Asymmetrical Information

This is an argument that matters particularly to feminists, because while in theory polygamy could take non-sexist forms, such as polyandry or group marriage, in practice it usually takes the form of polygyny

Why is polygyny sexist and polyandry not?

Bombadil,

I would imagine first and foremost because polyandry is so incredibly uncommon that it's barely worth talking about.

Of course polygamy should be illegal, since it's destablizing. (Duh.)

If 1 man takes 4 wives, then that's 3 other men without wives and hence no opportunity to have children. And young, unmarried men without prospects for a bride or children are the kind of men that fly airplanes into buildings. Just look at the mess they have in China and India, with their distorted sex ratios.

Studies have already been done showing how young men that are married aren't the anti-social threat that young unmarried men are. A man that's married need not compete with other males for status, since he has already secured a mate.

The is no rational argument against allowing marriages between homosexuals, since they're not in the reproductive pool anyway.

Jane, you really need to read a decent book about evo-psych.

What you said here is particularly wacky:

"if marriage in America is indeed sturdy enough to withstand gay marriage, I presume it's also sturdy enough to withstand polygamy. If it's not--well, then, who cares about polygamy, because gay marriage will already have gutted the thing."

Do tell, Jane: How does the fact that two gay men want to marry each other in any way affect my marriage to my wife? What exactly is there to "withstand" from their marriage? How will my marriage have been "gutted" because someone else gets married?

I have to say, I find the whole argument silly. As a white male in a polyandrous relationship/corporation, I couldn't care less about what you call us We're bound more tightly than a marriage by various contracts, and so far, it has lasted longer than some marriages we've attended...

About the only missing issue is tax structures.

But hey, we're weirdo Brooklynites who don't care about frightening the horses. Policy is for the midwest, right?

I thought this slippery slope defense was fairly interesting:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/8/85523/57934

I'm still waiting for polygamous gay marriage to become an issue.

matthew: I wasn't saying your marriage would be gutted by gay marriagee -- but I can't see how it would be gutted because your neighbour has two wives, either.

Jonathan Rauch explored this issue in the National Journal a few weeks ago. I think he goes a long way towards proving that polygamy, or at least, polygyny will bad for women, and also men. http://www.indegayforum.org/news/show/27349.html

Matthew: The second link Jane posted is one of the best illustrations I've read of "Unintended consequences" re: the family.

Destigmatization of bastard children has been an unmitigated disaster..and it's apparently impossible ro put the genie back into the bottle.

YOUR marriage might not be threatened by gay civil unions, but you might not be the marginal consumer of marriage.

Gays already have the right to enter into a relationship in which each partner agrees to have no sexual relations with anyone but the other partner. They can do that now. They don't need the government's permission. They promise to forsake all others, move in together, and then *keep* *that* *promise*. The Sex Police will not raid their house and force them apart.

What they *want* is for all of us to call it marriage, and for anyone offering benefits to traditional couples to be forced to provide them to same-sex couples as well. These two items are a clear abrogation of the civil rights of the rest of us.

Aside from the economic incentives, the main benefit of marriage is that the two people become one legal entity for many purposes. There is no reason to limit this to sexual relationships. It can and should be extended by law to all domestic arrangements, with the consent of the affected people. There is no reason why an elderly brother and sister, for example, or two members of a celibate religious order, should not be able to form a domestic partnership wherein one can make medical decisions for the other, be the presumed next of kin or heir, etc. The mere fact that the relationship is not sexual is no reason to withold legal sanction.

I think the problem in the gay marriage debate has nothing to do with who marries who, but rather, with who is entitled to benefits. To me, the correct answer is that no one should get benefits just for getting married. Benefits should go only to those who accept the responsibility of raising children. In practice then, anyone could marry anyone, and the state wouldn't give a damn. Also in practice, having a child would automatically make one "married" in the eyes of the state - with all applicable benefits and responsibilities.

Can one oppose polygamy without opposing gay marriage?

Yes, on ecological ground. Polygamist marriages produce lots of children and gay marriages do not produce any. Gay marriages help prevent overpopulation, polygamy creates overpopulation.

No, on evolutionary grounds. Gay marriage always loses on evolutionary grounds because there is no reproduction in gay marriage unless gays lie about being exclusively gay. Even if evolution did not favor polygamy, polygamists always reproduce.

Yes on legal grounds because the law can be self-contradictory.

Moral arguments are non-starters because morals change rapidly over time and from religion to religion; culture to culture.

Arguments based on tradition are worthless because oral traditions and written histories are as unreliable as today's newspaper.

If 1 man takes 4 wives, then that's 3 other men without wives and hence no opportunity to have children.

That's an unconvincing argument. It is already legal for one man to have four mates in the United States -- they just don't get marriage benefits. So that's your three unmarried men without prospects, right there.

And young, unmarried men without prospects for a bride or children are the kind of men that fly airplanes into buildings

But "young, unmarried without prospects for a bride or children" describes almost every gay person who ever lived prior to the last two generations. Yet gay suicide-murderers are largely absent from the history books. This suggests that whether a married man without prospects goes psycho is heavily dependent on the culture in question.

Polygamist marriages produce lots of children and gay marriages do not produce any. Gay marriages help prevent overpopulation, polygamy creates overpopulation

Polygamy creates fewer children per woman than monogamy does, both because of the lesser number of per-woman sex acts on the part of the man and because of the lesser resources available for child-raising. One man and five women can't afford as many children as five men and five women can.

You're making an incorrect inference from the fact that countries that allow polygamy also tend to have high birthrates. That's true, but one doesn't cause the other.

The big problem here with John Corvino/Ampersand's argument is that it is conceiving of gay-marriage-to-polygamy as a slippery slope argument with polygamy further down the slope than gay marriage. The point of many of the people making the religious and traditional arguments is precisely that (to them) polygamy is more acceptable than gay marriage; that gay marriage is a greater break with traditional marriage than polygamy.

By rough analogy, the anti- side is saying "If you legalize embezzelment the company's pension fund, how can you keep it illegal to steal a loaf of bread to feed a starving family?" And the Corvino/Ampersand response is, "There's no slippery slope; your biggest arguments against legalizing embezzelment of the company's pension fund don't apply to the theft of bread."

(I'm not saying they're right, or that marrying either polygamously or homosexually is equivalent to theft.)

To me, the only argument against gay marriage worth taking seriously is simply this: we have an institution which is vital enough to appear in almost all known human societies, and while the forms can differ greatly, it seems to always and everywhere take the form of a contract between a man and a woman.

I don't think that argument stands up. 1) Gay's make up only a very small percentage of the population so stating that we almost always see marriage as a union between a man and a women is statistically obvious. It would still be true if gay marriage were legal. 2) 200 years ago, one could have used the same argument to keep women as second class citizens. Equality for women was then a thing that "we didn't know what we were dealing with" either.

If there is a social cost to gay marriage, it has to be awfully high before I feel justified in limiting someones right to marry who ever they choose. Can anyone make an argument that the rights of a society superceed the rights of an individual?

The opposition to gay marriage comes from guys (and a few gals) who married to prove to the world that they aren't gay. Once gay marriage is legalized, they won't be able to hold their heads high and say "I'm married" as though it means something. That's what people mean when they say gay marriage is an assault on marriage.

"you can be a libertarian blogger who makes fun of lobbyists despite the fact that your father's salary as the head of a trade association put you through college."

Ahh, but can you be a libertarian blogger despite the fact that your father's salary put you through college--period? Your place in the labor market now is partially due to how you picked your parents.

The opposition to gay marriage comes from guys (and a few gals) who married to prove to the world that they aren't gay.

... so over half the married people in America are closet homosexuals? Damn -- no wonder Brokeback Mountain did so well in theaters.

Actually, polyandrous societies don't seem to oppress the men (see here).

And polygynous societies don't actually have high birth rates, in general. It's just that there are some polygynous societies or subcultures (Arabian Peninsula MIddle East, schismatic Mormon sects) with high birth rates that get lots of press.

And, as to the "instability" question, that's somewhat eweakened by the fact that the most stable and enduring cultures in human history --- China since the Qin and Indo-Aryan ---- did and do permit polygyny.

Other than each and every one of the assertions about polygamy being contradicted by actual human societies, though, I don't see any weakness in the arguments.

Can you support gay marriage without supporting polygamy? Well lots of people have supported polygamy for hundreds of years and it never occurred to them that they had to support gay marriage.

Why not polygamy? One thing, what polygamy? How does divorce work with gay marriage? Just like straight marriage. How about with polygamy? Who knows? I don't know if fundamentalist Mormons even have divorce but it property rights, inheritance, divorce and a host of other legalities have to work differently when a marriage is based on 2+ people than just two. You can hit a button tomorrow and have gay marriage in the law. There's no polygamy button, its a dial. Are we talking about polygamy as envisioned in Muslim law, Old Testament, Mormon or out of a sci-fi model?

No, on evolutionary grounds. Gay marriage always loses on evolutionary grounds because there is no reproduction in gay marriage unless gays lie about being exclusively gay. Even if evolution did not favor polygamy, polygamists always reproduce.

The problem with these types of arguments is that they forget that humans are social creatures. For social creatures a trait can have an evolutionary advantage even if the organism that does not reproduce because of it.

If we allow polygyny, and women freely take advantage of it, then we can see that we have increased their options. Roughly 50% of the adult population in America is married; thus for the average unmarried woman the number of potential marriage partners would double. If we consider the fact that some men simply are not good prospects (i.e. very poor, very old, in prison, not interested in women), but a much higher percentage of married men are at least passable prospects, the actual mating market for women would more than double.

The imposition of monogamy clearly limits women.

In the abstract, the same goes in reverse. Legalizing polyandry would increase the liberty of men. The thing is, that polyandry is so rare as to be non-existent; normal men won't accept it, whereas many normal women will accept polygyny. Giving men this freedom is essentially meaningless.

Thus to legalize polygamy is in essence only a benefit to women, and to the few men with the resources to attract multiple women. Enforced monogamy is a conspiracy of the vast majority of men, to keep women away from the highest SMV men. The rights of women did not enter the equation when monogamy was imposed on societies; this was all done in the past when women didn't count.

As for drawing a line between polygamy and gay marriage, that's clear enough. Polygamy destabilizes any society, by creating that excess of unmarried heterosexual men other posters have mentioned. (Strangely enough, when something is legal a certain number of people will go for it, where they would not if it was illegal.)

Gay marriage, on the other hand, will not affect the numbers of unmarried heterosexuals, and would almost certainly decrease the number of unmarried men in toto. Whether or not desperate unmarried homosexuals actually destabilize a society, I don't know. (I tend to doubt they would, myself; gays in my experience are pretty good citizens.) But if they do, gay marriage would only help make a more stable society.

You can hit a button tomorrow and have gay marriage in the law. There's no polygamy button, its a dial.

But if marriage is a fundamental right, you can't justify denying it to polygamists on the grounds that granting it would require you to actually do a little thinking about the implications.

So when did marriage become a "fundamental Right" ????

How about the very libertarian anything I damnwell want to do I have the right to do unless it involves using force on someone else?

Polygamy creates fewer children per woman than monogamy does, both because of the lesser number of per-woman sex acts on the part of the man

There's no reason for this to automatically be a cause of fewer children. For very practical reasons, even the most fertile woman cannot carry a new pregnancy to term more than once every 10-12 months on average, regardless if she is involved in a monogamous or polygynous relationship.

However, if in the 12 months after one woman is impregnated, the polygynous husband impregnates at least one other wife who also carries to term, the birthrate is increased accordingly.

If polygamous marriages normally produce fewer children on average, it is certainly not on account of physiological logistics.

If polygamous marriages normally produce fewer children on average, it is certainly not on account of physiological logistics

Take two groups: group (a) consists of a man with four wives, while (b) consists of four men and four women. Both groups want to have as many children as possible in the next ten years. Which group will have more children in ten years?

The answer is (b), and the reason is that the man in group (a) will miss having sex on more of his wives' fertile days than the men in group (b) will. That means more months will pass before each conception, which ultimately means fewer children being produced in that ten-year period. In order to have the best odds of conception, the man in (a) needs to have sex approximately sixty times a month, versus 15 times a month for each of the four men in group (b). And actually the problem's even worse than that, since his (a)'s wives' fertile periods will probably overlap somewhat. In the worst-case scenario where all four of them overlap perfectly, he has to have sex four times a day for half the month. I'm pretty sure there are porn stars who can't manage that kind of performance over prolonged periods of time. :)

Not only does Polygamy work on the "two (or more) consenting adults" ground, it should be legal by the simple fact that some religions allow it.

Dan: The biggest limits on fertility are how many kids people want (it doesn't take modern birth control to significantly reduce the number of pregnancies) and how many pregnancies a woman can handle. Pregnancy is pretty wearing physically, and most women cannot have one right after another without eventually becoming too weak to bring any more to term. Monogamous societies that really want to have as many kids as possible seem to average 6 children per family or less, so I'd guess that 6 is pretty close to most women's lifetime limit. A man can miss quite a few of a woman's fertile periods and still give her six kids over 20 years, so I doubt your concerns about the man's physical capacity matter. However...

Anony-mouse: The reproductive rate is measured as the number of children per woman. Lets say that if conservative monogamous Mormon families aim for as many children as possible (doesn't their doctrine encourage this?), then their reproductive rate will be close to the average maximum number of pregnancies a woman can bring to term, say 6. Polygamous Mormon men with 4 wives would have to have 24 children each to have the same reproductive rate. Whether or not it is possible for them to do so, I don't think most men would want to have to support that brood, or to have to remember 28 birthdays.

The only way polygamists would have a higher birthrate than monogamists with the same desire for children is if in the monogamist society, women who cannot catch a suitable man neither marry an unsuitable man nor have kids out of wedlock. In the USA at present, there are plenty of women doing both of those.

To me, the only even moderately convincing argument in the anti-gay-marriage arsenal is that we don't understand what we're messing with. Their specific arguments about what gay marriage will, or will not, do are no more or less convincing than the equally speculative arguments from the other side on how gay marriage will unleash an epidemic of bourgeois normalcy among American homosexuals. In the absence of data, both sides are rather like medieval theologians arguing about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin.

We've had marriage-lite (called "partnerships" in law, but "marriage" in conversation) in the UK for six months. Absence of data won't be a problem for much longer.

Jane, you missed the point.

The "slippery slope" argument against permitting "life style" choices such as gay marriage et al comes to us from Scalia's dissent to Lawrence v. Texas where he warned that State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers' validation of laws based on moral choices.

The very legitimate fear about gay marriage is that it may (by virtue of "Full Faith and Credit" or by precedent of Lawrence) be imposed upon states wherein no elected legislature would enact it.

Other than each and every one of the assertions about polygamy being contradicted by actual human societies, though, I don't see any weakness in the arguments.

"Actual human societies" that are very different from 21st century America. You can't trot out some obscure sect on the other side of the world and assume everything will be exactly the same in, say, Cleveland.

Take two groups: group (a) consists of a man with four wives, while (b) consists of four men and four women. Both groups want to have as many children as possible in the next ten years. Which group will have more children in ten years?

Okay, we were talking past each other slightly; you were comparing an equal number of women in both cases. Nonetheless, there remains no physiological reason why fertility rates cannot be equal, especially if the express goal is now maximizing fertility.

Men are capable of producing an astonishing amount of sperm, and women are capable of counting their days. If the goal is to produce maximum fertility until menopause or erectile dysfunction arrives (or all parties involved simply drop dead from exertion), and the polygynous group agrees to a planned staggering of the successive impregnations at, e.g., one every 3-4 months, then there is no physiological reason why the polygynous crew cannot equal the four monogamous couples in terms of sustained fertility.

The resource argument seems a stronger case for why polygynous arrangements might choose to limit family size; in most cases where polygynous relationships have occurred (less advanced societies, certain segues of the Mormons, various cults) the men are the sole or primary breadwinners, and the additional wife/wives already represent additional consumption on top of whatever children eventually arrive.

Besides that, the fertility rate among monogamous couples in all societies seems to be correlated inversely to an increase in general wealth and women's rights more than anything else.

I find the idea of gay marriage to be a very curious place for debate.

The real issue passed with almost no debate and still goes unremarked on today: Gay people can and do form households of varying degrees of stability and engage in raising children. This is an innovation in the modern western world. It happened to a very small degree in some times and places but nothing like now.

Once that's happened and is legal then the question is not 'should gay marriage be legalized?' but 'how to ensure the legal rights of adult partners (and children) of gay households?' If you're against gay marriage, I want to hear your counter proposal.

As for polygamists or polyamorists, they need to do the work of setting up households so their existence is a fact and something has to be done to deal with it. They've mostly (except in the scattered wilds of Utah) not really done that AFAIK. And, human nature being what it is, I don't think they will (or be able to).

Also, legalizing same sex marriage is pretty simple legally. Laws regarding polygamy will be more difficult. But while one man might have two wives, in no culture that I know of are the two women considered married to each other, so what happens when he dies? How is a spouse added to a couple? etc etc etc

I would argue that there are 2 types of "marriage" and that the

1) "State subsidized Parental marriage" is to encourage a reasonable spreading out of parental responsibility
. where as the:

2) "Contractual interpertional marriage" is to codify a set of agreements.

======

It seems to make sense to say that 2 parents are significantly better than one that the state can subsidize that type of family and thus legalize
"1)" for that type of arrangement "For the sake of the Children" .. On the other hand, I don't see sufficient benefit for 3+ parent homes and thus let them specify 2 as being the state legalized marriage and have standard extra legal contracts "2)" to formalize hospital visits, inheritance, etc.

Beloney: So when did marriage become a "fundamental Right" ????

If I remember correctly, it was in the 1960s, Loving vs. Virginia (1967? 64?). Sorry -- don't remember the exact date of the decision.

Randy and Mike Liveright made the right call. The state should butt out of contractual relations between adults as long as there is no coercion or deception or fraud involved. If that results in polygamy or "gay marriage" or whatever, so be it. That means no benefits or special recognition for parties to such contractual relationships, gay or straight or other or monogamous or polygamous. Prudent parties to such contracts will be sure to include provisions for equitable dissolution. With parents, however, the state could do more. The best hope for future good citizens are children raised by two loving parents. The state should do all it can to enforce parental responsibilities and to support parents in their job of raising children because good citizens are in the state's interest. If parents want to divorce, the state should be allowed to intervene solely and specifically on behalf of the children, including making it very difficult for parents with children to divorce without exhausting other alternatives to preserve the family. Religious establishments, of course, should be free to make their own rules about "marriage", but the state has no business enforcing the church's rules, except to protect the state's interest in well-raised children.

Take two groups: group (a) consists of a man with four wives, while (b) consists of four men and four women. Both groups want to have as many children as possible in the next ten years. Which group will have more children in ten years?

This would be a sensible analysis if you were talking about mice or rabbits but not humans. Humans do not 'have as many kids as possible' like frogs dropping thousands of eggs. Since each child requires a massive investment in time and energy the question of how many kids humans have is not related really to how often they can have sex during fertile periods.

Even a couple that has a huge number of kids (say 11-15) will have a lot more sex than is necessary for simple reproduction.'

The "slippery slope" argument against permitting "life style" choices such as gay marriage et al comes to us from Scalia's dissent to Lawrence v. Texas where he warned that State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers' validation of laws based on moral choices.

I'm perplexed that conservatives toss out 'laws against masturbation' like that's a good thing. Does anyone seriously think the gov't should be able to put people in jail for masturbating?

Hunter -

It was 1967. One of the particularly effective arguments used by plaintiffs was that only black-white marriages were outlawed (as opposed to black-Indian, for instance), so that state's arguments for preserving different cultures, so to speak, were garbage.

Humans do not 'have as many kids as possible' like frogs dropping thousands of eggs

Some do.

Leonard's right, at least from an emotivist perspective. Polygamy is anti-male, not anti-female, since many women would trade up (voluntarily) for a better spouse and many men would be left without a mate. As one of those potentially maligned males (using social stability as the argument to prop up my selfish desires), I would prefer polygamy to remain illegal.

Of course if you believe the women who (voluntarily) join such polygamous households to be completely (objectively, universally) wrong in their value systems, you might have another perspective.

---I don't see group marriages working all that well. Human jealousy is a very, very powerful thing, and having been a member of one of those roving adolescent packs where romantic alliances are constantly forming and dissolving between members, I found it highly unstable.

But a couple decades ago, the notion of sex equalling gender was something seen as "very very powerful". The idea that you could dissolve the very strong archetypes of masculine and feminine was practically unheard of, and most people would have thought it was "so incredibly uncommon" as to be irrelevant.

Yet now we have a notion of gender that is cultural and separate from biological genetic sex, and society has impressively deconstructed the notions of feminine and masculine.

Basically, if we were willing to move past our notions of sex, why won't we be willing to move past our notions of jealousy? In some sense, isn't bisexuality already "mind over meat", so to speak--an intellectual exercise in forcing human innate sexual attraction to take a back seat to more high level versions of aesthetics and relationships?

Part of the goal of polyamory is to free oneself from feeling like a human animal, at the mercy of one's primitive self. It's partially an intellectual exercise in getting past the jealousy. Will everyone manage it? No, of course not. But we've made gender quite a continuum, and we might succeed in a generation or two in doing the same with monogamy and polyamory.

Same sex marriage and polygamy are legal in all states of the US because the US allows religious freedom. If you are gay you can find some Unitarian to marry you tomorrow. It's just not recognised by law. No tax advantaged joint income tax filing, no tax advantaged health insurance, no tax advantaged inheiritance, no tax advantaged social security.
Now as to whether Caesar should or should not render a tax advantage unto some forms of marriage over others, that's a different question. As a libertarian I feel, no, Caesar should not. You may feel differently.

wkwillis, in other words, there's no such thing as 'religious' marriage.

The state recognizes (and social goodies _and_ legal protections for partners and children come) only from civil marriages (though religious figures are allowed to perform civil marriages that meet state guidelines).

Again, a good argument for not (yet) recognizing polygamy legally is that a lot more legal details need to be worked out between reciprocal marriages (everybody is married to everybody) and non-reciprocal marriages (two people married to the same person, but not married to each other). There are also interesting legal tangles as to seniority (polygamous cultures I believe distinguish between senior and junior wives and, I believe, birth order of children.
So, Joe Sixpack has two wives, junior wife (of three years) has Joe's child while senior wife (of fifteen) doesn't (she was the de facto, but not legal, manager of Joe's flourishing business to which junior wife contributed nothing). Then, Joe gets run over by a bus. Junior wife wants more than 50 % of the estate because she has Joe's child and senior wife wants more because she built up the assets in the first place. Ajudicate!

“How does the fact that two gay men want to marry each other in any way affect my marriage to my wife? What exactly is there to "withstand" from their marriage? How will my marriage have been "gutted" because someone else gets married?”

It does affects your marriage with your wife because it changes the meaning of marriage. Marriage will be no longer what it is use to be . If “marriage” between two gays is a marriage, then anything is a marriage. Accordingly, no such thing as a marriage will exist anymore.
If gay marriage is OK it means that polygamy is logically legit and on top of that any kind of incest cannot be forbidden as well. If “two gay men want to marry” it is not about kids anymore obviously. In this case why father cannot marry own daughter and brother own sister? ( as long as daughter are 18 of course)
The meaning of family will be gone forever. I do not understand why gay people want to destroy exciting system of family instead of creating new alternative system. I have no problem with some kind of legal unions for gays but why you want to call it by the name “marriage” when it has nothing to do with marriage? Who marries whom after all???
When was breakthrough in civil rights and blacks got equal rights with whites it was a great thing, no doubts. But following your logic it would-be not enough . Following your logic black people not only have to have same rights as white but they have to be called “whites” . Same thing with gay partnership guys live together? It is nobody’s businesses and it is legal and if it has to be legalized further, name it some how, make up a term. But naming it by the existing name that means something to many people and by this destroying the meaning covered by this name just to please somebody, why we should do it?

You can oppose polygamy while supporting gay marriage - but logically this entails only using arguments that do not also justify polygamy. This removes the most compelling arguments for gay marriage - such equal rights, consenting adults, and privacy. In practice most homosexual marriage advocates trump these arguments for gay marriage, then conventiently and temporarily withdraw them when polygamy is on the table.

There are many compelling arguments against gay marriage. Unless our society has now suceeded in completely divorcing marriage from procreation, we need to realize that as soon as you introduce non-biological parents into the family, statistically higher rates of abuse, dropping out of school, crime etc... all result. This is true for single motherhood, it is true for stepfamilies and it is true for relationships with livein boyfriends. It seems amazing to argue that homosexual parents will suceed where stepfamilies and single mothers have failed.

"we need to realize that as soon as you introduce non-biological parents into the family, statistically higher rates of abuse, dropping out of school, crime etc... all result."

Guess it's time to outlaw widowed or divorced parents with small children from remarrying. And better get rid of adoption, too.

Is that what you're saying?

Part of the goal of polyamory is to free oneself from feeling like a human animal, at the mercy of one's primitive self. It's partially an intellectual exercise in getting past the jealousy. Will everyone manage it? No, of course not. But we've made gender quite a continuum, and we might succeed in a generation or two in doing the same with monogamy and polyamory.

Perhaps you're right. So then present your proposal for people to 'overcome humane nature'. In the meantime homosexuality has nothing to do with 'dissolving gender'. Last time I checked a gay man was still a man and if you presented him with a woman he certainly would know the difference. As for people who do not match their gender roles (which isn't the same as being gay), the world has always known that some men are more effeminate than others and some women are more masculine than others. Hardly something that was unheard of until Phil Donohue clued us all in during the early 70's.

Now as to whether Caesar should or should not render a tax advantage unto some forms of marriage over others, that's a different question. As a libertarian I feel, no, Caesar should not. You may feel differently.

There's a huge amount of law developed for commercial transaction. The UCC plus thousands of cases, decisions and so on. There's not much for communist communes. Does this mean that American's are not free to try forming communist communes if they wish? No they can but it isn't wrong that there is little law developed for such things. If lots of people started trying it no doubt laws would develop. Likewise why should there not be fleshed out law for the 95% who go for two person marriage?

Again, a good argument for not (yet) recognizing polygamy legally is that a lot more legal details need to be worked out between reciprocal marriages (everybody is married to everybody) and non-reciprocal marriages (two people married to the same person, but not married to each other). There are also interesting legal tangles as to seniority (polygamous cultures I believe distinguish between senior and junior wives and, I believe, birth order of children.

Indeed. In traditional polygamy marriage was between a man and a woman. If a man died his wives were not married to each other, they were all widows free to marry another man. How would this work now? Would the woman be married to each other? What if one person leaves a 3+ marriage by divorce? Would the remaining people be married or would it be like business partnership...dissolved upon the death or departure of a single partner requiring a new agreement if those left behind want to continue the relationship?

Unlike gay marriage (which would work just like straight marriage) there is no model for polygamy. It's really an argument over which flavor of polygamy and the flavors contradict one another. The slippery slope argument fails because after gay marriage there's a huge fork in the slope before you get to polygamy and if you're running on autopilot there's no automatic call.

It does affects your marriage with your wife because it changes the meaning of marriage. Marriage will be no longer what it is use to be . If “marriage” between two gays is a marriage, then anything is a marriage. Accordingly, no such thing as a marriage will exist anymore.

Why would 'anything' be marriage? And what is really changing between you and your wife? You're just saying things would change but come on, you know they won't. If you and your wife were flying thru Europe would you suddenly stop loving her as you cross the Finnish border? "Sorry honey, marriage was defined to meaninglessness when we crossed into Finish airspace, I'm going to go bang the flight attendentant!'

It seems to me that using places like Hildale/Colorado City as arguments against polygamy is not a terribly valid argument. These places are very, very isolated and utterly dominated by a cult-like religion. If polygamy was practiced in the larger society, it would be much harder to get away with the abuses seen in the Arizona Strip.

Polygymous raltionships, in any of thier forms, are not necessarily exploitive. Given that, how can a liberterian support thier illegality?

If your argument is that they are 'bad for society' then the burden of proof is certanly on you to make a very strong arguement. Because you are, after all, asking poeple to give up thier individual liberty because maybe, at some point, if too many poeple act according to thier wishes in this regard, then society made experience some ill consequences.

Though I'd think the sheer number of societies that have existed perfectly fine puts the lie to the above objection right off the bat.

Boonton, I suspect al rim is operating under a radically different definition of marriage than you or I are.

"Unlike gay marriage (which would work just like straight marriage) there is no model for polygamy."

I'd say there are too many models. Even for polygyny alone, there are too many models, and, more importantly, , no real lobby calling for legal support at present (AFAIK).

Personally, I have no theoretically opposition to polygamy, just situational ones. These include the likely use to try to outwit immigration laws, gender imbalance (if widely practiced), inequality (if it only takes the form of polygyny) and legal nightmares (which should make family law attorneys all rub their devillish little hands in glee).

Indeed, I think the analogy with communist communes is apt. Polygamy shouldn't be illegal but there is no reason society should invent a system of rules for people who may want to practice it out of thin air.

I understand that in Utah polygamy is actually illegal...a man living with multiple wives can be charged with a crime even if everyone is there willingly and he didn't do anything like using false names to obtain multiple marriage licenses.

There I would agree with the libertarian. Such a person should be left alone but I don't see an argument that we have to come up with a brand new divorce system for him and his novel family.

What is blindingly obvious is that gay marriage is objectively a minor difference when compared to polygmous marriage. It is essentially no different than marriage is now while polygamy requires us to come up with something new and different.

It seems to me that using places like Hildale/Colorado City as arguments against polygamy is not a terribly valid argument. These places are very, very isolated and utterly dominated by a cult-like religion. If polygamy was practiced in the larger society, it would be much harder to get away with the abuses seen in the Arizona Strip.

This is putting the cart before the hoarse. Mathematically it seems that polygamy creates a gender imbalance by leaving some men without marriage options. It's only a hope that this might be perfectly balanced out by an equal number of women willing take multiple husbands in equal numbers. Is Hildale made up of nice polygamists dominated by an isolated cult religion or is polygamy only workable when you have an isolated culture dominated by a cult-like religion?

Anyway my pet theory is that gender balance is why homosexuality developed as an evolutionary trait. Having a small portion of the population being gay might just take a little bit of the head off of the competition for mates. Even though it sounds counter-intuitive a bit of homosexuality probably increases a communities reproductive efficiency. A bit like a recipe might call for using a bit of salt in a cake even though you'd want a cake to taste sweet, not salty.

How about descriptive terms, such as:
vagina dialogues; and, selective sodomies, or bilateral buggerings?

Ed, how very kind (and respectful!) of you.

You're welcome, I'm sure. Just trying to help those not satisfied with "civil unions" as a descriptive term.

Is Hildale made up of nice polygamists dominated by an isolated cult religion or is polygamy only workable when you have an isolated culture dominated by a cult-like religion?

Hildale is made up of people who are polygamists because they belong to a cult-like religion. That polygamy is workable in the absence of a cult-like religion is obvious, given human history.

As for the issue of there not being "enough women to go around", that would only happen if polygamy became widely-practiced, which it wouldn't. The human race as a whole has a surplus of women at the moment, so a number of men could take multiple wives without leaving any man devoid of options.

The question isn't whether its possible to have polygamy but whether or not it is desirable. Yes the problem of 'surplus males' can be solved by numerous means but are they means that are compatible with our other values such as equality and fairness?

In the end people are generally free to adopt polygamy if they want. The reason they don't is not that polygamy is illegal it is that for most people, straight or gay, it is unworkable

Gay marriage is on the continuum of Messianism which supported 'Workers of the world unite!' I recall in a class on Marxism the lecturer thought it trenchant that in interviewing some French men about some epsiode of worker uprising, the men seemed to recall most hugging each other in the streets. We have also 'the dream of racial equality,' the 'liberation' of women. The only leftist support of polygamy is impled in the support of Muslim 'diversity.' There is apparently no leftist support of Mormonism or polygamy per se. So if you're not afraid of the 'oppressed minority' being overly destructive of current standards otherwise, then no problem.

Jane said:

"matthew: I wasn't saying your marriage would be gutted by gay marriagee -- but I can't see how it would be gutted because your neighbour has two wives, either."

Yes of course, Jane, that's true -- because I already have a mate! (Duh.)

It's not me that's the problem. It's the guy who doesn't get a chance to have mate, because my neighbor has two.

I will say it again: this should be so obvious that's it's stupid for us to even be debating it.

I recommend reading the chapters about marriage in Robert Wright's book "The Moral Animal."

See also:

Sex and Death, by Sterelny and Griffiths
Philosophy of Biology, by Elliot Sober
Marriage, A History, by Stephane Coontz
Mother Nature, by Sarah Hrdy
anything by Helen Fisher
...lots and lots and lots of others

Regards,
Matt

Pardon me, Matthew, but I think that your argument only works if you assume that marriage is a reproductive union between a man and a woman. Gay polygamous marriages have no such restraints.

only leftist support of polygamy is impled in the support of Muslim 'diversity.' There is apparently no leftist support of Mormonism or polygamy per se. So if you're not afraid of the 'oppressed minority' being overly destructive of current standards otherwise, then no problem.

Really? Where is this leftist support of Muslim polygamy? Can you show me one serious group advocating polygamy laws that apply to Muslims but not Mormons? In fact, can you show me a country like France, Germany, even the Dutch that have polygamy laws on their books? These countries have leftist political groups that have much more influence than leftists in the US.

Pardon me, Matthew, but I think that your argument only works if you assume that marriage is a reproductive union between a man and a woman. Gay polygamous marriages have no such restraints.

Clearly we don't think of marriage as a reproductive union. When we hear about two old people who meet in a nursing home and get married we are usually happy they found each other. We don't think 'great, they will have kids'. In fact, if we were told they were seeing a fertility doctor to try to get pregnant our reaction would not be joy that they were honoring the reproductive aspect of marriage. Our reaction would likely be horror.

The primary purpose of marriage is to provide stability for individuals. A two person union does a decent job of providing such stability by reducing risk. If one person is sick or ill chances are the other person will be able to help them. True a 3 or more person arrangement reduces risk more (chances of 3 people falling on hard times at once are smaller than two people) but as an economist Jane should know that all benefits have to be weighed by their cost. Moving beyond a two person relationship increases the complexity of the relationship expodentially thereby creating all types of costs in the form of greed, politics, envy and so on. Most of the time these costs will outweigh the benefits of marginally more stability.

Just how much of a social threat are young unmarried men?

Because we've already got loads of them. The male population of college campuses, for instance, is almost exclusively made up of bachelors.

Of course most of these men still get laid occasionally. And they're not in a situation where they stand a good chance of never finding a wife.

"in practice it usually takes the form of polygyny--possibly for the Darwinian reason that a woman can't significantly raise her childbearing (or rearing) capacity by taking on extra husbands, but a man can significantly increase his progeny by having multiple wives. "

Of course she can. More breadwinners means a bigger house, more consumables, more school tuitions, and so on. That impacts the number of children she can rear.

In fact, assuming we don't do something stupid like allow polygymous families extra welfare benefits, the maximum size of the multiple-wife family is limited by the earning power of the single breadwinner, while the maximum size of the multiple-husband family is limited only by the woman's ability to bear children, which limit is usually not even approached by women today.

--One man and five women can't afford as many children as five men and five women can.--

The man won't pay, the state will.

Just how much of a social threat are young unmarried men?

Because we've already got loads of them. The male population of college campuses, for instance, is almost exclusively made up of bachelors.

It's young unmarriable men. In China, due to population control and selective abortion, there are more men than women. The result has been increased crime...especially among lower income men who are the most likely to get left out of the marriage market game. Another issue that comes up in polygamous societies is child brides. One way to address the female shortage is to lower the age that women marry. So there is pressure on women to marry younger and younger.

The problems are not fatal and can be tolerated but they are problems nevertheless. It's unclear what the benefits are that would counter those problems.

"One way to address the female shortage is to lower the age that women marry. So there is pressure on women to marry younger and younger."

If it comes with pressure on parents to raise and educate their children faster, this could end up being a good thing.

We've already got young men whom no sane woman would marry - men who can't hold a job and can't be trusted to babysit, men who try to slap some woman around every time things don't go their way, men in prison, men who ought to be in prison... In the almost-all-white, rural, mostly middle-class area where I live, such men are probably 5 to 10% of the male population. In certain urban neighborhoods, they appear to make up more than 50% of the males. So what do the leftover women do?

1. Marry these wastes of oxygen anyhow - and then the women and their children suffer the consequences.

2 Don't marry the wastes of oxygen (or divorce them), but sleep with them, have their children, get the welfare department to pay. This is as unadvisable as it sounds, but there are large urban areas where it's what most women do.

3. Serial polygyny: Catch the attention of an older married man, persuade him to dump his wife, enjoy life until a woman younger than you repeats the process...

4. Informal polygyny: Become the mistress of an older, successful, married man. This seems to work out much better for the French than for Americans - but in any case, the problem is that the mistress has no security and no claim on her man's income. Or perhaps modern child support laws have changed that?

5. Die as a 90-year old virgin.

6. Go to Hillsdale and become the 4th wife of a Mormon fundamentalist - but you'll still live on welfare...

... and speaking of sex ratios in China:

A Dangerous Surplus of Sons?

Two political scientists warn that Asia's lopsided sex ratios threaten world peace

http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i34/34a01401.htm

Has anyone noticed that in spite of nearly universal condemnation of the practice by mainstream Christianity, the Bible does not actually ban polygamy?

Oh, it holds up a monogamous man as a requirement for certain offices, but it does not specifically prohibit multiple wives. Murder? Banned outright. Adultery? Clearly banned. Theft, lying, idolatry, drunkeness, and, yes, homosexuality, are all prohibited as clearly as the original languages will permit.

But polygamy is spoken of by Christians is if it were banned as plainly as infant sacrifices.

But it isn't.

Sorry for the double post, but:

Polygyny is the idea that a man with only one penis needs more than one wife.

But polygamy is spoken of by Christians is if it were banned as plainly as infant sacrifices.

But it isn't.

The teaching of the New Testament is no longer the Old Testament law, but grace and love which give moral power exceeding mere edicts. (Whether every Christian is always found walking in the practical good of that is, unfortunately, an open question.) The book of Romans goes on extensively about how there was nothing wrong in the Law...but mankind couldn't keep it, even when the worst possible penalties were at stake.

So far as I can recall, the New Testament never explicitly bans infant sacrifices in a legal sense either, but you would have to ignore large portions of it in order to start the practice while claiming that the Bible doesn't delineate in such things. Likewise for any marital union outside of one man and one woman who remain exclusively faithful to each other.

One possibility for confusion is that polygyny was tolerated in the Old Testament, because the system of land allocation was based on family inheritance. (A man was also required under the Law to impregnate his sister-in-law if her husband died without leaving a male heir, for the same reason.) It was not otherwise a command, though, God's original intention revealed to be one man and one woman forming from the two, a union of one (Genesis 2:24, which Jesus requotes in Matthew 19 when dealing with the Pharisees' questions of divorce statute).

We're getting into something a little deeper and a little less comfortable here – libertarians versus culture. A cultural conservative could make the argument that since this particular culture does not countenance polygamy or gay marriage, the state which arose from this culture has no business promoting either one by conferring advantageous tax status and inheritance rights. The state proceeds from the society, or more properly from the people, and is illegitimate when it is in opposition to the people.

A libertarian might argue that the state, as a mere convenience and agent of the constituent individuals, can have no preferences at all. That it already has expressed preferences and acted upon them is an anomaly to be corrected. Therefore it is wrong to favor or discourage marriage of any kind – heterosexual, homosexual, polygamous, monogamous, or whatever the imagination can devise. Marriage is whatever the people say it is. The argument from this direction would be toward abolition of state recognition of marriage in any form. If marriage is no more than an arrangement between or among individuals, then the state has no part in it.

At yet another level, when is it proper to use the state as an agency to change the people? I would argue that it is never proper to use the state and its monopoly of coercion as a means to change the people that brought it into being. "...Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Why would the people authorize a government to impose upon them what they were unwilling to do to themselves?

Have fun with this one. Neither of these arguments work very well, and there are plenty out there that do not work at all.

" 'So there is pressure on women to marry younger and younger.'

If it comes with pressure on parents to raise and educate their children faster, this could end up being a good thing."

Except, you know, it never does. Usually pressure to marry young is accompanied by pressure not to educate females very much (beyond household duties and raising children).

"The argument from this direction would be toward abolition of state recognition of marriage in any form. If marriage is no more than an arrangement between or among individuals, then the state has no part in it."

Interesting idea. Essentially making marriage a private institution with no legal standing beyond whatever the participants can afford in terms of lawyers. Is this what libertarians want? Or is a return to planet earth in order?

Michael: Business partnerships are "a private institution with no legal standing beyond whatever the participants can afford in terms of lawyers", and they seem to be far less likely to wind up fighting it out in court than married couples. They draw up a contract, often using standard forms, and if things don't work out they sit down and renegotiate or agree on how to split it up. If they can't come to an agreement, then they need lawyers - but it's pretty rare for the lawyers to think they'll have better luck before a judge than by working things out themselves, and they aren't required to bring it before a judge, who might decide to tear up their agreement and decree something different.

If you think a business partnership is simpler than a marriage, you haven't seen the bookkeeping end of a small business. OTOH, I expect most businessmen would be able to handle splitting up a partnership without the emotional storms that come with marital problems.

I'm not sure about what is more likely. Most divorces do not end up in court just as the break up of most business partnerships do not end up in court. However since huge amounts of money might be at stake I can imagine the cases that do end up in court probably end up as nasty as any divorce that ends up in court.

In both cases there is a good libertarian justification for having marriage laws and business partnership laws. Since people freely engage in such 'transactions' so often it is a win-win for everyone to have 'simple' defaults in place so people don't have to reinvent the wheel every time.

As I pointed out before, this is not discrimination against those with offbeat ideas for institutions (whether that be polygamy or multi-marriage on the marriage side or communist communes on the business side).

Boonton: All divorces end up in court - the divorce decree must be signed by a judge. Often all he does is approve the agreement the parties worked out between themselves, but even that brief appearance will run up $ hundreds in legal fees. However, the judge doesn't have to approve the agreement, he can re-write it or in effect force a court fight. I've also seen a case where a typo by the judge's clerk in copying the agreement into the decree moved a car from "hers" to "his", and a case where a judge in Michigan changed a decree issued in Texas 12 years earlier.

And I'm not a lawyer and have never personally been involved in any divorce proceedings (one marriage, 28 years and counting). I just seem to look like a sympathetic listener, and people tend to tell me about things like this, and even wave the f'd up paperwork in my face.

I'm not sure about that markm. I believe some states have easier divorce where you can do the whole thing for less than $500 and IF an appearence before a judge is required it is little more than a formality. I could be wrong though.

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