Polygamy?

[Guest Alien Pirate Pixagi]

Polygamy

The condition or practice of having more than one spouse at one time.

Should this be legalized? Should any special conditions apply?

I personally believe polygamy should not only be legalized, but regulated as well. If legalized, it should require the consent of ALL spouses involved. The idea of someone going around marrying a bunch of people without their other spouses knowing enrages me greatly.

Here's another thing to wonder about: Would YOU be able to have a polygamous relationship/marriage? This is assuming you and your significant other are both in love with, or at least attracted, to the same person who is also attracted/in love with you AND your significant other.

Munch on that.

[WotanAnubis]

I voted "Yes, with consent" as well, because otherwise the whole thing might, you know, explode.

Also, I'm assuming that 'spouse' is used as a gender-neutral word here.

And if I could deal with such a relationship? I don't know. I'm not sure I can deal with a relationship period.

[ZombieDuke]

I'm not sure I can deal with a relationship period.

I second that! I have a great deal of people/trust issues so I don't think I could handle a multi-relationship...

I voted for legalizing as long as there is consent with all others involved. It could be because I've been watching too much Big Love as of late, but with consent and if you can sustain such a way of life, then why not?

[EveKnight75]

When I was in 12th grade, we had a final project where we had to debate a specific social issue. There were an odd number of students in the class, and I had to defend polygamy by myself against two other people.

At first, I chose to argue pro because I was iffy about it myself and I like a challenge. By the end of my research, I had changed my opinion of polygamy and won that debate because I was truly in favor of it.

I honestly don't see anything wrong in being involved in a polygamous relationship provided that every single partner approves of each other. If they can play together in harmony and are both mentally and emotionally stable in the relationship, who are we to deny them?

I honestly believe that everyone should be free to live their own lifestyle provided that they aren't harming anyone else. Why should it be any different for polygamy?

As for myself - I'm not sure at this point. I haven't been in many relationships, and the few I have been in were never long or serious. I don't really know if I have what it takes, but I do know that I tend to be stable, so maybe it'd be possible after I've had some more experience with long-term relationships. As it is now. I think I could handle a three- or four-some. Any more than that and I'm pretty sure I'd be in over my head.

[Guest Adara]

I feel the same way. I mean, if a couple decides on this way of life, I don't see how it can be anyone else's business.

[Nanaea]

I've joked for years that I need a wife, but I don't share well. I see nothing wrong with polygamy if all parties are aware and consent (without coercion).

[redsliver]

Wait, if polygamy was legalised would there be more tax benefits for having two spouses than if you had one? And would it accumulate? And couldn't in theory there be a commune of enough spouses that the simple influx of benefits and tax breaks would break the government? Cool.

Personally, I like the idea of polygamy, but I've never found any woman who was as good at sharing as is necessary for the arrangement. If its coercive or if its a man with a wife in every port so to speak, then its just dangerous.

So all in all I vote for multiple spouses and bigger tax breaks.

I wouldn't have a problem with a polygamist relationship, though I doubt my girlfriend is up for sharing, so I think its a right off anyways.

[Leonhart29]

With consent is just fine - as long as it's not in my house. I lived with "other women" for a long time during my marriage. The sad part of the whole thing is that I could handle the cheating - but if he had come to me and said "I want to marry so and so because I love her and I know you will too." I would have left the marriage a hell of a lot sooner than I did.

[foeofthelance]

I don't see much of a difference between this and couples who decide to swing, save for going all the way in a polygamous marriage might prove to be more expensive. Then again, it might not if all parties are allowed multiple spouses. If one man has three wives, and those three wives have another husband each, that's going to provide one hell of a support base for the family, (assuming all, or at least most, of the people involved are earning a paycheck) which i have no problem with.

Persoanlly, as far as I can tell, the only reasons people object to polygamy is either, A) they can't handle it, they couldn't pull it off, and C) they try to cite the bible. The last one sort of seems silly to me, because several of the more prominent figures had multiple wives and concubines. When ever I hear someone use the bible as an excuse, I can't help but remember a story a friend of mine passed on. At a town meeting discussing the merits of adding a foreign language program to the school curriculum, one fine gentleman stood up and declared, "If English was good enough for Jesus, then its good enough for my kids!"

[Guest Alien Pirate Pixagi]

Hmmm, a lot of people are assuming that I mean multiple wifes only, when I stated that one must assume that there would be both multiple husbands and/or wives.

So, Leon, do you think that maybe you could have a polygamous relationship if it was YOU with multiple spouses? What I mean to say, is, let's say you're still married to your Ex, and still in love with him, and you meet another guy who you fall for, and your Ex is okay with this, would you be able to see that type of dynamic through, or would you have to choose between the two?

My fiance and I have discussed this, and would be willing to try if the occasion arises. It took a good year and a half of freaking out from him and reassurance from me that I'm NOT going to run off with a woman on him. Now, he's more then fine with the idea of seeing me with another woman.

[madlodger]

Yes with consent of all spouses.

I am not convinced that humans are monogamous species. Love happens and lasts for a while. Does it last a lifetime? I see so many people who started with being in love with each other and ended up as roommates and friends raising their kids together. Many married couples end up not making love anymore, even though they behave all lovey in public.

I think that polygamy should be one of many options. People could choose to be single celibate, single sexually active, a member of an exclusive couple or a polygamic arrangement. I find it sad that sexual practices of ADULTs are regulated by Government. Through human history one human category had no control over their sex lives-slaves. Well, slavery is illegal, so Government has no business to restrict citizen’s private lives.

I do agree with laws protecting and nourishing CHILDREN (the age of consent is hugely important). It's a job of all collective adults to take care of all collective children, so to speak, so Government is doing the right thing creating those laws.

But it should take its grabby mitts off as soon as a citizen turns 18! Regulate taxes, yes, not arrangements.

With DNA testing so available and accurate, paternity should be very easy to establish. I am not sure why birth certificates don't have Genetical Father and Mother lines included. That's off topic, though.

So, yes for polygamy

redsliver

I wouldn't have a problem with a polygamist relationship, though I doubt my girlfriend is up for sharing

So, let's say, your girlfriend would bring this adorable 19-year old boy into relationship as a beta male. Would it be OK? (He can mow the lawn, LOL)

[Guest Alien Pirate Pixagi]

I think one thing driving the government to restrict marriage besides ethics and religion is to protect the spouses. This way, a person can't go around marrying a bajillion different people without their spouses knowing.

However, obviously, there are ways around this, so, really, other then religious morals and ethics, there's really no reason to keep the no polygamy laws.

[Iggy_lovechild]

Honestly, I don't give a shit one way or another. If someone can make that sort of thing work, more power to them. However, I will be awfully pissed off is polygamy is nationally awknowleged and legalized before gay marriage. I mean come on!

[Leonhart29]

In answer to your question Pixiagi - I wouldn't be able to have both of them at the same time (and if I was still with my ex I'd leave him in a heart beat - there was no love on his side of the equation) I would have to chose. I've never given it much thought actually. But now that I have let me tell you what I think (and as always this is my opinion). In this world the way it is today, it's always the man who gets to have the extras - the extra bit on his paycheck, the extra serving at dinner time, the extra wife... it comes from being in a patriarchal society. Do I believe humans are a monogamous species? No way... but we have the intelligence to chose how we want to live, and if polygamy is what we chose to do go for it. I'm just not wired that way. Call me selfish, call me an idiot, call me whatever you want - I just can't do it.

Now if I was raised that way, then yeah I'm sure I wouldn't have a problem with the whole thing, but I was raised as one man one woman.

If all adults are consenting (and adult is a big word here - there have been cases where a man has taken multiple wives and some of them have been a hell of a lot younger than they should be), and they all provide for the family unit (including each other's kids and what not) then I see nothing wrong with it - for them.

And I have been in this situation - kinda. My ex brought in a woman right after I had my oldest daughter to "help out with the chores and the kid"... what he really wanted her for was an on call on site sex partner until I could have sex again. I have to stop and wonder if the people who do have multiple spouses are really in love with any of them or if they just want to romp with a different person every night or have an on call orgy without having to deal with the whole adultery thing.

[Guest Alien Pirate Pixagi]

Honestly, I don't give a shit one way or another. If someone can make that sort of thing work, more power to them. However, I will be awfully pissed off is polygamy is nationally awknowleged and legalized before gay marriage. I mean come on!

I don't think it will be. Gay marriage, or at least civil unions between homosexual couples, has been getting closer and closer to being legalized throughout all fifty American states. We've been getting pretty close to it here in NY state.

Polygamy is not as prevalent in the news and media as homosexual marriage, though it is gaining rising popularity, it's still not at the same level as same-sex marriages.

[Guest Adara]

I don't think it will be. Gay marriage, or at least civil unions between homosexual couples, has been getting closer and closer to being legalized throughout all fifty American states. We've been getting pretty close to it here in NY state.

Polygamy is not as prevalent in the news and media as homosexual marriage, though it is gaining rising popularity, it's still not at the same level as same-sex marriages.

Basically on the level of taboo, Polygomy is somewhere less offensive compared to Same-sex marriages. (At least to some people.)

It almost makes me think of men having the right to vote all along, then BLACK men had the right to vote, and eventually when they couldn't put it off any longer, woman voted. I think it's going to follow the same bloody lines.

[Guest Agaib]

What rational human being would vote for the without consent option? Anyone who does feel that they should be allowed to marry multiple partners without the consent of all of them is just plain selfish.

Of course it should be legalized. Who marries who is really hardly the governments business.

[madlodger]

I think one thing driving the government to restrict marriage besides ethics and religion is to protect the spouses

I am all for protecting the spouses.

Religion should play no role in creating government laws. And which religion should it be? Religion of a small cannibalistic tribe would condemn a person to hell if they ate a captive's liver before the chief had a chance to. So much for religious ethics.

Human ethics is a way to go. So far I don't see this society as very ethical. We appear civilized on outside: driving cars, talking on cell phones and flying to Mars. But, as species, humans are civilized only technologically. From the Ethics point of view, we are a bunch of apes driving cars, talking on cell phones. Slavery was legal a very short time ago. Minorities are fighting for their rights this exact moment in time, which only can mean one thing: People don't have equal rights from the moment of birth.

I suppose that developing Universal Human Ethics and modifying current laws to comply with them is a way of the future. Gay marriage as well as choices between different marital arrangements (including polygamy) would come to existence automatically. As well as a number of other freedoms, so to speak.

[StoryJunkie]

I put down "I don't know"

My daughter recently had this woman move in as room mate, (the other had gotten married and moved out), and she is a piece of work, she is. Even speaking room-mate wise, the dynamics of relationship is extremely (How shall I put this?) IN NEED OF GREAT DIPLOMACY.

married? I can't see it. Having studied some aspects of polygamy in the one Ethnology course I took, it was generally agreed upon that on the outside, one man many women was a mere chattel/status symbol amoung the cultures who practiced it, but in reality, the man had a big headache trying to support these women while at the same time "servicing" them in a diplomatic way. Usually favorites came up, and inevitably bad feelings between the women became more and more tense as time went on. Nurturing a loving relationship in this way is difficult.

I suppose in this day and age of reproductive control, one would think that this would be a good thing, especially considering that the probable outcome of war is fewer men and greater number of women. When war is over, women are left all by themselves, which is a sorry thing as far as I can see. Dildos don't always fill in the gap.

On the other side of the coin, the culture that accepted one woman many men (for instance, in the Himalayan mts, where land is scarce), in order for the land to be kept in the family, the men of the family would marry one woman and share her. This arrangement is made with the two families present, and (well, it was on a recent "Discovery Channel" program, probably "National Geographic", and I took this in Ethnology as well), the woman told the interviewers that she wished the entire world had such a system.

There is nothing lewd about it, but again, very diplomatic and practical arrangements, and not one made out of love or emotion.

*You know, I was going to answer this quite simply, but rather rudely, and say: "only if they're not fat and ugly", but I thought twice, remembering this nugget of info I wanted to share with you.

I think that the Inuit also had a system of wife-swapping/sharing, but these practices varied from tribe to tribe.

Amoung the Mormons, it was generally agreed amoung the people that this was financially a good arrangement. Personally, I would not want to be the one to keep track of the family tree. One would have to be very careful about inbreeding and such.

[Leonhart29]

I'm a proponent of do as you will but harm none. If marrying several people doesn't hurt anyone then why not let them do it? The problem is that human nature doesn't exactly work that way. Someone will always try to get something out of it for themselves. They will eventually think "Right - now I have this harem of wives (or husbands) to do what I want them to do - so... I have slaves." Or you have the flip side. "I was the first wife (husband) so I'm Queen Bee - do my bidding." Human nature rears it's ugly head once more. It's rare to find a marriage between a man and a woman (or two men or two women) that doesn't have the dominant one. The boss if you will. Very rarely is it ever a partnership, which is what marriage should be, all things equal. Equal say in what happens, equal rights and equal time. How can a polygamous relationship do that?

But then again - if you get people together that do genuinely care about one another, love one another and accept each other for who they are - numbers are unimportant.

[redsliver]

redsliver

So, let's say, your girlfriend would bring this adorable 19-year old boy into relationship as a beta male. Would it be OK? (He can mow the lawn, LOL)[/color]

the thing is, I see a polygamist marriage as a three-way marriage, not one person with multiple spouses. If there was a third person in our relationship it'd be because the two of us had accepted this person and received that love and acceptance back. Its not a matter of me bringing home some cute girl or her rustling up some guy. I don't see us working into a polygamist relationship easily if it was possible.

And if he'll mow the lawn he's in.

[Guest Alien Pirate Pixagi]

the thing is, I see a polygamist marriage as a three-way marriage, not one person with multiple spouses. If there was a third person in our relationship it'd be because the two of us had accepted this person and received that love and acceptance back. Its not a matter of me bringing home some cute girl or her rustling up some guy.

See, that's exactly it. A lot of people keep seeing polygamy as one person with a bunch of spouses who care little for each other. What I mean is three or more people who all love each other. For instance, if Cain and I were to add another person to our relationship, it would half to be someone we are mutually interested in and was mutually interested in both of us. Otherwise, it's just a filmed one night stand. It can't possibly work out in any other way. Jealousy would become prevalent and the whole thing would crumble, leaving 3 unhappy people in it's wake.

This is not the Middle East where a man can count the amount of wives he has as his financial status. It shouldn't work that way here in America (though I can see how it would).

[Nanaea]

First off, I don't know about anyone else, but I did not assume that you meant 'one man, multiple wives' when I answered, Pixagi. I stated that I wanted a wife because that's my preference. One man is hard enough to deal with (no offense 'Trae ) I wouldn't know what to do with more than one (except for teh sex part - )!

What it boils down to for me is the desire for another companion. Someone to keep me company while 'Trae is at work and to help me out with the house and the kids. A little snuggle once in a while is simply a bonus.

Of course, the sharing thing would still be a problem for me. The only way I could see it working (again for me) would be if there were another man involved, i.e., two couples - one household. Realistically, everyone would have to get along well and play nice together.

Again, it's not so much about the sex for me, but rather the companionship. We are, after all, social creatures by nature.

[EveKnight75]

I had the same thing in mind as Pix when I answered. The image that came to mind for me was a three-way marriage (minimum), where every single partner was married to each other regardless of gender. There are several communal families that work this way (also known as cults).

If you're married to every single one of your partners, and your partners are all married to each other, the issue of jealousy becomes less prevalent. If you're all in a mutual marriage, then it's also more stable in the respect that you'll be able to raise the kids just a little more easily. One problem with the "multiple wives" issue is that one wife is often resentful of the children that were borne from another wife. If the two wives cared about each other in a positive way and were married to each other, they wouldn't be resentful of each other's biological children because they would see those children as their own as well.

If society legalized homosexual marriage first, then legalized polygamous marriages by putting a certain limit on the number of adults involved in one marriage, then the arrangement could potentially work.

Lately, there have been arrangements where a homosexual couple would bring in a third homosexual person of the opposite sex into a special arrangement so that they could have a child. The contract would be drawn up so that all three would have parental rights to the child. Sometimes, this contract is drawn up between two homosexual couples of different sexes for the sake of bearing at least two children.

I think that if we studied that model over the next 50 years or so, we might be able to gain a very rough idea of what an equal polygamous relationship involving children could potentially be like. I'm not saying that it'd be a perfect study seeing as how it's still centered around one or two monogamous couples, but it would give us some idea if that form of polygamy could be successful.

And yes, I also realize that it would come nowhere near answering the question about emotional conflict, unless there was at least one bisexual person involved in the equation (such as homosexual man/bisexual man/heterosexual woman as third party).

[foeofthelance]

Honestly, I just considered it from the way Heinlein had his characters practice it. Polygamy as acted out by a group of people who mutually liked each other, and where interested in raising a family together. The sexual practices of the spouses were of no importance, so long as every one could get along. If someone had a problem with another person, they were entirely free to leave, so long as any child they had sired/birthed was being taken care of by someone willing to be responsible for it. Just seems the most practical way to work it.