Defense for Canadian Polygamists Cites Gay Marriage

[Duckie]

You have a faulty assumption. That faulty assumption is that polygyny and polyandry will occur at the same rate. It wont. The way a female's biology works out, she is far more willing to share a male than a male is to share a female with another male. Why? Women dont have to worry about cuckoldry. Men have psychological mechanisms in place to prevent other males from laying their proverbial egg in their proverbial nest. Polyandry is most assuredly not one of them.

Culture only manages fine detail and application when it comes to sex. Biology is the determining factor here. There is a reason polyandry has reared its head less than a half dozen times (IIRC) in human societies. The conditions under which it can work are very very rare, essentially the risk from infighting among males has to outweigh the fitness loss from cuckoldry. That does not happen often.

I guess I'll have to take your word on it, as I don't know nor do I care to know the slightest bit on how straight mens' minds work (assuming such a thing exists [OBLIGATORY JOKE]).

That said, the very fact that polyandrous societies exist is proof that evolutionary fitness is not an override to a desired relationship status. If that were true, complete homosexuality wouldn't exist. For one, you are talking of obligate polyandry, while I am talking of potential polyandry or polygamy. The two types of culture are completely different- one of them, to survive or prosper you need multiple spouses. This culture, it's merely an issue of "people who want to marry other people should be allowed to".

In this one, men who want more than one wife would have more than one wife. They wouldn't be mandated to. I doubt very many would, especially if sex and marriage stop being associated. Women who want more than one husband would have more than one husband. I doubt very many would, especially if marriage stops being a means to gain children.

How common is group marriage? It's got to be vanishingly small among western culture (because there's no need for it, so it's only if by some strange chance three people end up loving eachother). The chances of finding someone whom you want to spend your life with squared, worse since a double coincidence of wants must arise in all of the people (or even a triple coincidence of wants, for Δ formations).

That said, "It'll cause societal ill" doesn't strike me as the best argument against something that'll happen anyhow just with absolutely 0 regulation and documentation. Especially not if it's on the order of a thousand single men caused by this.

[ray245]

You have a faulty assumption. That faulty assumption is that polygyny and polyandry will occur at the same rate. It wont. The way a female's biology works out, she is far more willing to share a male than a male is to share a female with another male. Why? Women dont have to worry about cuckoldry. Men have psychological mechanisms in place to prevent other males from laying their proverbial egg in their proverbial nest. Polyandry is most assuredly not one of them.

Culture only manages fine detail and application when it comes to sex. Biology is the determining factor here. There is a reason polyandry has reared its head less than a half dozen times (IIRC) in human societies. The conditions under which it can work are very very rare, essentially the risk from infighting among males has to outweigh the fitness loss from cuckoldry. That does not happen often.

I guess I'll have to take your word on it, as I don't know nor do I care to know the slightest bit on how straight mens' minds work (assuming such a thing exists [OBLIGATORY JOKE]).

That said, "It'll cause societal ill" doesn't strike me as the best argument against something that'll happen anyhow just with absolutely 0 regulation and documentation.

Or you can make a stupid argument, saying it takes too much effort to begin with, and modern society as a whole would not mind if Polygamy is banned. That there is no social outcry on a huge extend, whereby denying a choice is a bad thing.

[Darth Wong]

Polgamous marriages are incompatible with the standard marriage contract in Canada for the simple reason that some of its provisions (like automatic inheritance) don't work with multiple partners. It's all well and good to say that in the absence of a specific will to the contrary, the spouse gets all your money. But if there are multiple spouses, you have to alter the terms of the contract because the current terms don't work that way. Same goes for things like deciding whether to take the spouse off life support. Works fine if there's just one spouse, but if there are two spouses and they don't agree? What then?

Similarly, employer benefits contracts were all negotiated under an assumption of a single spouse, not an unlimited number of spouses. Same goes for tax codes. You can't just add multiple spouses to the existing marriage contract without rewriting a fuckton of laws and contracts. It is totally unlike gay marriage in that respect.

[Samuel]

Polgamous marriages are incompatible with the standard marriage contract in Canada for the simple reason that some of its provisions (like automatic inheritance) don't work with multiple partners. It's all well and good to say that in the absence of a specific will to the contrary, the spouse gets all your money. But if there are multiple spouses, you have to alter the terms of the contract because the current terms don't work that way. Same goes for things like deciding whether to take the spouse off life support. Works fine if there's just one spouse, but if there are two spouses and they don't agree? What then?

Similarly, employer benefits contracts were all negotiated under an assumption of a single spouse, not an unlimited number of spouses. Same goes for tax codes. You can't just add multiple spouses to the existing marriage contract without rewriting a fuckton of laws and contracts. It is totally unlike gay marriage in that respect.

So essentially, it will only be available... to lawyers? I can imagine it being legal but really rare for that reason- the Moon is a Harsh Mistress really highlights that. You can divorce in about 10 seconds, but actual separation can take years to sort everything out. It isn't going to be common enough to affect the pool of potential mates. Personally, I think it would mostly pop up among seniors due to the heavily skewed sex ratio.

[Darth Wong]

So essentially, it will only be available... to lawyers?

No. Many of the contracts which would have to be rewritten are outside the scope of the individual marriage in question: a point which I assume the prosecution lawyers will bring up in this case. That's why it's wildly impractical to legalize polygamous marriage. Why can't these people simply cohabit?

This slippery-slope fallacy being cited by the defense lawyers is a joke. Gay marriage was legalized because discrimination on the basis of gender is illegal in Canada. Discrimination on the basis of numbers of people is not illegal in Canada, hence the same logic does not apply at all.

[Rye]

Fact: Legalizing polygamy means legalizing polyandry unless something stupid is going on

Yep.

Postulate: About as many men want to marry women as women want to marry men.

Well, as an aside, there are actually more male homosexuals (and male to female transsexuals for that matter) than the converse, but they're a tiny fraction of the overall population, so yeah, there's about as many.

Postulate: As many men will marry as many women polyandrously as the reverse polygamously, unless culture outright encourages one or bans the other.
Conclusion if postulates are correct: There will be almost 0 net change in available singles.

Not really; as you said, unless culture outright encourages one or bans the other. Culture in the USA is strongly patriarchal and conservative christian, it is incredibly unlikely that polygamy/andry being legalised would result in an equal distribution of spouses across gender lines.

Refute one of the postulates for me, because it seems there's a huge wall of stupid going on with people considering polygamous societies in which only men choose whom they marry rather than a western society where, shock of shocks, women can marry men too.

I'm certainly not assuming that the rights for multiple men to marry one woman wouldn't exist, just that it would be less popular than the polygamous situation due to cultural (and possibly biological) norms of aggressiveness and jealousy when competing for a mate's attention. While I'd expect a few male individuals can deal with that, I don't see any reason to think modern Americans could.

The fact that patrifocal polygamous tribal societies have a surplus of men worn down by disease and war does not mandate any society which has polyandry and polygamy in it to do so either, for the simple reason that there will be an equal number of polyandrous women unless you can demonstrate that there won't be.

This society is patrifocal. I mean seriously, how many people have you heard getting convicted of bigamy that are female?

[Illuminatus Primus]

Argument retracted.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I guess I'll have to take your word on it, as I don't know nor do I care to know the slightest bit on how straight mens' minds work (assuming such a thing exists [OBLIGATORY JOKE]).

Heh. It helps having a good background in behavioral biology.

That said, the very fact that polyandrous societies exist is proof that evolutionary fitness is not an override to a desired relationship status. If that were true, complete homosexuality wouldn't exist.

You dont seem to understand. In the few polyandrous societies that have existed, one female typically marries siblings (in most cases I am aware of) and the sex ratio is already so male biased that the polyandry is the only way the society can work at all. This happens in cultures with selective culling of females more often than not.

In cases like that, polyandry is the best way to maximize fitness, and problems with cuckoldry are mediated by the other male partner being a close relative.

Homosexuality is something completely different. It is the result of one of (or a combination) several possible causes. Genetic byproduct of a necessary quantitative trait locus (essentially, if you want brain development to work, a certain percent end up gay or trans thanks to the way genes recombine with sexual reproduction. This is fixed and selection has a hard time getting rid of it), Epigenetic maternal effects (fraternal birth order effects), Epigenetic parental effects as the result of Sexually Antagonistic Zygotic Drive (theoretical concept that has the potential to explain a LOT, including homosexuality)

Yeah... not to digress, but completely different is the point.

For one, you are talking of obligate polyandry, while I am talking of potential polyandry or polygamy. The two types of culture are completely different- one of them, to survive or prosper you need multiple spouses. This culture, it's merely an issue of "people who want to marry other people should be allowed to".

It does not matter whether it is obligate or facultative/ optional. Even if a very small portion of the population engaged in polygamy (and it will probably be nearly exclusively polygyny) it can still drastically alter the operational sex ratio.

In this one, men who want more than one wife would have more than one wife. They wouldn't be mandated to. I doubt very many would, especially if sex and marriage stop being associated. Women who want more than one husband would have more than one husband. I doubt very many would, especially if marriage stops being a means to gain children.

Except that they would not be in equal proportions.

Look, a male WANTS more than one exclusive mate (read: exclusive to him) almost every male does. It does not matter what culture he is in. The saving grace is that unless there is differential power between males such that one group can enforce their will on others, the society will not stand for it. Why? Because of social problems caused by it reducing their competitive ability (classic case of multilevel selection). Cultural evolution can and historically has strongly discouraged this in more egalitarian societies. Instead males try to have their cake and eat it too by having multiple mates, usually one exclusive and then one or a few on the side (read: they cheat)

If polygamy is allowed, those with more wealth will be able to attract and support multiple females. Females accept this because it is in their best interests to divide the attention and parental investment of one extremely wealthy male between them, than for them to try their luck with a lower status/wealth male.

(there is a reason Hugh Hefner has a harem. It is not because he is good looking. It is because he is wealthy and of high social status)

If only the Top 10% of males (in terms of income) engaged in polygamy here is how the sex ratio would be biased.

Top 1%-5 wives
Next 2%-4 wives
Next 3%-3 wives
Next 4%-2 wives

We will assume a male population size of 100, and a female population size of 100 for a 1:1 actual sex ratio.

10 people have 30 wives. Which leaves 70 wives for 90 people. This leaves 20% of the male population un-mated or having to rely on cuckoldry or rape to spread their genes. In order to obtain access to females and avoid being in that lowest 20% of the male population males will be forced to increase their social status. To do this will require taking additional risks over and above what they will normally. With each subsequent generation, because (if we assume a stable population size for the sake of simplicity, it does not affect the conceptual basis for the model) the lowest performing of these males gets near zero fitness. This sets up a run-away selection model, selecting for males who engage in more and more risk (eventually more crime to obtain wealthy or display desirable masculine traits), or who engage in more and more rape and cuckoldry in order to increase their fitness.

This is why western societies do not allow polygyny. The real reason anyway. It causes problems like this, that need to be compensated for, and the only ways to do this are extremely costly.

How common is group marriage? It's got to be vanishingly small among western culture (because there's no need for it, so it's only if by some strange chance three people end up loving eachother). The chances of finding someone whom you want to spend your life with squared, worse since a double coincidence of wants must arise in all of the people (or even a triple coincidence of wants, for Δ formations).

See above.

That said, "It'll cause societal ill" doesn't strike me as the best argument against something that'll happen anyhow just with absolutely 0 regulation and documentation. Especially not if it's on the order of a thousand single men caused by this.

Without marriage, the situation is fluid. People can move from one polyamorous relationship to another, drop out of them etc. Marriages are more binding.

[Broomstick]

That said, the very fact that polyandrous societies exist is proof that evolutionary fitness is not an override to a desired relationship status. If that were true, complete homosexuality wouldn't exist.

You dont seem to understand. In the few polyandrous societies that have existed, one female typically marries siblings (in most cases I am aware of) and the sex ratio is already so male biased that the polyandry is the only way the society can work at all. This happens in cultures with selective culling of females more often than not.

I believe there was an arctic group that practiced polyandry where the two husbands were not necessarily related. However, straying outside that marriage was not permitted by the women, so while a male might wind up raising another man's children exclusively it wasn't too likely, the other male in the marriage ran the same risk, and at least he wouldn't be cuckholded by multiple other males. Given that it was a fairly small tribe they were all probably pretty closely related. (If I recall the men traded off living with the woman - 6-8 weeks at home for one while the other hunted, the switch, so the woman was effectively guarded all the time). They did, I might point out, kill many girl children at birth in order to maintain this artificial sex ratio. In that society women were probably even more baby machines than in polygamous societies.

[Alyrium Denryle]

That said, the very fact that polyandrous societies exist is proof that evolutionary fitness is not an override to a desired relationship status. If that were true, complete homosexuality wouldn't exist.

You dont seem to understand. In the few polyandrous societies that have existed, one female typically marries siblings (in most cases I am aware of) and the sex ratio is already so male biased that the polyandry is the only way the society can work at all. This happens in cultures with selective culling of females more often than not.

I believe there was an arctic group that practiced polyandry where the two husbands were not necessarily related. However, straying outside that marriage was not permitted by the women, so while a male might wind up raising another man's children exclusively it wasn't too likely, the other male in the marriage ran the same risk, and at least he wouldn't be cuckholded by multiple other males. Given that it was a fairly small tribe they were all probably pretty closely related. (If I recall the men traded off living with the woman - 6-8 weeks at home for one while the other hunted, the switch, so the woman was effectively guarded all the time). They did, I might point out, kill many girl children at birth in order to maintain this artificial sex ratio. In that society women were probably even more baby machines than in polygamous societies.

That is one example. They do that because males are capable of performing more work for the tribe. Bring in more resources from hunting etc than females are. Both due to higher upper body strength, and because of pregnancy time... In the end the males probably dont actually lose fitness in this arrangement as compared to a nearby monogamous tribe, but they CAN outproduce them because they are not taking care of as many pregnant females...

Mmm multilevel selection. Selfish individuals-group level adaptation.

[madd0ct0r]

Look, a male WANTS more than one exclusive mate (read: exclusive to him) almost every male does. It does not matter what culture he is in. The saving grace is that unless there is differential power between males such that one group can enforce their will on others, the society will not stand for it. Why? Because of social problems caused by it reducing their competitive ability (classic case of multilevel selection). Cultural evolution can and historically has strongly discouraged this in more egalitarian societies. Instead males try to have their cake and eat it too by having multiple mates, usually one exclusive and then one or a few on the side (read: they cheat)

If polygamy is allowed, those with more wealth will be able to attract and support multiple females. Females accept this because it is in their best interests to divide the attention and parental investment of one extremely wealthy male between them, than for them to try their luck with a lower status/wealth male.

It's this assumption I'm having difficulty believing.
Granted, selfish selection would indicate that 'spreading your seed' would result in a bias towards cheats but there are two things which weaken this assumption.

1: the benfits to a man of spreading his seed outweighs his benefit of raising and supporting his children directly. this is old ground and there's people here far better qualified to cover it.

2. You assume there is no other genetic factor (similar to the homosexuality producing one, except this time urging monogamy) at large in the population. Seeing as this one has only a weak genetic cost and a large social benefit it would have had far less bias against it then the genetic factors promoting homosexuality.
Homosexuality has never gone away, why should the monogamy trait?

[Broomstick]

It's too simplistic to say "men are biologically driven to be promiscuous" because there is ample evidence that even when promiscuity is either permitted or even encouraged there are STILL monogamous men, and even promiscuous men can have monogamous periods in their life or turn down mating opportunities.

Raising human offspring is time-consuming and difficult. We have ample evidence that two parents are better than one for accomplishing this task (although yes, single parents can do the job it really is harder and riskier for the children). Therefore, there really is a benefit for human males to invest in child-rearing. By concentrating on just one woman and her children he greatly improves the chances of those children surviving to adulthood and reproducing themselves.

Thus, we see both strategies in human society - promiscuous males, and monogamous males. It's no different than parents limiting the number of their offspring, increasing the portion of their resources they can give to each child vs. producing the maximum number of children physically possible and just hoping a few can survive. Human behavior is flexible, that's why we see a spectrum of possibilities in any society and not everyone marching in lockstep.

Legalize plural marriage and you won't see a sudden flood of men acquiring harems. Given the sex ratio and the fact women have their own options (including remaining unmarried) and so would not be coerced into such arrangements (at least, no more so than coerced into monogamous marriage) plural marriages would remain a distinct minority.

[Broomstick]

Polgamous marriages are incompatible with the standard marriage contract in Canada for the simple reason that some of its provisions (like automatic inheritance) don't work with multiple partners. It's all well and good to say that in the absence of a specific will to the contrary, the spouse gets all your money. But if there are multiple spouses, you have to alter the terms of the contract because the current terms don't work that way.

But that can be changed.

In the US, some states assume that, in absence of a will, if a married person dies the spouse inherits all. In others, the estate is divided between the spouse and the children. (A will, of course, trumps such default solutions). If, until now, the rule was "spouse inherits all" then divide the estate between surviving spouses. If the rule was "divide among immediate family" then spouses and children are considered together.

Same goes for things like deciding whether to take the spouse off life support. Works fine if there's just one spouse, but if there are two spouses and they don't agree? What then?

That could get messy. But what if two parents disagree on life support for a child? It's essentially the same problem, how would that be handled now?

Similarly, employer benefits contracts were all negotiated under an assumption of a single spouse, not an unlimited number of spouses.

Same goes for tax codes. You can't just add multiple spouses to the existing marriage contract without rewriting a fuckton of laws and contracts. It is totally unlike gay marriage in that respect.

These two items are really where things get complicated.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Granted, selfish selection would indicate that 'spreading your seed' would result in a bias towards cheats but there are two things which weaken this assumption.

1: the benfits to a man of spreading his seed outweighs his benefit of raising and supporting his children directly. this is old ground and there's people here far better qualified to cover it.

The issue here is a risk/benefit tradeoff, that is true. What men typically do is have one primary mate (a wife?) and scattered around at various times in their life numerous secondary mates. If they live in a polygynous society, they typically have a head wife and multiple subordinate wives (there is at least one exception to this, but females have much more power in this culture).

In other words, they have their cake and eat it to. Depending on the risk of being caught at any given time they may have secondary mates on the side, or just not bother with a long term mate at all if they cant attract one.

2. You assume there is no other genetic factor (similar to the homosexuality producing one, except this time urging monogamy) at large in the population. Seeing as this one has only a weak genetic cost and a large social benefit it would have had far less bias against it then the genetic factors promoting homosexuality.
Homosexuality has never gone away, why should the monogamy trait?

I had a really hard time figuring out what you just said.

Homosexuality has not gone away because it cant. It is either a byproduct of a trait that is necessary for human brain development, or a parental effect that increases the fitness of the parents at the expense of their offspring (yes, this can happen) or both. Either way the mechanism is written into the brain development pathways, so it is rather difficult to alter considering the level of redundancy and how one gene can affect multiple systems.

I am not saying monogamy is not around. It is. Just not the way we think of it typically.

It's too simplistic to say "men are biologically driven to be promiscuous" because there is ample evidence that even when promiscuity is either permitted or even encouraged there are STILL monogamous men, and even promiscuous men can have monogamous periods in their life or turn down mating opportunities.

It is worth noting that there is not some binary between monogamous and promiscuous men, where the former only ever have one mate and the later never settle down.

To be fair when I said "Wants" in reference to wanting more than one exclusive mate, I was speaking in an abstract evolutionary sense. I sometimes forget to clarify that.

All other things being equal a male is best served by having multiple mates, matings with whom he completely monopolizes. Their success at doing this depends on how much power women and subordinate males have in a society (again, no one is consciously thinking about this stuff). If either has a lot of power, males will be socially prohibited from having multiple exclusive mates. The risk of social and genetic polygyny (read: having multiple wives) goes up. The behavior drops in frequency to very low levels (you will still find it...)

What is the next best option? Cheating (Social monogamy, genetic polygyny) where a male has sole access to one female (in theory, they cheat too...), or Dating (serial social monogamy, maybe with the serial genetic monogamy to go with it), Swinging (social and genetic serial polygyny) These can be mix-matched at different points in a male's life

Rarely does one male only have one mate in his entire life. The ones that do are either... basement nerds... or marry the equivalent of their high school sweetheart and find her to be so amazing that the risk of getting caught cheating outweighs the benefit of the same. Might be a few other odd cases. These are both comparatively rare cases.

Now, there is genetic variation that effects how the mix-matching of the above options will occur through a male's life time. Some are more risk averse, or secrete more vasopressin than others (etc), causing them to prefer Serial Monogamy (with low cheating frequency), or even have the capacity for Swan-Like lifetime monogamy.

Raising human offspring is time-consuming and difficult. We have ample evidence that two parents are better than one for accomplishing this task (although yes, single parents can do the job it really is harder and riskier for the children). Therefore, there really is a benefit for human males to invest in child-rearing. By concentrating on just one woman and her children he greatly improves the chances of those children surviving to adulthood and reproducing themselves.

Yes. And quantity has a quality all on its own. If a male's brain calculates that he can have his cake and eat it too...

But again, their is variation in the tolerance for risk.

Human behavior is flexible, that's why we see a spectrum of possibilities in any society and not everyone marching in lockstep.

Evolutionary stable strategies are fun...

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Of course, we could solve the problem by having more female children than male children, so it's not an immutable argument. And generally western families in the age of women's lib have seen some slight tendency toward that, especially in combination with chemical contamination weakening males in general. Designer babies are only a few decades away, considering people in China and India are already doing a more brutal method of this in reverse, and unlike excess numbers of males, excess numbers of females might well be socially beneficial. Especially with more and more families having only one child.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Of course, we could solve the problem by having more female children than male children, so it's not an immutable argument. And generally western families in the age of women's lib have seen some slight tendency toward that, especially in combination with chemical contamination weakening males in general. Designer babies are only a few decades away, considering people in China and India are already doing a more brutal method of this in reverse, and unlike excess numbers of males, excess numbers of females might well be socially beneficial. Especially with more and more families having only one child.

That depends on the assumption that you really want more children, which is what a female biased sex ratio gives you. And how are you going to regulate this? Draw lots?

Even in the US people want a male firstborn more often than not. you will still end up with a biased sex ratio.

Not that a male biased sex ratio is necessarily bad. If you want to see a human population decline...

[Serafina]

Of course, we could solve the problem by having more female children than male children, so it's not an immutable argument. And generally western families in the age of women's lib have seen some slight tendency toward that, especially in combination with chemical contamination weakening males in general. Designer babies are only a few decades away, considering people in China and India are already doing a more brutal method of this in reverse, and unlike excess numbers of males, excess numbers of females might well be socially beneficial. Especially with more and more families having only one child.

Agreed.

As previously mentioned, permitting multi-partner marriages is way more complicated than permitting same-sex marriages.
When a country permitts same-sex marriage, it basically ignores the sex of both partners (which, btw., should happen more often). Virtually everything else can stay unchanged (unfortunatly, this is often not the case - limited heritage, adoption rights etc.).
But with a polygamic marriage, you need to lay out a completly new definiton of marriage.

The "easiest" way would be treating the whole thing as "multiple marriages" - after all, a person is just married to two or more other persons.
However, i do not like this solution. Why?
Well, if someone is married to, say, two other people, those three will likely live together. The whole thing is one single household. Children will be raised by two mothers/fathers/whatever kind of combination. Money will be split up between the three (or more) people.
Copying from nations that already permitt polygamy is no viable option - those do not have laws that treat both parties equal (men are favored).

While the limitations of same-sex marriages (limited heritage, limited tax-favors, limited adoption etc.) are simply unfair, such a thing may be an option for polygamist marriages - IF they are intetended to be time-limited (i.e. the government in working on a equal-rights solution).
I would like to see something like this: Tax-laws, adoption etc. are equal for polygamic marriages as for "normal" ones.
Heritage, partentage, alimony etc. are solved for each partner individually:
-One partner dies, both other partners gain a equal share
-One partner leaves the marriage, both other (partners pay allimony together.
-Children are "given" (better word?) to one of both partys - either the single (ex)partner or the remaining couple.

Essentially, i would like to see polygamist marriages as three-way marriages: Each partner is married to each other partner. After all, they are all living together.

[Wicked Pilot]

I kind of wonder how far poly marriages can go if it's required that all involved give consent to each marriage. ie if a man with three wives is looking to get hitched to a fourth, all five parties would have to sign the new marriage license. That could be a tricky compatibility puzzle to put together.

[Serafina]

Well, then those people obviously "do not belong together" (not because of fate, of course).

I find it nonsensical to want to marry someone you do not love - or to have to live with someone you do not like.
Its not like all 3+ partners have to love each other equally - but they should at least be able to live with each other on a good, equal footing.

Putting an arbitrary, upper limit on poly marriages is not neccessary - i seriously doubt that 5+ people can live with each other in a marriage that often. But if they want to, they should be allowed to.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I have to say, while I have no issues with polygamy (I myself go through phases of polyamory), I expect that the legal ramifications already mentioned will hold it back more than the moral stance people take on it. Given marriage is a legal contract that entitles people to certain assets and privileges, it needs to be determined in court how you'd settle a case that involved a poly-marriage. None of these issues appear if you're just polyamorous, but there are still plenty of people with that mindset who also want traditional marriage.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I kind of wonder how far poly marriages can go if it's required that all involved give consent to each marriage. ie if a man with three wives is looking to get hitched to a fourth, all five parties would have to sign the new marriage license. That could be a tricky compatibility puzzle to put together.

That would be an absolute requirement of a functional system of poly marriage, yes; all members of the marriage are contractees to the marriage license. That would alone severely inhibit the problems that Aly speaks of, I'm pretty damned sure.

[ArmorPierce]

Of course, we could solve the problem by having more female children than male children, so it's not an immutable argument. And generally western families in the age of women's lib have seen some slight tendency toward that, especially in combination with chemical contamination weakening males in general. Designer babies are only a few decades away, considering people in China and India are already doing a more brutal method of this in reverse, and unlike excess numbers of males, excess numbers of females might well be socially beneficial. Especially with more and more families having only one child.

ratios I have seen is 90 some percent of males want a boy and even with females 70 some percent favor having a boy. So designer babies might further exacerbate the situation unless you force people to have a boy or a girl.

[Broomstick]

That right there is an argument against voluntary gender selection even though that is trivially easy with our current technology. For the public good we need one gender ratio and yet social/evolutionary impulses will lead people to make decisions skewed toward a different ratio. A clear illustration that just because we can doesn't mean we should. Gender selection to prevent disease is permitted. Gender selection solely to select gender is not in most countries (although that law is frequently violated as well).

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Granted, it might be misused...

That said, I'd like to hear Aly's input on the other point, that this form of poly marriage would only be legitimate if all the partners mutually consented to it. Wouldn't that be liable to keep the rates of polygamy low because few women would share their ideal mates with other women?

[Broomstick]

I would say... probably.