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should polygamy be legal?

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It is not wise to do polygamy. Only the foolish ones think they can manage...
But those are usually the kind of people who do not care for others anyway.
And are usually the people who blame everything and everyone first and never think if they themselves could be the problem.
From varies perspectives it is not wise to do polygamy. It is creating the seeds for adultery and emotional despair, and spreading of unwanted diseases. Always a hostile environment will arise. Which is also not good for the offspring. Ultimately destroying society. Although it sounds contradictive at times, Humans have to much brains and heart to live life in a polygamy way. Polygamy is for the the dumb and the heartless.
 
polarmystery said:
Help me understand why the legality of the matter has merit to what happens in nature by default? (ie: rampant infidelity)
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Infidelity isn't illegal. And regardless of whether it's legal or not, how is this relevant to the discussion of whether group marriages should be legal?

Furthermore, what happens in nature by default (which includes rape, theft, and murder) is not usually considered the model for what should be legal in human society.
 
In the USA we also have many laws that depends on marital status from taxation to alimony, to insurance and benefits. Even the ownership of assets like pension plans all give the wife special rights. So who you are legally married to is very important. Only being allowed to have one legal wife simplifies an awful lot under the law. I think that is why in some cultures addittional wives after the first wife, were called concubines. Concubines had rights, but the first wife had most of the property ownership rights.
 
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piasabird said:
In the USA we also have many laws that depends on marital status from taxation to alimony, to insurance and benefits. Even the ownership of assets like pension plans all give the wife special rights. So who you are legally married to is very important. Only being allowed to have one legal wife simplifies an awful lot under the law. I think that is why in some cultures addittional wives after the first wife, were called concubines. Concubines had rights, but the first wife had most of the property ownership rights.
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Lets hear it for simplicity trumping freedom!
 
Marraige is a purely religious term. As such, it never should have entered into our government lexicon. Two married folks should be treated no differently than two single folks who live together. If a term is needed to describe them, 'legally joined' works well enough.

Likewise, polygamy should be only a religious term. Who I have sex with or how many women I choose to marry really has nothing to do with law.

The people who think it should are those who are allowing religious overtones to dictate their morality. These are the same people who believe our government should be in the business of defining and enforcing morality.
 
Pulsar said:
Marraige is a purely religious term. As such, it never should have entered into our government lexicon. Two married folks should be treated no differently than two single folks who live together. If a term is needed to describe them, 'legally joined' works well enough.

Likewise, polygamy should be only a religious term. Who I have sex with or how many women I choose to marry really has nothing to do with law.

The people who think it should are those who are allowing religious overtones to dictate their morality. These are the same people who believe our government should be in the business of defining and enforcing morality.
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This man wins the thread.

Everyone is looking at this the wrong way around. Polygamy shouldn't be legal, marriage should be illegal. Or just removed from the books.

Why should the government be involved in love? It's ridiculous and anacranistic.
 
polarmystery said:
Help me understand why the legality of the matter has merit to what happens in nature by default? (ie: rampant infidelity)
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Uh, are you trolling or just stupid? Whatever, I'll bite.

Using nature as a reason for laws is not how our society is setup. Our society, as it stands currently, could not work with legal poly(anything) types of relationships. From marriage rights, to parental rights, to benefits, to tax laws.

Also, infidelity is not "natural" as you claim because naturally animals, including humans, are not monogamous. That means that infidelity doesn't happen "naturally" because naturally we aren't prone to be part of relationships. Early in human history though, we realized for a society to work we need to establish lineage and a monogamous social structure.

Lemon law said:
Sadly, polygamy simple is not congruent with human biology.

Using existing sexual practices, the probability of a males off spring is about 55%. The probability of a female is 45%. But the time the new born reaches adulthood, especially in second or third world countries, the sex ratio gets much closer to 50 50. Which implies a monogamous marriage as best fitting human reproduction.

But wait, as modern medical advances allow parents to select the sex of the child, by aborting females and carrying males to full term, I can only predict social instability for those societies. And for the few surviving females, it may become socially necessary for the females to take on two or more husbands.

Of course as a die hard male chauvinistic pig, I know bigamy is illegal, so surely 3 or more wives should be legal. Of course every time I get such ideas, my wife bops me over the head with a rolling pin. So please don't tell me wife I just posted this. What she does know won't hurt me.
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PSA: monogamous or poly(whatever) have no bearing on human reproduction. A poly society will generally have more children because diversity benefits the society as a whole. The M/F ratio would be the same in a poly society (not polygamous, but polyamorous). How do you figure the 50/50 split would change in a polyamorous society?

blackangst1 said:
Polyamory in its basic sense is already legal.
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It's not explicitly illegaly, however it's not legal to have multiple spouses which is more of what polyamory is (there are different forms and beliefs on it though which kind of blurs the picture a bit). Also, as far as courts, CPS, and the government handle things they make it much more difficult for polyamorous people to create and form relationships openly which is also a social issue. I've seen stories on polyamorous people who have had risked losing their kids because they were poly. If I'm in a marriage and we agree it's open, but then she files for divorce and says I was cheating then the courts will most likely side with her. Even if it was an open marriage and both people had lovers outside of the marriage.

So while it might not be explicitly illegal I wouldn't exactly say it's legal either.
 
I have friends who are in polyamorous relationships, and am involved in one myself based of what most people would classify my relationship as. Polyamory is something I believe is part of human nature. I don't see any reason a person can't love more than one person. People who have multiple children can love all their kids without issues. I don't see any reason a person shouldn't have sex with more than one other person provided all parties are safe, mature, and responsible about it. I think polyamory can be a great thing for the right type of people. Insecure, jealous, and the closed minded should most likely look elsewhere though. Polyamory can raise very well round children (due to being exposed to more views and beliefs), can be more satisfying (due to being able to have different people to meet all of your needs), and is equally beneficial to both genders and all sexualities.

Polygamy on the other hand, is a different entity entirely. It can work, however is asking for problems which others have described. Young men get pushed away and out due to the older males not wanting competition. Young women are "fought over" basically to try and get them first, which leads to younger and younger girls being married. Women tend to get treated poorly while men are the focal point of the culture. I haven't seen many situations where polygamy works.

I don't think that polygamy should be legal. It, more often than not, leads to a society where things happen that most people would view are not good traits. I also don't think that polyamory should be legal based on how our society, laws, and judicial system are setup (although that doesn't mean it should be illegal either).

Polyamory could use some work though to put it in a better spot socially, and it's pretty easy to do too. A lot of polyamorous people I know support the idea of a "primary" relationship and "secondary relationships." What this means is that legally, only the primary spouse is recognized as the spouse. In cases where the secondary relationship has kids, then treat it the same as a current unmarried couple is treated. Both parents (biological ones) get 50/50 split provided there aren't other circumstances like drugs/alcohol/etc. This would require very minimal changes in our laws and judicial system as well. That said, this is really a non-issue in my book. Polyamorous people have learned how to handle the current system, and it generally works. The largest issue is the social issue, which wouldn't be fixed through legislation anyways.


RocksteadyDotNet said:
This man wins the thread.

Everyone is looking at this the wrong way around. Polygamy shouldn't be legal, marriage should be illegal. Or just removed from the books.

Why should the government be involved in love? It's ridiculous and anacranistic.
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Yup. Remove the word "marriage" from everything related to the government and replace it with "civil union." Then gays can be a part of civil unions just like straight people can without the religious fundies bitching about the "sanctity of marriage" among numerous other benefits from the change.
 
The state should have no say or place in marriage. If people want to marry a bunch of people, let them. Who really gives a fuck honestly?
 
Sure, let consenting adults do whatever the want with each other. None of my business.
 
RocksteadyDotNet said:
This man wins the thread.

Everyone is looking at this the wrong way around. Polygamy shouldn't be legal, marriage should be illegal. Or just removed from the books.

Why should the government be involved in love? It's ridiculous and anacranistic.
Click to expand...

Marriage has existed long before religion arrived to sanction it. Governments have an interest in it because they recognize that it is an important bulwark of societal stability. To that extant they encourage it.
 
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