Asymmetrical Information

My first thought was the polygamy just isn't going to happen. But it occurs to me that polygamy is happening. Not in the form of one husband with many wives or vice-versa, but in the form of first spouse and their kids, plus second or third spouse and their kids, etc. Polygamy is a fact. It is economically inefficient. But it does allow maximum freedom - for the adults, anyway.

For a proper analysis, the purpose of marriage has to be identified, and that purpose is widely agreed upon as being for the benefit of the children. Tyler's analysis sees an economic disadvantage for the children once the children are grown, but it seems to me that any large monogamous family suffers the same impact.

Robert A. Heinlein's book, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, talks about a line marriage, with multiple men and women, usually of different ages, as being a stable form. I'm not at all sure what the social impact is outside the family unit, but I don't have a good understanding of the social impact outside the family in a polygamous society.

A piece in the February JPE also notes that the children may substitute for savings and thus polygamy can stunt capital formation [...] We should encourage family structures that spur human capital formation.

Well, make up your mind. Are people capital, or aren't they? And are you trying to maximize total societial capital in aggregate, or per-capita?

Marriage is a social and religious tradition. It also happens to be a government contract. If you examine it from the first perspective than whatever your religious or traditional beliefs are, they should be allowed as it's not the governments place to say otherwise. There have been many types of marriage in different societies throughout history. How is monogamy the only "right" one?

If we view marriage as a contract than why is it such a specialized contract? Why wouldn't it be possible for two roommates, who aren't romantically involved, to enter into such a contract for the tax benefits as well as being the effective next-of-kin?

What I'm really saying is why should the government be involved in this? We can say that it makes better sense economically to ban polygamy, but that is lacking. It would be easy to use the same argument to ban divorce or unwed parenthood. Why this one issue?

The 'jealousy' reasoning against polygamy stems from the opinions formed in a non-polygamous society.

Serial polygamy, the situation in which we now find ourselves, creates not a large single family, but a series of unstable broken familes.

Heinlein's 'S-group'(Friday) or 'Line-marriage'(The Monn is a Harsh Mistress) suggest stable, non-oppressive forms that provide financial and social support for the children--and the adults.

The monogamous jealousy situation is the largest impediment to understanding functional polygamy.

Muslim and Mormon polygamies are dominance structures rather than functional loving marriages. These are what monogamists think of when they hear the word 'polygamy'.

That, and monogamous jealousy notions get in the way of a real dialogue about polygamy.

To follow up on Randy's comment, we indeed have _de facto_ polygamy in the United States, so any discussion of polygamy's effects is not merely academic.
I get the idea that _de facto_ polygamy in this country is most common on either extreme of the socioeconomic scale: the ghetto "player" with his stable of "ho's" and the CEO with his series of trophy wives (though I'd like to see statistics on this issue).

Polygamy/Polyamory are also socially viable in situations where there are a lot more of one sex than the other.

For instance, if the majority of your young men are routinely away from home on military campaign for years or decades (or dead as a result), then the few men who remain at home would have to take multiple wives or else leave the majority of women without men at all.

As far as I can tell, that's the reason Islam permitted polygamy.

Not meaning to quibble, but a necessary condition for stable polygamy is a shortage of men. If there were only 1 man for every 5 women, some women would be willing to share. On the other hand, if the numbers of men and women are roughly equal, widespread polygamy will lead to a lot of single men competing for the attention of only a few single women (and lots of married women). Hardly a recipe for a stable situation.

" ... if the number of men and women are roughly equal, widespread polygamy will lead to a lot of sinle men competing for the attention of only a few single women ... "

To some extent that's already happening in the United States due to rampant _de facto_ polygamy.

To elaborate on my earlier point (and maybe going off topic here, but it doesn't seem so to me):

It seems to me that a lot of economic oddities lumped in as "demographics" would vanish if childrearing were treated as investment rather than consumption, and aging treated as depreciation rather than an externality; this would allow conventional economic analysis to be brought to bear.

Tyler's analysis sees an economic disadvantage for the children once the children are grown, but it seems to me that any large monogamous family suffers the same impact.

Not necessarily, especially if a small but successful family business is involved. Children, who will require regular care in any case, can assist the business in non-trivial ways that would otherwise require the possibly-destructive expenses of additional employees.

If the business becomes very successful or is good at inculcating trade skills into the children, those children in turn enter the world of business and trade either directly (by taking over the business) or with an advantaged skillset as compared to, say, the children of an office worker.

That's not the only possible outcome of course; as with *any* family situation, it depends on whether the parents are investing anything intangible in the children, or simply living for their own pursuits and making babies on the side.

Any man in modern America who wants two wives needs his head examined with a stone chisel.

What I'm really saying is why should the government be involved in this? We can say that it makes better sense economically to ban polygamy, but that is lacking. It would be easy to use the same argument to ban divorce or unwed parenthood. Why this one issue?

The first commenter gave the reason indirectly when he said: "Polygamy is a fact. It is economically inefficient. But it does allow maximum freedom - for the adults, anyway."

Therein lies the rub. Let's talk about a hypothetical voluntary society with one particular wrinkle: when a child is conceived they briefly take on their full adult faculties and negotiate the contract that binds their upbringing with their two parents.

Take polygamy: is that child negotiate for an option for their dad to have more children with a younger, prettier (and higher status) wife? Take unwed parenthood: Is that child going to negotiate an arrangement in which the father can "break up" with him/her as easily as he breaks up with his girlfriend? Or will our hypothetical adult/child say: Here are my terms: you put my interests ahead of yours for the next 20 years or so.

Speaking as an ex-social liberal who is now a social conservative, there is really only one fundamental premise that separate the two camps: an interest in the wellfare of the child. And yes, this involves that nasty S word.

David Walser,

You (as well as most people it seems) are assuming polygamy = polygyny. Even if that were true, the data does not bear out your assertion:

From wikipedia:
According to the Ethnographic Atlas Codebook derived from George P. Murdock�s Ethnographic Atlas recorded the marital composition of 1231 societies, from 1960-1980. Of these societies, 186 societies were monogamous. 453 had occasional polygyny, 588 had more frequent polygyny, and 4 had polyandry.

In the majority of the societies that practice some form of polygamy there is not a large imbalance in the ratio of the sexes.

Justin,

I am not sure I understand what point you are arguing but I thought I'd respond to some of your ideas.

Take polygamy: is that child negotiate for an option for their dad to have more children with a younger, prettier (and higher status) wife? Take unwed parenthood: Is that child going to negotiate an arrangement in which the father can "break up" with him/her as easily as he breaks up with his girlfriend? Or will our hypothetical adult/child say: Here are my terms: you put my interests ahead of yours for the next 20 years or so.

If I understand what you are saying (and I could be way off, feel free to correct me) you seem to think the child has the stronger position in this hypothetical situation. I don't think that's the case. The parents, even if they are fairly negligent, are still going to invest a very large amount of resources into their child. What does the child have to use as leverage against those resources? I've got your genes and may someday help provide for you? I'll give you love? What is their backup plan if they don't accept the terms of the contract? Death or possibly being born to another family? If death, than this is a silly discussion. If they can choose to be born to another family than wouldn't all children choose to be born to the family that maximizes their genes and their socioeconomic position? Why would they only negotiate for the parents sticking around? Why not negotiate to be the only child of those parents as it maximizes the parents' investment in them? Should we make it illegal to have more than one child?

Also, you seem to make a number of assumptions about child rearing. How do you know a group marriage couldn't raise children better than a monogamous one? Has there been a study examining real world performance of children born to each kind of marriage in a western democracy?

People often use the word "polygamy" - multiple spouses - to mean "polygyny", the form of polygamy in which one husband has multiple wives. Rare, though it does occur is "polyandry" - one wife, multiple husbands. Also rare is "polyamory" multiple wives and husbands (the Zoe tribe in the Amazon provide for example). I was glad to see some posters referencing Heinlein. I'll also throw in Donald Kingsbury (COURTSHIP RITE), who describes polyamorous arrangements.

A long time ago, after being exposed to anthropology, sociology, and psychology, I came to the conclusion that one big problem with modern industrial society is the functional elimination of the extended family. From the very beginning of the human race, people have been born into and nurtured by extended families. The so-called "nuclear family" is distinctly unnatural. If it were possible to reconstitute something like the extended family, I argue there would be a substantial benefit to society. One approach would be polyamorous marriage. Admittedly, a large number (most?) people would not function well in such a marriage - jealousy is a real phenomenon. And, the social/relationship dynamic would be more challenging with multiple spouses. However, I daresay that some people COULD make it work. Having a large number of adults raising children in a quasi-tribal arrangement has advantages for both the "parents" and the kids. There would also be economic advantages that would come about because the various parents/spouses could have a more diversified set of jobs.

So, the bottom line is that polygamy, broadly defined, is not unfair to one gender relative to another.

you seem to think the child has the stronger position in this hypothetical situation. I don't think that's the case.

Children have the stronger case because there are damages against the children - in adult terms they are weak, helpless and dependent. If a car accident made you as weak and dependent as a young child you would have huge damages against the driver.

Therefore, parents owe their children restitution: the necessary love, care and parenting that is needed to make them capable of fully participating in adult society.

The parents, even if they are fairly negligent, are still going to invest a very large amount of resources into their child. What does the child have to use as leverage against those resources? I've got your genes and may someday help provide for you? I'll give you love? What is their backup plan if they don't accept the terms of the contract?
Unfortunately, children do not have any leverage. If they did, there would be no need for social conservatives. Instead it falls upon social conservatives to oppose things like no-fault divorce, out of wedlock childrearing, and polygamy on behalf of the children (oh, I can hear the libertarian rants at the use of that phrase).

But rather than speaking libertarian (in terms of legal contracts, debts, restitution and obligation) plain english sometimes works best: when you bring a child into the world, you have a moral obligation to put that child's interests ahead of yours.

If you refuse that obligation then libertarians are always going to be a minority party and social conservatives are going to grow more and more powerful. Accept it and you can head us conservativse off at the pass.

I would say that polygyny makes very good sense *IF* you have a society where the male mortality rate is very high. E.g. if the majority of the young males engage in very dangerous occupations like hunting, fishing, mining, or (last but not least) warfare.

But when you try to continue that system in a society that doesn't have a large deathrate for young men, then you inevitably run into a serious, fundamental problem: For every rich old man with 4 young wives, there are going to be 4 young poor men with no wives at all -- and therefore those 4 young men have no future and no reason to become stable, civilized, contributing members of society. Hence they become easy prey for religious fanatics who promise them an endless supply of virgins in the Great Hereafter as a reward for killing innocent strangers. (sound familiar?)

In other words, if you want to maintain a polygynous society over the long haul, and if your young males aren't dying naturally at a fast enough rate; then you have to devise some way of killing most of them off.

The only exception to this would be if the polygynous group is a relatively small 'cult' within a larger society, like the Mormon Fundamentalists in the USA. Then maybe they can attract excess females by 'conversion' and/or shed their excess of males by 'excommunication.'

P.S. >> The same problem of an excess of young males could arise as a result of sex-selective abortions, as is currently happening in much of Asia. Anybody care to guess what the long-term result of that will be??

Re; "Any man in modern America who wants two wives needs his head examined with a stone chisel."

Amen to that, Bandit!

Is there a reason for the Animal Farm reference in the title?

As to the economic impact of polygamy, my first thought was just look at single parent families. Routinely, they are the worst off in economic terms for both the parent and the children. Get married before you have kids is a very sensible mantra for improving ones lot and there is a reason for it.

Extend this to polygamy and you just get more benefit. To take the simplest case of two women and a man, instead of one mom to take care of the kids, you can have two while dad works. Or instead you can still have two incomes and still have a full time parent at home and no childcare costs.

In the general case, as long as the women aren't all spitting out babies every nine months (and in modern society the large families are getting pretty rare), you can have staggered births while maintaining multiple breadwinners and lowered costs due to reuse of the dreaded hand-me-downs and no external childcare costs. More parents will be available to lessen the burden on the birthmother. Should result in more attention for the children and less strain on the parents. A winner both economically and spiritually for all concerned.

CAL

"For every rich old man with 4 young wives, there are going to be 4 young poor men with no wives at all"

Uh, there seems to be at least one woman missing here. Unless we're talking about societies where girls are selectively aborted.

"In other words, if you want to maintain a polygynous society over the long haul, and if your young males aren't dying naturally at a fast enough rate; then you have to devise some way of killing most of them off. "

Or devise some way to get them to share women. Or simply let women grow up sooner than men, so they have longer effective lifetimes and outnumber men at any given time.

THE GOOD NEWS: A recent sociological study reveals that most women's secret fantasy is to have two men at once.

THE BAD NEWS: One man is cooking, and the other is cleaning house. -- P.D. Tillman

"Why wouldn't it be possible for two roommates, who aren't romantically involved, to enter into such a contract for the tax benefits as well as being the effective next-of-kin?"

So long as the roomates are of opposite gender, of age and not related, then it is possible. Who's stopping them. Marriages of convenience aren't unheard of.

The mingling of marriage and romantic love is a historically recent phenomenon (at least as the primary motivator). During most of the history of western civilization, marriage was as much a property distribution arrangement as anything else. (It was also an arrangement for the rearing of children, as well as a means by which the Church could permit people to have sex and avoid hell.)

OTOH, if the government is out of marriage, as you suggest, then those tax benefits go away, don't they?

Justin,

I feel a little stupid for playing into your hands with the contractual discussion. I was trying to respond to your points in the framework you provided. Apparently it was a convenient setup so that my discussion of the subject would label me a libertarian and then libertarians could be painted as not caring about children.

Do parents have an obligation to their children? Yes, of course, that's fairly obvious. Does that obligation include monogamy? No, why should it?

According to your stance the government should force parents to do anything and everything to improve the child's chances even if it goes against the parents wishes. That just doesn't make sense. You are claiming that the quality of life of the child supersedes the quality of life of the parents. There is no good reason for this to be true. You can say the parents are responsible for the child's existence until you are blue in the face, and all you'll manage to do is prove that the child owes it's very existence to its parents.

Justin said:
Children have the stronger case because there are damages against the children - in adult terms they are weak, helpless and dependent. If a car accident made you as weak and dependent as a young child you would have huge damages against the driver.

I am somewhat baffled by this stance. Because parents created the child they have damaged them? Even were I to accept that, what about all the advantages conferred on the children by the very same thing that "damaged" them? They are now capable of living. This may be a mistake again, but to make your analogy more accurate you would have to set it up so that by injuring someone in a non-permanent way you saved them from dying. Do you then owe them restitution? A more clear example may be the doctor who puts someone in a body cast. They made them helpless but also made it possible for them to live. How does it make sense to punish the doctor?

All of that aside, you still have not proved that monogamy is a superior arrangement for raising children compared to polygamy. There is research that shows children raised by two parents are statistically better off than those raised by a single parent but no research that I am aware of that examines families with more than two parents.

denise,

Why the restrictions on who can enter a contract other than being of age? Are there any contracts, besides marriage, where it is ok to discriminate based on sexual preference?

And yes, if the government is out of marriage those tax benefits would go away, and I can't say I have a problem with that. Keep benefits related to children, but why should the government be involved in romantic or living arrangements of consenting adults? Would you think it was ok for the government to give homosexuals tax benefits?

I had some Mormon missionaries explain to me that the polygyny situation (which the LDS church banned in 1895) came about because at the time when they were out east/midwest and moving out, they had a distinct surplus of mormon women vs. men, and given the poor legal status of non-married women at the time it made sense as a temporary measure. It was never terribly common.

That's the "party line" as I understood it anyway.

"Why the restrictions on who can enter a contract other than being of age? Are there any contracts, besides marriage, where it is ok to discriminate based on sexual preference?"

Do you think if an old lady rents out her attic, she should have to rent to a gay couple if she doesn't want to?

At any rate, I wasn't trying to argue the merits of the existing marriage requirements, just pointing out that those requirements don't include romantic involvement.

Speaking of polygamy, I used to be a bigamist. Well, maybe not technically, but I did have one wife too many.

Um, "Jane", why is that a non-economic viewpoint?

"Polygamy/Polyamory are also socially viable in situations where there are a lot more of one sex than the other."

Hmm... sort of...

I would say the issue is situations where there are a lot more of one sex or the other that are acceptable spouses. For example, if the number of men and women is roughly even, but there are far fewer men who would make decent husbands than there are woman who would make decent wives seeking them, then polygamy becomes more viable.

GIven the way that college gender ratios are skewing... we could very well be headed that way.

In postwar England, there were a lot more women than men. It led to a lot of lesbian relationships and it was commonly accepted, but quietly so--no gay pride parades.

In China and India, where sex selection abortion is common, the male population is becoming much higher than the female population. Here's the effects that I can anticipate:

1. Increasing situational homosexuality like the postwar English ladies. Necessity is the mother of affection.
2. Women become a precious commodity and protected--much to the detriment of their freedom. I would think that the risk of rape would be higher.
3. Perhaps polyandry--if desired by the participants, but I can't really imagine this being a common desired situation. That is, unless the men do housework. *grin* Then even I could go for that.
Anyway, in Asia, nomadic mountain tribes had polyandry to control birth rates--another motivator to implement a polyandry policy, but the ZPGers/Malthusians have lost the argument and now the problem in the West is birth rates below replacement levels with a huge aging population.

I like the every women's fantasy is two men joke above. True dat!!!

One could argue that polyandry (generally WBOC) is at least as prevalent in our society as polygamy, especially since the male/female ratio is close to one. Random polyandry is arguably the cause of most single parent families, especially those with multiple children with multiple, non-resident fathers (known, guessed at or unknown). Random polyandry is arguably also the cause of most abortions, which operate to control both the number of single parent families and the number of children in those single parent families.

This used to be a responsible society of mostly responsible members and a limited number of irresponsible members. We are moving through a transition in which the growing number of irresponsible members "feel" that their irresponsibility creates an automatic responsibility on the part of the remaining members of our society to compensate (them) for their irresponsibility. The ultimate danger is the progression of this transition to the point at which we become an irresponsible society which refuses to compensate for the irresponsibility of a growing number of its members. Thereafter, chaos!

The 'jealousy' reasoning against polygamy stems from the opinions formed in a non-polygamous society.

Are you sure? Chinese popular literature, up to the fall of the Qing dynasty, reflects polygamy in a polygamous society (at least at the top), and there's a pretty strong implication of rampant jealousy among wives and their children. See, e.g. The Golden Lotus/Jin Ping Mei), in which the jealousy and maneuvering between the wives do seem to play a part in bringing the family down.

We probably aren't getting our suspicion that polygamy would involve jealousy and all that from the Chinese experience, to be sure, but we are getting it, I should think, from our experience of human nature, and our knowledge of the more informal patterns of polygamous fornication or adultery.

Several people have brought up Heinlein's "line marriage". While it featured prominantly, he also mentioned in passing that all sorts of exotic other marriages existed. All of them grew out of a situation where men initially outnumbered women by a roughly 9:1 ratio, where men who were too possessive or otherwise mistreated women were casually disposed of, and where the death rate in general was quite high (working in a vacuum being inherently hazardous). In that situation, polyandry and line marriages seem like an excellent adaptation for providing for children.

"Extend this to polygamy and you just get more benefit. To take the simplest case of two women and a man, instead of one mom to take care of the kids, you can have two while dad works. Or instead you can still have two incomes and still have a full time parent at home and no childcare costs. "

I was under the impression that in most polygamous marriages, the women only take care of their own children. They often live in separate homes, and there is a hierarchy among them. First wife and her children rank higher than Second wife and her children and so on. I have never heard of one wife taking care of another wife's children. Why would women who were sexual competitors cooperate with each other and help each other out?

Furthermore, two factions of women who seem very much opposed to each other in American society are housewives and working moms.

"More parents will be available to lessen the burden on the birthmother. Should result in more attention for the children and less strain on the parents. A winner both economically and spiritually for all concerned."

Does anyone really like the idea of being looked after or scolded by a step-mother? Does anyone look forward to having step-children? Does anyone think this is spiritually rewarding? If you wanted someone to look after the children with no child care costs, why not just bring in your mother or mother-in-law?

My friend Khalil was the child of his father's older wife. The house had two wings on it, and his father spent most of his time in the wing with the younger woman. There was jealousy, and Khalil felt that his mom got the short end of the stick.
It really didn't sound like fun, and he said he had no urge to have a second wife himself, even if the law allowed here in the US.

"I was under the impression that in most polygamous marriages, the women only take care of their own children. They often live in separate homes, and there is a hierarchy among them. First wife and her children rank higher than Second wife and her children and so on. I have never heard of one wife taking care of another wife's children. Why would women who were sexual competitors cooperate with each other and help each other out?" - blue

blue, I can understand that you have never heard of such a thing and that you cannot imagine why such an arrangement would be desirable, but that does not mean such arrangements have not existed in the past. My paternal grandmother is the product of a polygamous marriage. She lived in a house that was similar to a modern duplex with a common entry hall and stairwell -- one wife and her children on one side of the house and the other on the other. The children played and worked together and the wives shared duties.

As for their being sexual competitors, I don't know much about that. However, from their journals, it is clear they admired and had great affection for the husband they shared. Still, they seemed to love each other more. They thought of each other as sisters and served each other with affection in sickness and health. They were a great strength to each other.

Certainly, not all or even most, polygamous marriages work this way. However, if my great-grandmother's journal is to be trusted, she found the arrangement most desirable.

IIRC, the male-female imbalance that led to the Mormon polygamy was related to all those young men going out west, leaving many women with few prospects "back East" and in the American Midwest. Along comes a new version of the Christian religion that says it's okay to share a man, and there were many female recruits available, having no better option.

The US had very large immigration rates at the time of the formation of the Mormons. There were more men than women in the US because immigrants tended to be males.

Something you've failed to consider is the role of sexually transmitted diseases in the development of monogamy. You could argue that that STD's such as syphilis would give an evolutionary advantage to those who remained monogamous. In a polygamous marriage, if one unfaithful spouse gets syphilis/HIV/etc., then they bring it into the marriage and all suffer. I've sometimes wondered if that is one of the reasons monogamy evolved in the Judeochristian tradition, even though the Israelites were initially polygynous. You could make similar arguments for survival advantages for other Jewish traditions such as how they separated their foods, avoided pork, etc.

Mormon polygamy is endlessly debated - but it's pretty clear that Joseph Smith was practicing it in Illinois - hardly the Western Frontier at that point (it was a state already).

We should do the 19th century Mormons the favor of taking their stated reasons seriously - Joseph was neither trying to take up surplus women NOR satisfying his lusts - he was creating souls to populate the world.

Under polygamy both genders are radically opressed.

Lets take the Morman fundamentalists in this country as an example-- they require at least 3 wives to get into heaven. Assume that everyone does the minimum.

That means for every adult male, there has to be 3 available women. Given the roughly 50/50 birth rate, this means that about 1/2 of the male population has no mates. So how does a society react to this excess of males--- they can 1) get more women or 2) get less men.

Hence, I believe, why the bible describes the ceasless warfare and kidnapping of vast numbers of women. It was necessary to maintain the gender balance demanded by polygamy. Send males to die to acquire more females. Kill two birds with one stone.

In a polygamous group within a monogamous society, like the Mormons of today, how do you get rid the excess males? (Since you can't start a war) You expel them from your society on trivial grounds and leave them on the highway (this is happening a LOT in Utah).

Thats the short version of the consequences of polygamy. Being a male in a polygamous society is no picknick either; society is structurally compelled to kill of or otherwise eliminate 50% of you. Or some other large percentage, since the 3 wives I used in my example is a minimum, and the elites of polygamous societies monopolize even larger #'s of women.

Women, of course, have other problems. Basically its just a nasty little system that is incompatible with family values of any recognizable stripe or a peaceful society. Baaad idea. Capital formation aside.

The early Mormons could have included many more women than men if women were more receptive to their proselytizing. Maybe this was because Mormon doctrine is more family-centered than most versions of Christianity. (Remember, Christianity worships an unmarried man who persuaded a dozen friends to leave their families and wander around the country.) For most 19th century women, liberation or equality wasn't even a dream, and just keeping their men near home and taking care of the family would be a big help to many of them.

OTOH, it may be that once the Mormon leaders decided they could have many wives, their missionary efforts were deliberately skewed towards women... And does anyone have any idea how many of the less prosperous Mormon men went without any women at all during the polygamous period?

plenty of mamals are polygamous - lions & primates come to mind.

it societies where powerful males succeed, polygamy is a means to select the genes of the alpha male over less powerful males.

OTOH, wolves select for the genes of both the alpha male and female member of the pack. other dogs, which are genetically related, are not allowed to breed within the pack.

it seems these types of relationships magnify the genes of certain members of the gene pool, and therefore can be expected to accelerate changes in the gene pool with time. i.e. - if every man and woman had exactly 2 kids, there could be expected to be very slow migration of our gene pool compared to a more select subset that can greatly propogate their dna.

It's not the law that is stopping polygamy right now, but what people want. If massive numbers of people wanted to live polyamorously, they certainly could, whether or not the law recognized them as officially married. Note the difference with gay couples: there are LOADS of male-male couples living together, but much fewer many polyamorous groups.

Pray continue, but remember that for the US the question is a social one, not legal at this point.

The reason the Mormons adopted polygamy is that Joe Smith was a raging hornball, and it suited his sexual behavior. Since he was the prophet, its no suprise god came down on his side.

Maybe this was because Mormon doctrine is more family-centered than most versions of Christianity. (Remember, Christianity worships an unmarried man who persuaded a dozen friends to leave their families and wander around the country.)

...Whom, and followers thereof, taught and practiced extramarital abstinence and monogamous marriage, shunned divorce, and emphasized vritues such as positive parental role models, respectful children, and intrafamily responsibility.

My, real family unfriendly, that.

Now, what many professing Christians have done with that teaching since then is something different.

Daublin:

I'm not sure that you're entirely correct about the law not stopping poly relationships.

Arizona, for instance, actually has a provision in its constitution that forever bans polygamy and "polygamous cohabitation". There is a proposed bill...something like "the protection of marriage" or some such that is also anti-poly to the point that it can destroy living trusts and non-profit orgs that polyfamilies use in place of a marriage contract. Losing your kids and your savings is a bit of legal deterrent, I think.

These days there is a common arrangement among bisexual women (this doesn't work among monosexuals or polysexuals)that two or three may become co-owners of a single large home in which they raise their children (usually 1 or 2 per mother).

I know of three such households, each with three mothers, one man and many children. All three mothers have jobs but their work schedules are staggered so there is always someone home for the kids. The women are owed child support for some of their children but their ex's are normally unemployed.

There is one male in these households, selected by unanimous agreement of the mothers. The men I know of are an ex-defensive tackle, an ex-hockey player, and a body builder. The guys are devoutly hetrosexual, have jobs and serve to keep other guys away. Also they inspire exes to cooperate with their wives in re child rearing.

The benefit of this arrangement is that there are
four incomes to support the household, personal security for the women and the support group each woman needs so that she can pursue her career, 24/7 loving care for the children and a he-man role for the guy. And of course any one can leave the arrangement when he or she wants. The women prefer having only one man because they don't get bossed around.

I'm not sure if this is polygamy. The preceding 47 comments seem to be about the Beaver Cleaver form of polygamy which died out in the fifties at the same time Beaver Cleaver marriages died.

It's been a long day and my bleary eyes may be deceiving me but are some commenters actually arguing on behalf of polygamy? Are you people actually married? I love my husband but when I consider the ratio of time I spend wanting to klonk him in the head, I hold no doubt that the presence of other adults in my house (men or women) would result in my serving a lengthy prison sentence for homicide.

You think polygamous situations would help raise children in a "tribal" setting? Choke, Gasp. Have any of you actually ever lived in a tribe, or even a commune? I bet none of you grew up in a small town, either. Tribal settings are highly overrated. My only child has a veritable cornucopia of supervision/support thanks to her grandparents, an elderly couple who used to live in our neighborhood, two aunts, one uncle, four cousins, and at least three adult couples who are lifelong friends. Thankfully, none of these people live close to me.

Cathy,

Yes, some of the commentors are supporters of polygamy. (Jane does tend to attract a libertarian crowd -- for whom any government involvement in the institution of marriage is unwelcome.) For the record, I am not a supporter. Like you, I cannot fathom ever wanting more than one spouse. I also believe that, as practiced today, most polygamous marriages are abusive and are not emotionally healthy for the women (or the men) involved. Having said that, if my family history is correct (which I discuss above), some women found the institution very attractive and rewarding. I'm not saying that one or two such exceptions warrants legalization of the practice. I am saying that someone need not be insane in order to support the idea.

I think that polygamy should be legal because it is a more free-market-esque, competitive social system.

Banning polygamy primarily benefits single (poor/unattractive) men who are unable to compete with successful men to attract women. Whereas previously, these successful men would be able to hoard a greater than proportional number of women, with monogamy as a legally enforced institution, we are attempting to prevent them from doing that, in order to benefit men, let's say in the 50th percentile of attractiveness

So essentially, we could draw a comparison between market competition for economic resources, and sexual competition for available partners. Monogamy as an institution is a form of redistribution of partners away from men who would be able to attract many women, towards men who are not as 'competitive.' A form of welfare, if you will.

And ultimately, if I am successful and CAN attract multiple women, why the devil should I not be allowed to?

Your thread brought to mind Mark Twain's thoughts on this. Too long to cram into a comment, you can find them here:

http://www.attackmachine.com/index.htm#twain

The whole essay is a hoot.

As my dad's 12th child (the product of his 3rd marriage) I can quote his response when I asked him why we were so poor, even though my dad had held a succession of very good jobs.

"It's hard to accumulate wealth when you have a lot of wives and a lot of kids."

Because there is a 45 year difference between the oldest and youngest of the clan, we are spread out so that my dad was supporting wives and minor children from age 21 to 84. Of course he couldn't get rich under such a burden. But, I will say that because we were so spread out it allowed him to spend more individual attention on each one of us than a parent with 13 kids born in as many years could. We aren't a bunch of illiterate drop-outs crammed in a double-wide trailer.

So I'd say my dad's quasi-polygamy ended up working out OK, but it's hardly a glowing endorsement of the practice.

One of the benefits of more than one wife would be getting the life expectancy of males back down into the 50's.

i think it's right if from the man side.

Just a quick note- I'm a poly female in the US and I'm hardly opressed. Some of us just prefer to live this way. I'm currently single and dating a bit, but I have yet to be in a monogamus relationship. I don't like them much.

It can, for some people, be a matter of personal preference, not a matter of opression. In the US at least, there's a huge array of choices for anything vaugely like polyamory- from one man many women houses, to vast networks, to one women and many men, to three people in a close relationship, and all kinds of places in between.

Most people default to monogamy, but I don't know how many CHOOSE it. In some of the societies you're talking about, I don't know how many people would choose to live like that- but that's a matter of liberty, and has little to do with relationship structure.

A reply to MarkS's comment about children raised in poly situations in the US: Most of the ones I've met are fantastically well adjusted. Why? Because if two parents are working outside of the home, there's still one who can be at home as a full-time caretaker. There are more adults around, and it's closer to the traditional extended family of aunts, uncles, and cousins. The kids don't care, really, who's married to or shagging who, because they get lots more attention from adults, who can go off and recuperate if they're overwhelmed from work.

It can suck, too- a lot of emotonal processing going into the adult relationships can take attention and energy AWAY from the children, and if there's a breakup, it's ugly too. But, of the 14 or 15 children I've interacted with who are from poly households, all of them were either advanced one or two grades, and in gifted and talented programs. Academically successful, and well adjusted.

I dont know if you control for education of the parents though- most of my friends who are poly in the US are highly educated, and there's a large number of PhD's in the group- which will skew that average a lot. But, back to my point about not being opressed in the US- I know at least three poly families where the woman has a highly useful PhD (one's a medical doctor, one's a biochemical reasercher, the other's in mathematics in some way I don't understand), and they're all the primary income earners in the households. And, ahem, rather dominant personalities.

There's no repression there, that's for sure. But the kids are great :)

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