Why can't I have multiple wives?

[Red Squirrel]

Well if they're making gay/les marriages legal I don't see why they can't make multiple wife/husband marriages legal too. Eventually people are going to be crying for beastiality rights as well, so just make that legal as well. :biggrin:

People should be able to marry their dog and/or have sex with it if they want to. It's their right. Question is, how many barks does it take before it's considered rape?

 

[SlitheryDee]

Except, when allowed to do whatever they will, this does not actually happen. There are just as many, if not more, women with multiple male partners than the other way around in the poly communities. The harem style of relationship is by far the most rare poly relationship. This is because when you take away the idea of relationship scarcity what you find is that women choose different men for different qualities, and prefer to share rather than compete.

I'm not sure poly communities count though. They are kind of a self selecting sample who are acutely aware of the difference between their way of living and the rest of society. The men who engage in it are of the temperament to allow it and so are the women, or else they would never seek it to start with. I would guess that they have their own set of societal rules, only having more to do with resisting jealousy and competition over mates than supporting it. It may not be representative of what would happen in the wider population.

 

[SMOGZINN]

I'm not sure poly communities count though. They are kind of a self selecting sample who are acutely aware of the difference between their way of living and the rest of society. The men who engage in it are of the temperament to allow it and so are the women, or else they would never seek it to start with. I would guess that they have their own set of societal rules, only having more to do with resisting jealousy and competition over mates than supporting it. It may not be representative of what would happen in the wider population.

What would happen in the wider population is that most would continue on with monogamous marriage, only those with some temperament for plural marriage would attempt it. All parties would still have to agree to a plural marriage.

No one is suggesting that plural marriage supplants single marriage, only supplements it.

 

[jlee]

Well if they're making gay/les marriages legal I don't see why they can't make multiple wife/husband marriages legal too. Eventually people are going to be crying for beastiality rights as well, so just make that legal as well. :biggrin:

People should be able to marry their dog and/or have sex with it if they want to. It's their right. Question is, how many barks does it take before it's considered rape?

...not sure if serious.

 

[child of wonder]

...not sure if serious.

Sadly, he is.

 

[SlitheryDee]

What would happen in the wider population is that most would continue on with monogamous marriage, only those with some temperament for plural marriage would attempt it. All parties would still have to agree to a plural marriage.

No one is suggesting that plural marriage supplants single marriage, only supplements it.

What I was saying originally is that most people would naturally gravitate toward a small subset of the population. Assuming a world where plural marriage is an available and generally accepted practice, there will almost certainly end up being an unequal distribution of mates. Having to agree to a plural marriage is one thing, but wanting to be in any kind of relationship at all but being unable to for lack of invitations is being out in the cold. The key thing is that I don't think the distribution will work out like it does in current poly communities. While women with multiple husbands may be well represented there, they are the portion of society that was already looking for that. They will have self-selected and concentrated themselves in one place or group that is defined it's contrast to a predominantly monogamous world.

 

[jlee]

What I was saying originally is that most people would naturally gravitate toward a small subset of the population. Assuming a world where plural marriage is an available and generally accepted practice, there will almost certainly end up being an unequal distribution of mates. Having to agree to a plural marriage is one thing, but wanting to be in any kind of relationship at all but being unable to for lack of invitations is being out in the cold. The key thing is that I don't think the distribution will work out like it does in current poly communities. While women with multiple husbands may be well represented there, they are the portion of society that was already looking for that. They will have self-selected and concentrated themselves in one place defined by their contrast to the rest of a predominantly monogamous world.

You feel if it was a generally accepted practice, there would be more man+woman+woman than woman+man+man?

I'm not sure that'd be the case- generally many people prefer monogamy regardless, even those who do not object in general. I have dated a few people who were okay with an open relationship at the time, but when they found someone that was willing to be exclusive with them, that's what they wanted. How much of that is societal pressure and societal 'learning' vs how much is what they would want absent of outside assumptions/pressures, I don't know.

Then again, there's a predominant mindset that it's okay for a guy to sleep with multiple women but not the other way around (note the earlier comment of 'sloppy seconds'). If that double standard were to disappear, I wonder how that would affect the situation in general.

I don't see how it would put anyone else 'out in the cold', though - sure, you may have some people with multiple partners, but what if one of those multiple partners would have been 'left in the cold' if it wasn't for that particular relationship? That would go both ways.

 

[SlitheryDee]

You feel if it was a generally accepted practice, there would be more man+woman+woman than woman+man+man?

I'm not sure that'd be the case- generally many people prefer monogamy regardless, even those who do not object in general. I have dated a few people who were okay with an open relationship at the time, but when they found someone that was willing to be exclusive with them, that's what they wanted. How much of that is societal pressure and societal 'learning' vs how much is what they would want absent of outside assumptions/pressures, I don't know.

Then again, there's a predominant mindset that it's okay for a guy to sleep with multiple women but not the other way around (note the earlier comment of 'sloppy seconds'). If that double standard were to disappear, I wonder how that would affect the situation in general.

I don't see how it would put anyone else 'out in the cold', though - sure, you may have some people with multiple partners, but what if one of those multiple partners would have been 'left in the cold' if it wasn't for that particular relationship? That would go both ways.

Yeah I really don't have anything against poly relationships. I'm just trying to feel out potential drawbacks and positing a reason why it isn't the rule rather than the exception. I find it interesting to think about our rules in a more ethological and evolutionary way. I feel there's a concrete biological reason for most of what we do, only it's buried under so many layers of cultural history that we rarely see it anymore.

Like a piece of gossip that changes as it gets retold, our rules change as they are layered on top of each other. Sometimes we do things just because that's how they've been done before, with no consideration of why they were done that way originally. Sometimes we do things specifically because it's the opposite of what was done before, with equally little consideration of the original purpose. In every case we tell ourselves what we're doing is "better" for some reason.

A monogamous relationship is better for a long list of reasons to one person, and a poly relationship is better for a long list of reasons to another. Which one is better for us as simple animals? Which one fits us biologically, and does going with that urge benefit us more than resisting it?

 

[poofyhairguy]

Nah, I think our taboos are in place because of religious mindsets.

And children.

Is a poly home a stable home for children? Who has rights in a separation/divorce? Who has to pay child support?

From my research it seems the poly community puts the happiness of the parents above stability for kids, and our society as a whole rejects that value. Kids first always, unless its an airplane.

 

[Vdubchaos]

What I was saying originally is that most people would naturally gravitate toward a small subset of the population. Assuming a world where plural marriage is an available and generally accepted practice, there will almost certainly end up being an unequal distribution of mates. Having to agree to a plural marriage is one thing, but wanting to be in any kind of relationship at all but being unable to for lack of invitations is being out in the cold. The key thing is that I don't think the distribution will work out like it does in current poly communities. While women with multiple husbands may be well represented there, they are the portion of society that was already looking for that. They will have self-selected and concentrated themselves in one place or group that is defined it's their contrast to a predominantly monogamous world.

Poly has been around for 1000s of years, we just decided recently that we need a label for that now.

Up next, marriage license...cause you know, legal government acceptance is important and all!

People have been banging around for as long as people have been around. This is NOTHING new or "modern" many Poly couples seem to perceive it.

 

[jlee]

And children.

Is a poly home a stable home for children? Who has rights in a separation/divorce? Who has to pay child support?

From my research it seems the poly community puts the happiness of the parents above stability for kids, and our society as a whole rejects that value. Kids first always, unless its an airplane.

With divorce rates what they are, I don't think anybody should be calling out poly homes as "less stable" than "traditional" relationships. What research have you done?

Poly has been around for 1000s of years, we just decided recently that we need a label for that now.

Up next, marriage license...cause you know, legal government acceptance is important and all!

People have been banging around for as long as people have been around. This is NOTHING new or "modern" many Poly couples seem to perceive it.

I don't think you know what you're talking about.

Nobody's saying it's "new" or "modern." What would be nice, though, is for archaic laws that quantify unmarried sexual relations as a criminal offense to go away.

 

[SMOGZINN]

What I was saying originally is that most people would naturally gravitate toward a small subset of the population.

But that small subset would have to agree to marry the people gravitating towards them, and they will be picky and time limited. Real harems formed because the women were not given a choice, they were literally slaves.
Most people will not want to share a 1/15 of a high quality man when they can get half of one a third as good.

Assuming a world where plural marriage is an available and generally accepted practice, there will almost certainly end up being an unequal distribution of mates. Having to agree to a plural marriage is one thing, but wanting to be in any kind of relationship at all but being unable to for lack of invitations is being out in the cold.

There are already people left out in the cold, so to speak. Plural marriage should, at least theoretically, make it easier to find a mate not harder, since someone already having a mate is no longer an absolute barrier. This is exactly what we see in poly communities, people choose mates on widely varying criteria. Where if you had to choose just one mate you choose what aspect is most important to you and try to maximise that, in poly you can have a different mate to fulfill different aspects, or even have several to fulfil one. I know more than one poly household that got together for financial reasons as much as love.

The key thing is that I don't think the distribution will work out like it does in current poly communities. While women with multiple husbands may be well represented there, they are the portion of society that was already looking for that. They will have self-selected and concentrated themselves in one place or group that is defined it's their contrast to a predominantly monogamous world.

Who do you think is these women that are not looking for poly marriage but will wind up in one anyway? That is what you are trying to argue, that all the mono women will be taken by a few poly men. That only happens when the women are not given any choice. When they are given the choice they more often than not either choose monogamy or multiple men, with fewer choosing to have multiple women (and even then it is normally with multiple men in a mixed polycule.)

 

[SMOGZINN]

And children.

BS.

Is a poly home a stable home for children?

Yes.

Who has rights in a separation/divorce? Who has to pay child support?

These questions would have to be addressed by a divorce court, just the same as they are done in mono home.

From my research it seems the poly community puts the happiness of the parents above stability for kids, and our society as a whole rejects that value. Kids first always, unless its an airplane.

My experience, with literally hundreds of poly households with children, including my own, show this to not be true. The kids always come first, only in a poly house there are more adults to look after them.

In a poly house there is almost always at least one stay at home parent.
In a poly house there is almost always a parent that can stay at home on date night.
In a poly house there is almost always a parent available for recitals/games/other childhood activities.

 

[SlitheryDee]

Who do you think is these women that are not looking for poly marriage but will wind up in one anyway? That is what you are trying to argue, that all the mono women will be taken by a few poly men. That only happens when the women are not given any choice. When they are given the choice they more often than not either choose monogamy or multiple men, with fewer choosing to have multiple women (and even then it is normally with multiple men in a mixed polycule.)

Close to that, but not exactly. What I'm assuming is that there wouldn't be any "mono women". I'm talking about a world where the societal taboo against poly marriages is absolutely gone. I would expect a degree of fluidity in people's view of relationships that isn't present now. Society would no longer be segregated into mono and poly relationships. Both would just be called "relationships" with the expectation that anyone would understand that could mean any number of people or combination of genders. In other words, anyone would feel free to enter into any kind of relationship they wished. It doesn't have to be one guy with 15 wives for what I'm arguing to be true. It could be a third of all guys with an average of 3 wives each. It need not be single men with lots of wives at all. If it worked out that the most common relationship was two guys with an average of 5 wives between them in a single marriage the result would be similar. The argument about someone being in a relationship not being a barrier works when we're talking about availability, but it doesn't work when we're talking pure numbers. It means that each group is free to suck up all the most desirable people until it hits capacity, leaving none for the remainder who I believe will be mostly men.

 

[poofyhairguy]

With divorce rates what they are, I don't think anybody should be calling out poly homes as "less stable" than "traditional" relationships.

I agree with that, a high divorce rate has basically taken apart the value of marriage as the center of a stable family unit. I think younger generations realize that and that is why participation in marriage overall is lowering.

With that said, society often lags behind the facts for decades and plenty of Americans in the mid-00s were willing to say that Gay Marriage somehow weakened the value of their marriage with a straight face. Marriage activists would point to those divorce numbers and it was treated as a NIMBY problem for over a decade.

What research have you done?

That is really the problem- there hasn't been a ton of research done on children in poly homes. If there is I would love to read it.

The Gay Marriage movement have the studies to back them, and since the 1990's it has been once piece of research after another that say that gay households are equal to straight households for the purposes of child care:

http://journalistsresource.org/stud...marriage-children-well-being-research-roundup

I really felt this research helped turn the corner for that movement, as the key shifting voting demographic in America (middle aged white women) no longer held onto a stereotype that gay men are sexual predators.

Once all those older white women are convinced a poly home is good for children the laws will change again. Politics is never about what is fair or right, it is always about what it palatable.

 

[Perknose]

I am in a polyamorous relationship, so there's no "abuse" and no "cheating."

I suppose it's possible, but I've never seen one that lasted that long, nor have I seen one where it didn't eventually shake out that one partner had been acquiescing all along to the polyamorous wishes of the other, keeping up a brave front that this is what they wished for, too, until . . .

Making a relationship work with one other person long term is fraught with challenges and trade-offs. Bringing multiple other people into the question, well . . . D:

 

[Vdubchaos]

I suppose it's possible, but I've never seen one that lasted that long, nor have I seen one where it didn't eventually shake out that one partner had been acquiescing all along to the polyamorous wishes of the other, keeping up a brave front that this is what they wished for, too, until . . .

Making a relationship work with one other person long term is fraught with challenges and trade-offs. Bringing multiple other people into the question, well . . . D:

It's like having 2 kids.

It's not 1+ 1, it's more like 1+ 3.....hard to put it into words or come up with a formula.

Whenever you multiply people involvement....drama/problems and everything else multiplies as well.

Why do you think Stalin said "no man no problem", mind you the guy took it to the extreme and killed MILLIONS of his own people.......but he had a good point! Based on my experience, I agree with him (just not the killings).

Mind you, some people love MANY or MORE........and I used to believe that was true for me as well back when I was very young and ignorant.

Over the years, I found opposite to be most appealing.....and what make me happy the most.

I love people in VERY small doses, as in 1 special person.

As Georgie would say " I like people for about.....I don't know, 30 seconds or so before I'm tired of their BS"

 

[poofyhairguy]

My experience, with literally hundreds of poly households with children, including my own, show this to not be true. The kids always come first, only in a poly house there are more adults to look after them.

In a poly house there is almost always at least one stay at home parent.
In a poly house there is almost always a parent that can stay at home on date night.
In a poly house there is almost always a parent available for recitals/games/other childhood activities.

I could see that for sure. In a modern world where each family is isolationist the idea of a larger nuclear family that can replace the village it used to take to raise a child is interesting.

But with childcare it isn't always about checking the boxes. Kids are weird like that, you can provide for all their physical needs and still do them harm via not meeting their emotional needs.

One thing that is HUGE for children, and that helped gay marriage, is that kids thrive on stability:

Children thrive in stable and nurturing environments where they have a routine and know
what to expect. Although some change in children’s lives is normal and anticipated, sudden and
dramatic disruptions can be extremely stressful and affect children’s feeling of security.

http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/412899-The-Negative-Effects-of-Instability-on-Child-Development.pdf

I will be honest that I don't know how it actually works in a poly community, but with so many "parents" coming and going the situational stability might be lower than in a two parent household. Even if a bad mom who gets married and divorced three times is no better in the stability department doesn't mean that people will sign off on legalizing more situations like that.

Or maybe a poly household is more stable because the relationships last longer than your average marriage, I don't know. I could see it going either way. No matter what though this concept of stability has to be addressed before many people will see a poly household as a suitable environment for children to be raised in, which is the path to legalized marriage That is where some more research could really help.

 

[SMOGZINN]

I suppose it's possible, but I've never seen one that lasted that long, nor have I seen one where it didn't eventually shake out that one partner had been acquiescing all along to the polyamorous wishes of the other, keeping up a brave front that this is what they wished for, too, until . . .

I could introduce you to many such relationships, they abound in the poly communities. It is just the messy ones you hear about.

Making a relationship work with one other person long term is fraught with challenges and trade-offs. Bringing multiple other people into the question, well . . . D:

It is actually easier in a lot of ways, you have extra people to help calm things down, to give solace, to help take the burden off when stress is building. Successful Poly relationships are built on strong communication, compassion, and trust, and those are the most important skills for maintaining any long term relationship.

 

[East_Coaster]

Why on earth would you want to be married, let alone marry two women?

 

[Vdubchaos]

I could see that for sure. In a modern world where each family is isolationist the idea of a larger nuclear family that can replace the village it used to take to raise a child is interesting.

But with childcare it isn't always about checking the boxes. Kids are weird like that, you can provide for all their physical needs and still do them harm via not meeting their emotional needs.

One thing that is HUGE for children, and that helped gay marriage, is that kids thrive on stability:



http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/412899-The-Negative-Effects-of-Instability-on-Child-Development.pdf

I will be honest that I don't know how it actually works in a poly community, but with so many "parents" coming and going the situational stability might be lower than in a two parent household. Even if a bad mom who gets married and divorced three times is no better in the stability department doesn't mean that people will sign off on legalizing more situations like that.

Or maybe a poly household is more stable because the relationships last longer than your average marriage, I don't know. I could see it going either way. No matter what though this concept of stability has to be addressed before many people will see a poly household as a suitable environment for children to be raised in, which is the path to legalized marriage That is where some more research could really help.

You really believe that?

Think about when you were a kid. Most kids care about 2 things. Stability and their parents being together.When I was a kid, we lived in poverty, but as long as mom/dad were around and there was stability.....we were just happy, rest didn't really matter (especially materialistic crap)

Having random people watch you....and both parents running off with other people for sexual pleasure.......well, not sure about you, but if I was the kid, that wouldn't make me very happy.

Mind you, I'm not saying that kids cannot be happy. I just don't believe Poly type relationship provides extra stability or happiness to children. Quite the opposite IMO.

And we all know every study is flawed and can be swayed by little details. And the devil is in the details.

 

[smackababy]

You really believe that?

Think about when you were a kid. Most kids care about 2 things.

Yeah, and those two things are pizza and toys.

 

[OutHouse]

polly and plural marriage is not the same and off the rails of the op.

 

[SlitheryDee]

You really believe that?

Think about when you were a kid. Most kids care about 2 things. Stability and their parents being together.When I was a kid, we lived in poverty, but as long as mom/dad were around and there was stability.....we were just happy, rest didn't really matter (especially materialistic crap)

Having random people watch you....and both parents running off with other people for sexual pleasure.......well, not sure about you, but if I was the kid, that wouldn't make me very happy.

Mind you, I'm not saying that kids cannot be happy. I just don't believe Poly type relationship provides extra stability or happiness to children. Quite the opposite IMO.

And we all know every study is flawed and can be swayed by little details. And the devil is in the details.

I think what you're describing wouldn't be a poly-amorous relationship. In that case it seems mostly arranged that way so everyone involved gets maximum sexual enjoyment without giving up the closeness of a primary relationship. That would be a pretty bad environment to raise kids in I think. Too many strangers coming and going along with too much potential for emotional chaos for my tastes.

That's not what I would envision a poly marriage with children to be like though. What I imagine is a stable group of people who are all married or at least mutually committed to each other. All sexual activities would occur among the members of this group and not with outsiders. They would literally be a family, but with more mommies and/or daddies than a regular family. To me, that seems like it could potentially be a great environment to raise kids in. More income. No need for babysitters ever. More varied backgrounds and experiences to draw from and teach the child with. If it can be made to work amongst the people involved I don't see a problem with it.

 

[poofyhairguy]

You really believe that?

I honestly don't know.

The poly family I know IRL ("open marriage") give me this vibe that they aren't ashamed of their non-traditional sexuality and that they don't try very hard to hide it from the children. Honestly they seem pretty selfish to me about putting their personal needs above the children's emotional needs, much like a recently divorced mom who goes out to bars and invites strange men over to the house where her kids live to feel better about herself.

But I don't want to judge this community based on my limited experience. I know some gay couples who go out of their way to make sure the more liberal ideas on sex in the gay community aren't rubbed in the face of their children. Maybe there is some poly community who do everything they can to make it seem like mom just has a lot of helpful guy friends or whatever. And I don't know how marriage changes anything in that community.

My point is that I haven't seen any real research on it. And you are right a single study can be denied, but unless you work for an energy or cigarette company you can't deny a flood of studies that almost all point to the same thing (like what happened with gay households and children).

And up until the point kids are involved who cares, people can do whatever they want as long as its not hurting someone else. I do think that as soon as a kid is in the equation your needs come second, period, and some of the people I have admired most in life are those who temporarily stayed in failed marriages because they had young children. That is real sacrifice.