they end up in very abusive situations. some even take child brides few and far between but there are some fringy people out there.
yes there is the show sister wives, but i would say that is more the exception than the rule. even he has issues keeping them all working on the same page.
however now that gay marriage is out there how can you really oppose this union and not be a hypocrite on the subject.
it is a slippy slope that is coming true.
i see polygimists surging into the courts going if you allow them to marry then you have to allow us to marry as well.
you are discriminating against us.
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Thanks to Epic Graphics the best around. Thanks to Nex3 for the avatar visit ye old sig and avatar forum
Are there any reasons to disallow polygamy that have any more merit to them than reasons previously given to disallow homosexual marriage?
There have been studies that show that these types of marriages are can be dangerous. Women are more apt to be abused and or trapped in the marriage. The kids usually suffer the most since at some point in time each wife wants their kids to be put first.
not to mention the jealousy issues that can arrive between spouses.
in most cases they end up in very abusive situations. some even take child brides few and far between but there are some fringy people out there.
yes there is the show sister wives, but i would say that is more the exception than the rule. even he has issues keeping them all working on the same page.
however now that gay marriage is out there how can you really oppose this union and not be a hypocrite on the subject.
it is a slippy slope that is coming true.
i see polygimists surging into the courts going if you allow them to marry then you have to allow us to marry as well.
you are discriminating against us.
Other marriages can be dangerous. Should men convicted of spousal abuse be banned from ever getting married again? I imagine swinging can have a lot of jealousy issues with it, yet that is also a perfectly legal practice. I also dont see a 1/4th time dad(4 wives) being any worse than some bum having a dozen children with 7 different women and not being around... at least with polygamy those fathers try to be around (in theory).
In a vacuum...who cares. As long as no one is being forced into it (which seems to be the biggest problem...), I could care less. I don't envy any man with two wives. That doesn't sound like marriage...that sounds like hell lol.
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Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great
This is debate. That being the case, explain how this has anything to do with explaining why it's illegal. Clearly not very women would interested in living that kind of life style. Great, people that don't want to can choose to not live that life style. But his girl friend’s opinion should have very little bearing on the legality of the practice.
I think its illegal because we have grown up with the idea a family consist of a man and woman. Adam and eve u know..
Actually, most people in America support marriage equality for the LGBT community. That kind of spits in the face of this idea. That's besides the plethora of polygamy in the bible. Where do you think the Mormons got the idea?
I dont know what to think of it. How many wives would be legal? 2? Or 100? If your bill gates and you cant afford them..
As long as each wife is a willing participate, who gives a crap.
Wait a minute- i know why. Because men without a woman are more aggressive and violent. Society wants every man to have a woman so he is more considerate. I have heard of prisoners who have had help from social workers to get a relation. Then the recidive number is lower. So maybe one on one is the best way to balance a peacful society..
Im such a smat guy.
This fine bit of here sounds like total nonsense. I don't believe you. Please support you're position with some form of evidence.
Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great
Are there any reasons to disallow polygamy that have any more merit to them than reasons previously given to disallow homosexual marriage?
All sorts of legal issues arise. What if a guy gets in a car accident and is on life support. He has no advanced health care directive. Wife #1 wants him to be kept alive, wife #2 wants to pull the plug. Imagine the legal ****storm that would create.
You have issues with inheritance, visitation rights, social security benefits, who can make parenting decisions, you name it. A pretty huge portion of our legal system is based around the concept of marriage being between 2 people, once you add more than two things get really messy really quick.
Are there any reasons to disallow polygamy that have any more merit to them than reasons previously given to disallow homosexual marriage?
All sorts of legal issues arise. What if a guy gets in a car accident and is on life support. He has no advanced health care directive. Wife #1 wants him to be kept alive, wife #2 wants to pull the plug. Imagine the legal ****storm that would create.
You have issues with inheritance, visitation rights, social security benefits, who can make parenting decisions, you name it. A pretty huge portion of our legal system is based around the concept of marriage being between 2 people, once you add more than two things get really messy really quick.
How is that any different than what happens when a single parent is put into those situations with multiple children? Mom is on life support John wants to pull the plug Sue wants to keep her on it... Parenting decisions would go to the biological mom/father pair... All of those problems are solvable. It could even be part of the paperwork "in the event of X which wife has tie breaker power?".
Are there any reasons to disallow polygamy that have any more merit to them than reasons previously given to disallow homosexual marriage?
All sorts of legal issues arise. What if a guy gets in a car accident and is on life support. He has no advanced health care directive. Wife #1 wants him to be kept alive, wife #2 wants to pull the plug. Imagine the legal ****storm that would create.
You have issues with inheritance, visitation rights, social security benefits, who can make parenting decisions, you name it. A pretty huge portion of our legal system is based around the concept of marriage being between 2 people, once you add more than two things get really messy really quick.
How is that any different than what happens when a single parent is put into those situations with multiple children? Mom is on life support John wants to pull the plug Sue wants to keep her on it... Parenting decisions would go to the biological mom/father pair... All of those problems are solvable. It could even be part of the paperwork "in the event of X which wife has tie breaker power?".
Did you miss the whole Terri Schiavo thing? When different members of a family want to do different things at the end of life, it gets really messy really quick.
There aren't provisions for polygamous marriages. You'd have to rewrite huge portions of the legal code to account for the concept of "Wife seniority". You have to consider insurance regulations, adoption preceedings, all the legal precedent that has to be revisited, etc.
It's simple to go on an internet forum and say "We could just make it work" and handwave away all the challenges that changing the base configuration of marriage would bring. Same sex marriage is relatively simple to accomodate, and look at all millions of dollars and legal challenges and Supreme Court rulings it took to start sorting that out, and it's still a very patchwork mess of laws and regulations. Try and get a polygamy bill through Congress. You can't just say "we'll come up with a tiebreaker policy" and think that solves the problem. If a person was brain dead and the first wife wanted to pull the plug and the second didn't, I don't care how many tiebreaker rules you have, it's going to be a national media and congressional circus.
What if one wife gets pregnant, and is pro choice, and decides to get an abortion, and another wife is pro life, and decides to sue to stop the death of a family member? Can you imagine the kind of media and society ****storm issues like that would create?
You'd basically have to replace the whole of marriage law with something more akin to corporate law that has billions of pages of legal doctrine on how to resolve multi-party disputes, and that's just not ever going to happen in any of our lifetimes.
It's easy to speak as an individual and say "This is easy to fix, here's how you do it", but we don't live in a monarchy. No one can wave thier magic wand and say "Here's how it's going to be". If you want to change the legal structure of marriage to account for polygamy, you'd need to submit a huge number of laws all with bipartisan support to get them thorough Congress and signed into law by the President. We can't even get a FARM BILL through Congress. Something as socially divisive as polygamy? Good luck.
I notice that everyone immediately jumps on multiple wives to a single man.
Has anyone considered one woman with several husbands?
Also, what about multiple husbands and wives in the same polygamous marriage together?
I mean, I'm all for it. People should be able to do what they want to do. I just don't see how this could be worked within the current legal system. I think the idea of marriage needs to be removed from law and tax code before we can even think about allowing this kind of thing.
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"[Screw] you and the green you ramped in on." - My EDH battle cry. If I had one. Which I don't.
I have heard mention of issues created if the gender balance gets thrown way off from too many men taking multiple wives but I cant imagine this becoming a real issue since most women, especially in Western society where women are empowered to be seen as equals to their husbands, would not be willing to "share" a husband.
Obviously, New York City is never going to be overrun with polygamists. But there are smaller communities where it would be much more common. These are the places where you'd have the problems. The local balance is what's important.
Are there any reasons to disallow polygamy that have any more merit to them than reasons previously given to disallow homosexual marriage?
All sorts of legal issues arise. What if a guy gets in a car accident and is on life support. He has no advanced health care directive. Wife #1 wants him to be kept alive, wife #2 wants to pull the plug. Imagine the legal ****storm that would create.
You have issues with inheritance, visitation rights, social security benefits, who can make parenting decisions, you name it. A pretty huge portion of our legal system is based around the concept of marriage being between 2 people, once you add more than two things get really messy really quick.
The law would have to be quite carefully written, for sure. But all problems of this type are solvable.
Honestly, if polyamorous folks start pushing for legal rights to marry, I'd support it. I don't see why I should care who you marry, as long as they're a fully informed, consenting adult.
I notice that everyone immediately jumps on multiple wives to a single man.
Has anyone considered one woman with several husbands?
Also, what about multiple husbands and wives in the same polygamous marriage together?
I mean, I'm all for it. People should be able to do what they want to do. I just don't see how this could be worked within the current legal system. I think the idea of marriage needs to be removed from law and tax code before we can even think about allowing this kind of thing.
C'mon, you know the rules. No more than one ***** per relationship or people's brains start to break.
Go ahead, phrase a law that results in all young men getting happily married...
Actually, I don't want to be too dismissive against that point. The government does have an interest in encouraging marriage, and that's a major reason why we have legal marriage benefits. However, the idea that the government is going to start forcing people to marry is abhorrent, and the idea that the government is going to prevent a poly marriage as a way to force each of the participants into individual marriages is abhorrent (there may be good reasons for the government to prevent poly marriage, I don't see any but I won't pretend I've thought too hard about it, but doing it for the purpose of forcing us into 1 on 1 marriages... get out of my bedroom, please and thank you).
I have heard mention of issues created if the gender balance gets thrown way off from too many men taking multiple wives but I cant imagine this becoming a real issue since most women, especially in Western society where women are empowered to be seen as equals to their husbands, would not be willing to "share" a husband.
Obviously, New York City is never going to be overrun with polygamists. But there are smaller communities where it would be much more common. These are the places where you'd have the problems. The local balance is what's important.
How is that any different than what happens in places with a sudden employment boom? If I am remembering correctly arnt there "boom towns" of men working in North Dakota right now from fracing? If all the women in an area marry 10% of the men there, the other men will probably move, or if they are employed and stable they might find a girlfriend in a neighboring city, this is especially possible with internet dating.
It's not like the government should be trying to play games to help guarantee a close to equal population for ease of finding a relationship. If it comes out that homosexuality is 5 times more prevalent in men than women should the government step in to try to make sure we dont have to many single women out there fighting for the straight men?
@Valarin.... If I get my wife, girlfriend, that random girl at the bar pregnant I currently cannot force her to have the child... what makes you think sister wives would be able to?
From what I have seen in a poly marriage, there is a "hub". Persons A, B, C, D would have a contract with person Z not with each other.
Then there would be another type of marriage where each member is married to each other member. For visitation rights and such this is easy . For things like power of attorney, and inheritance I would assume there would be a process like each member picking their primary, or giving everyone equal vote/share.
The thing is I dont think you have to make it perfect right off the bat. Just leave the door open to allow it and let each poly couple come up with their own set of marriage rules to be drafted up by an attorney and let it be at that.
How is that any different than what happens in places with a sudden employment boom? If I am remembering correctly arnt there "boom towns" of men working in North Dakota right now from fracing? If all the women in an area marry 10% of the men there, the other men will probably move, or if they are employed and stable they might find a girlfriend in a neighboring city, this is especially possible with internet dating.
It is very similar to that, and it causes a lot of problems for those communities. Sexual assaults are sky high, as are other negative impacts. There's not much we can do about that in boom towns, but we can curb it in the case of polygamy.
It's not like the government should be trying to play games to help guarantee a close to equal population for ease of finding a relationship. If it comes out that homosexuality is 5 times more prevalent in men than women should the government step in to try to make sure we dont have to many single women out there fighting for the straight men?
Even if it turned out that homosexuality were much more prevalent in men than in women, the effect would still be quite small because the important ratio is that of the community. If you're talking about 1/20 of men being gay and 1/100 of women being gay, you're still looking at a very small change in the total ratio.
How is that any different than what happens in places with a sudden employment boom? If I am remembering correctly arnt there "boom towns" of men working in North Dakota right now from fracing? If all the women in an area marry 10% of the men there, the other men will probably move, or if they are employed and stable they might find a girlfriend in a neighboring city, this is especially possible with internet dating.
It is very similar to that, and it causes a lot of problems for those communities. Sexual assaults are sky high, as are other negative impacts. There's not much we can do about that in boom towns, but we can curb it in the case of polygamy.
It's not like the government should be trying to play games to help guarantee a close to equal population for ease of finding a relationship. If it comes out that homosexuality is 5 times more prevalent in men than women should the government step in to try to make sure we dont have to many single women out there fighting for the straight men?
Even if it turned out that homosexuality were much more prevalent in men than in women, the effect would still be quite small because the important ratio is that of the community. If you're talking about 1/20 of men being gay and 1/100 of women being gay, you're still looking at a very small change in the total ratio.
#1) So we should make a lifestyle choice illegal because it could cause other people to commit crimes? Should we make it illegal to sleep with married women since it could cause their husbands to commit homicide?
#2) Do you think that legalizing polygamy would cause a sudden boom in polygamous relationships? I highly doubt it. I see this as a very fringe activity that is being oppressed for no reason other than some people think it's icky.
How is that any different than what happens in places with a sudden employment boom? If I am remembering correctly arnt there "boom towns" of men working in North Dakota right now from fracing? If all the women in an area marry 10% of the men there, the other men will probably move, or if they are employed and stable they might find a girlfriend in a neighboring city, this is especially possible with internet dating.
It is very similar to that, and it causes a lot of problems for those communities. Sexual assaults are sky high, as are other negative impacts. There's not much we can do about that in boom towns, but we can curb it in the case of polygamy.
It's not like the government should be trying to play games to help guarantee a close to equal population for ease of finding a relationship. If it comes out that homosexuality is 5 times more prevalent in men than women should the government step in to try to make sure we dont have to many single women out there fighting for the straight men?
Even if it turned out that homosexuality were much more prevalent in men than in women, the effect would still be quite small because the important ratio is that of the community. If you're talking about 1/20 of men being gay and 1/100 of women being gay, you're still looking at a very small change in the total ratio.
#1) So we should make a lifestyle choice illegal because it could cause other people to commit crimes? Should we make it illegal to sleep with married women since it could cause their husbands to commit homicide?
#2) Do you think that legalizing polygamy would cause a sudden boom in polygamous relationships? I highly doubt it. I see this as a very fringe activity that is being oppressed for no reason other than some people think it's icky.
While I'm mostly on your side on this one, the big reason it's repressed isn't because it's icky. The reason it's repressed is because polygamy in practice is very strongly correlated with a number of severe, extreme abuses including child marriage, the banishment or murder of adolescent boys, and other such things, dating back more than a century. Anti-polygamy laws exist largely to give the government an excuse to step in and break up those abusive groups before having to prove a specific crime.
Now, I don't think that answer is good enough anymore. As I've said, I'd support a well-crafted poly marriage law.
#1) So we should make a lifestyle choice illegal because it could cause other people to commit crimes? Should we make it illegal to sleep with married women since it could cause their husbands to commit homicide?
Actual polygamist marriage is more than just a lifestyle choice - it comes with government sanction and benefits. I don't think we can or should go so far as to make it illegal to sleep with multiple partners or anything, but I don't think the government is obligated to recognize and sanction the practice.
#2) Do you think that legalizing polygamy would cause a sudden boom in polygamous relationships? I highly doubt it. I see this as a very fringe activity that is being oppressed for no reason other than some people think it's icky.
As I said, I totally agree that in most of the country it won't be. But there are areas where it would be, and those areas would suffer.
I think we can all agree that your question is about gay marriage, not about polygamy.
If you look at the world, you can see that some societies allow polygamy and others don't.
Laws are made by the people.
Support for polygamy in the US is low; less that 20% of Americans are in favour. An even smaller part would start polygamous relationships.
Support for gay marriage in the US is a lot higher. About 50-50 and probably rising. Gay marriage is happening.
If you and your special ones want to have a polygamous relationship, you should really consider moving, because it doesn't look like polygamy is coming anytime soon to the US. Wikipedia has a list with countries where polygamy is practiced/legal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_polygamy
Mauritania is on the list. There is still slavery over there.
If you want to compare gay marriage to other stuff too (marrying animals, marrying objects), you should take a look at these clips from John Stewart. He's really funny.
All I read is "My unconventional marriage setup(or at the very least, one you support) is valid but your's isn't
All I read is "My unconventional marriage setup(or at the very least, one you support) is valid but your's isn't
It is indeed the case that the government cannot discriminate based on the gender or sexuality of the parties involved, but can discriminate based on the number of parties involved. One is protected, the other isn't, and it's not restricted to marriage.
#1) So we should make a lifestyle choice illegal because it could cause other people to commit crimes? Should we make it illegal to sleep with married women since it could cause their husbands to commit homicide?
Actual polygamist marriage is more than just a lifestyle choice - it comes with government sanction and benefits. I don't think we can or should go so far as to make it illegal to sleep with multiple partners or anything, but I don't think the government is obligated to recognize and sanction the practice.
#2) Do you think that legalizing polygamy would cause a sudden boom in polygamous relationships? I highly doubt it. I see this as a very fringe activity that is being oppressed for no reason other than some people think it's icky.
As I said, I totally agree that in most of the country it won't be. But there are areas where it would be, and those areas would suffer.
Practicing polygamy (without the state benefits) is illegal in some places. In the show Sister Wives the family had to move out of Utah to Vegas because they were being prosecuted. (I am guessing they were going to say the first marriage was not legal because of the other "marriages" or something.
How is it that it's perfectly legal to have 17 children with 10 different women, sleep around on your married partner, or remarry 10 times... but saying you are married to more than 1 person at once is illegal?
I have heard mention of issues created if the gender balance gets thrown way off from too many men taking multiple wives but I cant imagine this becoming a real issue since most women, especially in Western society where women are empowered to be seen as equals to their husbands, would not be willing to "share" a husband.
There are also issues with the practices of some extreme religions that result in marrying off children; however, that hardly seems like a reason to ban the practice all together. In essence that would be no different from banning gay sex because some guys are gay pedophiles... I think we can all agree that that is ridiculous.
If you look at the world, you can see that some societies allow polygamy and others don't.
Laws are made by the people.
Support for polygamy in the US is low; less that 20% of Americans are in favour. An even smaller part would start polygamous relationships.
Support for gay marriage in the US is a lot higher. About 50-50 and probably rising. Gay marriage is happening.
If you and your special ones want to have a polygamous relationship, you should really consider moving, because it doesn't look like polygamy is coming anytime soon to the US. Wikipedia has a list with countries where polygamy is practiced/legal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_polygamy
Mauritania is on the list. There is still slavery over there.
If you want to compare gay marriage to other stuff too (marrying animals, marrying objects), you should take a look at these clips from John Stewart. He's really funny.
These are the decks that I have constructed, and are ready to play:
01. Ankh Sligh to be exact.
And some societies allow gay marriages and some don't. What's your point?
You seemingly misunderstood the central point here. Gay marriage is illegal because of our sensibilities. Now our sensibilities are changing, and so gay marriage is more and more accepted.
The same is true for polygamy. There is no actual, functional reason why it should be illegal besides the fact that it'll wreak havoc on certain laws that exist today. Which can be rectified to work.
Yes, the public seemingly wants gay marriage today. But they didn't 20-30 years ago. The concept that laws are made by the people is true, but it is equally true that something starts them. Ideas and change of thought don't happen spontaneously; you need something to kick-start them.
I think gay marriage should be legalized in the U.S. because I can't imagine why we should deny the rights to a legal marriage to gay people. But, under that same logic, people should be allowed to have multiple spouses.
Not at all. I am a supporter of gay marriage. But maybe for different reasons than many people... I think it's none of my or anyone else's business who other people marry. I also think the government needs to approach marriage for what it is... a legal contract between consenting people. I see no good reason to not allow that contract to be between more than 2 parties.
But most people don't see it like that. Probably because it leads to tensions, unstabilities and because it is linked to age discrimination.
Do you think the US would be a better place if polygamy was allowed? I'm not sure about that. Unlike gay marriage, there doesn't seem to be a lot of demand for polygamy.
It would be very cool if you would start a 'PAC for polygamy'. I would send you a cheque.
These are the decks that I have constructed, and are ready to play:
01. Ankh Sligh to be exact.
There have been studies that show that these types of marriages are can be dangerous. Women are more apt to be abused and or trapped in the marriage. The kids usually suffer the most since at some point in time each wife wants their kids to be put first.
not to mention the jealousy issues that can arrive between spouses.
in most cases they end up in very abusive situations. some even take child brides few and far between but there are some fringy people out there.
yes there is the show sister wives, but i would say that is more the exception than the rule. even he has issues keeping them all working on the same page.
however now that gay marriage is out there how can you really oppose this union and not be a hypocrite on the subject.
it is a slippy slope that is coming true.
i see polygimists surging into the courts going if you allow them to marry then you have to allow us to marry as well.
you are discriminating against us.
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Other marriages can be dangerous. Should men convicted of spousal abuse be banned from ever getting married again? I imagine swinging can have a lot of jealousy issues with it, yet that is also a perfectly legal practice. I also dont see a 1/4th time dad(4 wives) being any worse than some bum having a dozen children with 7 different women and not being around... at least with polygamy those fathers try to be around (in theory).
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great
This is debate. That being the case, explain how this has anything to do with explaining why it's illegal. Clearly not very women would interested in living that kind of life style. Great, people that don't want to can choose to not live that life style. But his girl friend’s opinion should have very little bearing on the legality of the practice.
Actually, most people in America support marriage equality for the LGBT community. That kind of spits in the face of this idea. That's besides the plethora of polygamy in the bible. Where do you think the Mormons got the idea?
As long as each wife is a willing participate, who gives a crap.
This fine bit of here sounds like total nonsense. I don't believe you. Please support you're position with some form of evidence.
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great
All sorts of legal issues arise. What if a guy gets in a car accident and is on life support. He has no advanced health care directive. Wife #1 wants him to be kept alive, wife #2 wants to pull the plug. Imagine the legal ****storm that would create.
You have issues with inheritance, visitation rights, social security benefits, who can make parenting decisions, you name it. A pretty huge portion of our legal system is based around the concept of marriage being between 2 people, once you add more than two things get really messy really quick.
How is that any different than what happens when a single parent is put into those situations with multiple children? Mom is on life support John wants to pull the plug Sue wants to keep her on it... Parenting decisions would go to the biological mom/father pair... All of those problems are solvable. It could even be part of the paperwork "in the event of X which wife has tie breaker power?".
Did you miss the whole Terri Schiavo thing? When different members of a family want to do different things at the end of life, it gets really messy really quick.
There aren't provisions for polygamous marriages. You'd have to rewrite huge portions of the legal code to account for the concept of "Wife seniority". You have to consider insurance regulations, adoption preceedings, all the legal precedent that has to be revisited, etc.
It's simple to go on an internet forum and say "We could just make it work" and handwave away all the challenges that changing the base configuration of marriage would bring. Same sex marriage is relatively simple to accomodate, and look at all millions of dollars and legal challenges and Supreme Court rulings it took to start sorting that out, and it's still a very patchwork mess of laws and regulations. Try and get a polygamy bill through Congress. You can't just say "we'll come up with a tiebreaker policy" and think that solves the problem. If a person was brain dead and the first wife wanted to pull the plug and the second didn't, I don't care how many tiebreaker rules you have, it's going to be a national media and congressional circus.
What if one wife gets pregnant, and is pro choice, and decides to get an abortion, and another wife is pro life, and decides to sue to stop the death of a family member? Can you imagine the kind of media and society ****storm issues like that would create?
You'd basically have to replace the whole of marriage law with something more akin to corporate law that has billions of pages of legal doctrine on how to resolve multi-party disputes, and that's just not ever going to happen in any of our lifetimes.
It's easy to speak as an individual and say "This is easy to fix, here's how you do it", but we don't live in a monarchy. No one can wave thier magic wand and say "Here's how it's going to be". If you want to change the legal structure of marriage to account for polygamy, you'd need to submit a huge number of laws all with bipartisan support to get them thorough Congress and signed into law by the President. We can't even get a FARM BILL through Congress. Something as socially divisive as polygamy? Good luck.
Has anyone considered one woman with several husbands?
Also, what about multiple husbands and wives in the same polygamous marriage together?
I mean, I'm all for it. People should be able to do what they want to do. I just don't see how this could be worked within the current legal system. I think the idea of marriage needs to be removed from law and tax code before we can even think about allowing this kind of thing.
Pristaxcontrombmodruu!
Obviously, New York City is never going to be overrun with polygamists. But there are smaller communities where it would be much more common. These are the places where you'd have the problems. The local balance is what's important.
The law would have to be quite carefully written, for sure. But all problems of this type are solvable.
Honestly, if polyamorous folks start pushing for legal rights to marry, I'd support it. I don't see why I should care who you marry, as long as they're a fully informed, consenting adult.
C'mon, you know the rules. No more than one ***** per relationship or people's brains start to break.
/sarcasm, of course
Actually, I don't want to be too dismissive against that point. The government does have an interest in encouraging marriage, and that's a major reason why we have legal marriage benefits. However, the idea that the government is going to start forcing people to marry is abhorrent, and the idea that the government is going to prevent a poly marriage as a way to force each of the participants into individual marriages is abhorrent (there may be good reasons for the government to prevent poly marriage, I don't see any but I won't pretend I've thought too hard about it, but doing it for the purpose of forcing us into 1 on 1 marriages... get out of my bedroom, please and thank you).
How is that any different than what happens in places with a sudden employment boom? If I am remembering correctly arnt there "boom towns" of men working in North Dakota right now from fracing? If all the women in an area marry 10% of the men there, the other men will probably move, or if they are employed and stable they might find a girlfriend in a neighboring city, this is especially possible with internet dating.
It's not like the government should be trying to play games to help guarantee a close to equal population for ease of finding a relationship. If it comes out that homosexuality is 5 times more prevalent in men than women should the government step in to try to make sure we dont have to many single women out there fighting for the straight men?
@Valarin.... If I get my wife, girlfriend, that random girl at the bar pregnant I currently cannot force her to have the child... what makes you think sister wives would be able to?
From what I have seen in a poly marriage, there is a "hub". Persons A, B, C, D would have a contract with person Z not with each other.
Then there would be another type of marriage where each member is married to each other member. For visitation rights and such this is easy . For things like power of attorney, and inheritance I would assume there would be a process like each member picking their primary, or giving everyone equal vote/share.
The thing is I dont think you have to make it perfect right off the bat. Just leave the door open to allow it and let each poly couple come up with their own set of marriage rules to be drafted up by an attorney and let it be at that.
It is very similar to that, and it causes a lot of problems for those communities. Sexual assaults are sky high, as are other negative impacts. There's not much we can do about that in boom towns, but we can curb it in the case of polygamy.
Even if it turned out that homosexuality were much more prevalent in men than in women, the effect would still be quite small because the important ratio is that of the community. If you're talking about 1/20 of men being gay and 1/100 of women being gay, you're still looking at a very small change in the total ratio.
#1) So we should make a lifestyle choice illegal because it could cause other people to commit crimes? Should we make it illegal to sleep with married women since it could cause their husbands to commit homicide?
#2) Do you think that legalizing polygamy would cause a sudden boom in polygamous relationships? I highly doubt it. I see this as a very fringe activity that is being oppressed for no reason other than some people think it's icky.
While I'm mostly on your side on this one, the big reason it's repressed isn't because it's icky. The reason it's repressed is because polygamy in practice is very strongly correlated with a number of severe, extreme abuses including child marriage, the banishment or murder of adolescent boys, and other such things, dating back more than a century. Anti-polygamy laws exist largely to give the government an excuse to step in and break up those abusive groups before having to prove a specific crime.
Now, I don't think that answer is good enough anymore. As I've said, I'd support a well-crafted poly marriage law.
Actual polygamist marriage is more than just a lifestyle choice - it comes with government sanction and benefits. I don't think we can or should go so far as to make it illegal to sleep with multiple partners or anything, but I don't think the government is obligated to recognize and sanction the practice.
As I said, I totally agree that in most of the country it won't be. But there are areas where it would be, and those areas would suffer.
All I read is "My unconventional marriage setup(or at the very least, one you support) is valid but your's isn't
It is indeed the case that the government cannot discriminate based on the gender or sexuality of the parties involved, but can discriminate based on the number of parties involved. One is protected, the other isn't, and it's not restricted to marriage.
Practicing polygamy (without the state benefits) is illegal in some places. In the show Sister Wives the family had to move out of Utah to Vegas because they were being prosecuted. (I am guessing they were going to say the first marriage was not legal because of the other "marriages" or something.
How is it that it's perfectly legal to have 17 children with 10 different women, sleep around on your married partner, or remarry 10 times... but saying you are married to more than 1 person at once is illegal?
The section on Litigation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Wives
I also assume that this is why in Vegas each of the wives is maintaining their own house instead of sharing 1 large house.