Why is polygamy illegal? It seems to me it should be in the same category as same-sex marriage, smoking weed and prostitution: not the governments business if consenting adults.
Surely of all topics, this is the one you can legitimately post in multiple sub-forums. Well for a start, it isn’t illegal everywhere and isn’t illegal in the same way or with the same enforcement everywhere it is. I think the UN line (and thus a lot of other countries) focuses on the demonstrated risk of abuse and discrimination traditionally associated with the practice. In other contexts, there are some practical complications where laws related to marriage are written with the assumption of their only being two people and they’re open to inconsistent interpretation or outright abuse with multiple legal partners. This basically means that a change wouldn’t be simply not criminalising multiple marriage any more but it would require specific positive actions to define and support multiple legal marriages in law. There probably isn’t as much push for that even from people in multiple relationships given being unmarried in general isn’t as much of an issue these days and there is generally no issue with multiple people living together as if they were married (within other consent and age laws etc.).
I have no moral objections to it. It would probably be a nightmare trying to figure out the tax and property laws for it though, especially if multiple spouses have incomes.
No but traditionally, all tradition was considered good (well, "our" traditions at least). That tradition was bad.
You picked a good category. Mostly it is religious values as well as the abuse under polygyny (a specific type of polygamy) of women, by certain groups, that goes on even today. As Joe noted, the way current law is written, it would not be as easy to allow for polygamy as it was for interracial and same sex. In all honesty, logistically speaking, it would be easier to allow incest marriage than polygamy.
As part of the poly community, I can tell you that, as a whole, we are not pushing for this. We recognize the vast legal issues that have to be corrected first before it could be legally allowed. Luckily, only legal marriages are consider by law, so polygamists can enjoy their families without violating the law.
Seems like you failed to finish your thought there. Not sure where you are getting the idea that if there was legal polygamy the state would have to raise your children, unless there was some clarifying point in what was missed. Also, polygamy is multiple spouses, no gender limits. Polygyny, which seems to be what you are thinking, is one husband multiple wives. Polyandry is one wife multiple husbands. My marriage would be simply polygamy because I have a husband and two wives.
Not really. Sadly people seem to equate polygamy with the abusive polygyny that some people practice. But like airplane crashes, the odd event is what makes the news so to speak. Today's poly community is way more diverse than just polygyny, assuming they even do marry. And a lot less abusive. I always say that the rule of thumb is to determine if those who are abusive in polygamy would also be abusive in monogamy. The answer is usually yes, especially when we look at how abusive we used to be to women even in monogamy. So polygamy in and of itself does not lean towards abuse. That is a correlation/causation fallacy.
I look at the countries where polygamy is legal or tolerated, and compare them to the countries where it's illegal. The polygamy tolerant countries are crap. I wouldn't want to live in any of them. The type of society and culture you get with polygamy is also crap. Monogamist marriage is a social advance. We shouldn't throw it away for no reason.
Two serious errors here. First off is a correlation/causation fallacy. You find many of the same problems in "crap countries", as you called them, that only have monogamy. Secondly, you imply that monogamy would go away if polygamy is allowed. Most people are naturally monogamous, but not all are. So it's not like it would go away or even be regulated to the background.
I think there's a connection to women's rights here. The view being that polygamy is yet another way for the patriarchy to exploit women, with more wealthy powerful men getting to claim multiple women. It's still legal for a man to carry on a sexual relationship with multiple women at the same time, he just can't marry them all, simultaneously. However, the gay rights marriage equality movement has opened up all sorts of unexpected doors and, in some ways, led to a slippery slope, when it comes to other alternative forms of marriage. The real question, I think we should be asking, is what were the primary reasons polygamy was originally illegal, and why did the US government, at that time, go to such lengths to prevent the practice in the territory of Utah? May it have been in part because they were concerned it would result in an imbalance of married males and females? That they were concerned about women's well being?
Not sure about some of that, but I do think it would be interesting to find out their stated reasoning back then and see if would still hold water today.
Any activity that's corrosive of morality is society's business, and any society that confuses such activity with liberty and directs its government to act accordingly, or acquiesces when its government acts accordingly, is doomed.
Exactly. Also, besides the fairly new polyamory marriages, etc., in the real world, polygamy means polygyny. Of the hundreds (if not thousands) of known human cultures, only a handful have polyandry, and in those cases, polyandry usually consists of a woman marrying two brothers. The great majority of polygamous cultures are polygynous. This causes problems, things like having too many unmarried males around, or in the case of the FLDS, the elders of the society would actually kick out a good percentage of the teenaged males (Google Lost boys of Utah), as the old men don't want to compete with the young men for brides, nor do they want to deal with the unmarried young men, so they simply kick them out.
Although I understand all of the bookkeeping challenges that would need to be overcome if this were made legal in the United States, I think that it's something we're going to need to go through at some point.
1. There are crap countries that are monogamous cultures, but on the other hand, most countries are crap countries, but there aren't any great polygamous countries. I don't have the example of a single successful polygamous country. Can you think of one? No, I never said or implied "that monogamy would go away if polygamy is allowed." Even in polygamous countries much of the population are in monogamous marriages. The overall culture however of polygamous cultures is a stew of toxic primitivism.
Unmarried young men, with no prospects of marriage, are a problem for any culture. At least the LDS people can give them the boot. In countries where the practice is allowed however, that's not an option, so you have violent young males causing crime and helping create low trust societies.
What are you using as your definition for such a subjective value? Not that it matters much, as monogamy has been a forced default, as opposed to a natural one, so there is no basis upon which to determine whether or not a country could be successful while allowing polygamy. We're still in correlation/causation fallacy territory. I point again to how do those crap countries, as you call them, treat their women in general. Do you really thing their women would be treated any better if they only allowed monogamy? Yes that is exactly what you implied, intended or not. You said, "Monogamist marriage is a social advance. We shouldn't throw it away for no reason." Monogamy would not be thrown away simply by allowing polygamy. It can only be thrown away by replacing it with polygamy. Allowing polygamy would in no way remove monogamy or even replace it as a majority practice.
Today's polyamorus community is much more diverse than simply 1 male having several females. Even among the relatively fewer who engage in marriage, also sometimes known as kitchen table poly, there are many families that are polyandrous, and others, like mine, that have a mix of multiple men and multiple women. The poly community consists of Christians, Jews, pagans, and even atheists, so this is not a religious thing. In fact, from all I see the abuses among those who do practice polygamy of any form, seem to come more from the ultra religious than anyone else.
You could have at least tried to name a successful polygamous country, then argue over what "great" means in that context. As it is, you don't have one. Well, when I've already told you what I meant, and you insist that you know better than I do what I mean, I doubt that we can have a productive conversation.
In an anthropological sense, the most likely outcome is one male/several females. Not whatever you have.
"Polygamous country" is a pretty nonspecific term. I'm not sure that there are any countries where polygamy is the only form of social union. There are several, but not many, where it's legal outright. There are also some where it's recognized for those immigrating to the country but not allowed for citizens already living there. There also seem to be a fair number where it's not legally recognized but is generally socially acceptable. The United States is one of those. There are families living in the United States that are stated polygamists. They even have television shows. "Successful country" is also pretty darned nonspecific. For the sake of argument, could you provide a more specific idea of what you'd consider a successful country and what you'd consider a polygamous country? That would make it much easier to find (or not) a country that meets your criteria.