Are You Ready For Polygamy?
Back when Lawrence V. Texas was being argued, Sen. Rick Santorum was vilified for suggesting that arguments against sodomy laws could be used to legalize polygamy, incest, bestiality and adultery and the like. In his dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia said the same thing. They were mocked and condemned for their remarks. Sex columnist Dan Savage -- recently feted in The New York Times for his views in support of, well, adultery -- said Santorum's view was so horrible that he renamed a disgusting fecal byproduct of anal sex after him.
Last week's New York Times mentioned a lawsuit arguing for polygamy using the decision of .... Lawrence V. Texas. Imagine that. Attorney Jonathan Turley explains his argument in today's Times:
Ultimately, the question is whether polygamy is allowed under the privacy principles articulated in Lawrence. The court did not state exclusions for unpopular relationships. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the case “does not involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter” but rather “two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle.”
I've repeatedly tried to find an argument in favor of redefining marriage to include same-sex couples that wouldn't apply to polygamy. The fact is that most arguments support polygamy even more than same-sex marriage.
But what I'm curious about the consequences of the legalization of polygamy. Not just in the "Catholic folks will be sued if they don't cater to polygamous arrangements" way but more in how it will effect benefits structures. How will spousal insurance benefits be changed, for instance? How will social norms change? What tensions will we see with religious freedom? And what in the world will we do with Utah, required by federal law and its own Constitution to ban polygamy "forever"?
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Apr '11
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
The Contribution of Polygamy to Women's Oppression and Impoverishment: An Argument for its Prohibition
"This practice treats women as inferior members of their families and as inferior in status to men. Polygamy also has a detrimental effect on children because when a man has more than one wife, he often has a large number of children in a short period of time. Conflicts often erupt among the families because several rivalrous wives and children are competing for resources. Although polygamy itself is not a prohibited practice under international human rights law, allowing it to exist legally permits it to violate fundamental rights including rights to dignity, equality, health, and equal protection under the law. It also perpetuates women's already lower social and economic status by forcing women to share already scarce resources with co- wives and their children. In its complex role in divorce and inheritance law, for instance, polygamy negatively impacts a women's health, including mental health, sexual and reproductive health and her death from AIDS."
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=563282
Apr '11
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
Women Speak Out Against Polygamy
"Taught to believe that polygamy was not only expected — but required — to receive the rewards of heaven, in 1953, she married Verlan LeBaron, a man who was already married to her half-sister. She was 16 on her wedding day. Spencer would go on to have 13 children with LeBaron, and to see him take another eight wives. She describes her life at the time as one of poverty, drudgery and despair.
“Girls are denied education. Many girls married at 14 and 15. The men always say ‘marry them young so you can train them.’ They’re told all they need to know is how to keep house and raise children, so it makes it impossible for women to move into the outside world. They can’t leave the family because they don’t have the skills to survive on their own. The men make the rules.”
"Raised in a fringe community of Mormon fundamentalists, Spencer was one of 31 children in her large family. “You can imagine being lost in the shuffle of 31 children,”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/holy-post/archive/2009/09/25/women-speak-out-against-polygamy.aspx#ixzz1Skxea6oI
Apr '11
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
Books about Polygamy in the USA Today
http://helpthechildbrides.com/books.htm
May '10
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
Why does one only speak of polygamy as multiple wives? Surely, in modern America it would cut both ways.
Feb '10
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
It would not happen very often. In all the world, I'm aware of only one culture that has widespread polyandry with one wife having multiple husbands in a stable relationship. That was in some area of Tibet, where it was tied to land ownership and inheritance practices-- and even there, it was not common for the husbands to be living in the same house with their common wife at the same time.
That said, we already have polygamy going both ways in America today. It's just serial, not concurrent. It's called "divorce and remarriage." And it results in broken families and many of the same negative consequences as the concurrent type. Parents' attention and resources get divided between different partners/families; there are rivalries, and constant conflict; and kids suffer.
Edited on Jul 21, 2011 at 9:34amJul '10
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
Let's take this to its logical conclusion, why not gay polywhatever? This road leads to such a cheapened view of marriage that it's become a glorified, group benefit entitlement.
Jan '11
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
Why is it so difficult for certain behaviors to be spoken of as deviant? It doesn’t matter to me, and I think it shouldn't matter to anyone, how others chose to live their lives, nor should society declare who it is proper to love, nor how one may express that love. So long as what is done is generally harmless, we should be tolerant of others, as we expect tolerance from others, but I suspect that these legal pressures to accept deviance as normal has less to do with civil rights than it does for proselytizing. It's less a plea for tolerance than it is for marketing.
Well, we wanted to live in interesting times.
Jul '11
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
Mark Twain from "Roughing It"
Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only two days, and therefore we had no time to make the customary inquisition into the workings of polygamy and get up the usual statistics and deductions preparatory to calling the attention of the nation at large once more to the matter.
I had the will to do it With the gushing self-sufficiency of youth I was feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform here-until I saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than my head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly and pathetically "homely" creatures, and as I turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I said, "No --the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh censure--and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand uncovered in his presence and worship in silence"
Edited on Jul 21, 2011 at 9:46amFeb '11
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
That ban on polygamy in the state of Utah could be struck down by the Supreme Court as a violation of the "Equal Footing Doctrine," because the enabling act that admitted Idaho required them to place that provision in their constitution or they would not be permitted, while this same provision did not put Utah on an equal footing with the other states. As for the problems with polygamy acknowledged by Viator, he seems to be indicating problems that are not exclusive to polygamy, but rather towards the practice of marrying minors, and he seems to be talking about forced marriages. Just as we would not allow one person to force another person to marry him/her, there is no reason that polygamy should allow forced marriage, those are straw-man arguments.
Mollie, you seem to be on the right track when pointing out that the arguments for gay marriage can all be arguments for polygamy as well; and because we are obviously not going to get rid of no-fault divorce laws and make it harder for people to separate, doesn't Busy System Admin. have a point that we have serial polygamy today?
May '10
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
But America is the world leader in feminized men and dominant, aggressive women.
May '11
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
DocJay, I am glad you found the Twain quote. I had remembered it as something along the lines that any man who married more than one of these women deserved to be called a Later Day Saint.
Edited on Jul 21, 2011 at 10:25amApr '11
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
I can give you a reason why gay marriage is more acceptable than polygamy. This isn't a legal argument, just a cultural one. Let's say you're a bachelor who is not very attractive. You still have a chance of having a wife one day. If gay marriage is legal and culturally acceptable, it changes nothing for you. I suppose it would diminish the number of lesbians who are pretending to be straight in order to fit in, but that's not really a downside. Who wants to marry someone only to be told a couple years later that she really can't take it any more and must come out of the closet?
Polygamy on the other hand, could upset your applecart if it became quite popular. The really attractive guys would have multiple wives and the unattractive guys would be life long bachelors unless they were willing to share a wife with a few other fellows. The libertarian side of me says perhaps polygamy should be legal, but the romantic side would not be happy settling for 1/3 of a wife.
Mar '11
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
Are you ready for Polygamous Sharia?
Jul '11
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
Whiskey Sam
Let's take this to its logical conclusion, why not gay polywhatever? This road leads to such a cheapened view of marriage that it's become a glorified, group benefit entitlement. · Jul 21 at 9:42am
Permit me to extend this a bit further. Marriage has always been a bulwark against both immorality and totalitarian government. In the last 50 years it has been weakened by attacks from several directions, but gay marriage (with subsequent legalization of polygamy, incest, etc.) could be the knockout punch. By turning marriage and family into something that the state can define, godless socialists (or secular progressives if you prefer) eliminate marriage as both a moral and a super-governmental institution. Those who want to their perversions to be socially acceptable win, and those who want totalitarian government win. Something for everyone!
-E
May '11
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
The delightful musical "Paint Your Wagon" starring Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood was about one woman with 2 husbands. Yes, I wrote the delightful musical starring Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood. That wasn't a typo.
Edited on Jul 21, 2011 at 11:09amJul '11
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
thelonious
The delightful musical "Paint Your Wagon" starring Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood was about one woman with 2 husbands. Yes, I just wrote delightful musical starring Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood. That wasn't a typo. · Jul 21 at 11:04am
You sound like my college roommate. If someone said "Paint Your Wagon" he would respond, "I love that show! How many musicals star Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood??" Pavlovian. ;)
Mar '11
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
Exactly. What is continually ignored in these debates is that it never ends with same-sex marriage. Parphilia & Polymorphous perversity has always been the endgame as our own Lady Kurobara so aptly stated.
The question that everyone must ask themselves is not whether you support same-sex marriage, polygammy or what have you but where is your line in the sand? Do you have one?
Jun '10
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
Viator:
She was 16 on her wedding day. Spencer would go on to have 13 children with LeBaron, and to see him take another eight wives. She describes her life at the time as one of poverty, drudgery and despair.
"Raised in a fringe community of Mormon fundamentalists, Spencer was one of 31 children in her large family. “You can imagine being lost in the shuffle of 31 children,”
Accustomed as I am to all the conveniences of modern technology, the lifestyle of the Amish strikes me as one of poverty and drudgery. Should the state sieze Amish children to protect them from the abuse of life without microwaves, washing machines, and the Internet?
The state already sets minimum ages for marriage, I don't see why that would be any different for polygamy vs. monogamy.
As for large families, the state has no business whatsoever telling anyone how many children they can or should have. Please let's not head down that road!
Jul '11
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
Make no mistake, this issue is not going to end up being about personal choice but repression and enslavement of women, and really why not learn from the masters.
May '10
Re: Are You Ready For Polygamy?
CandE, what are you talking about? Gay marriage and totalitarian government??? Switch to decaf.