Thread: US Polygamy Ruling and the Legislation of Morality Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :
 
As discussed on a dead horse thread, a US federal judge has declared unconstitutional part of Utah state law, passed back when Mormonism banned polygamy (and when banning polygamy was stated as a prerequisite for Utah being allowed to become a state and no longer just a territory). The judge's ruling does not allow polygamy - people in Utah can still only legally marry one other person, and in Utah that person has to be of the opposite sex. What the ruling does is overturn any ban on people living together and describing themselves to the world as if they were in a polygamous marriage. The family in the case, shown in a reality TV show, was a member of a breakway fundamentalist Mormon sect (not the one that was famous for being raided in Texas). The husband was legally married to one wife but had three other wives that he lived with. The three additional marriages were described by the family as "Spiritual Marriages" and no attempt was made by them to defraud the government by claiming the additional marriages to be legal.

The judge ruled that the right to privacy and free exercise of religion prevented the government from banning consensual intimate behavior in the privacy of people's homes, which is what he called the type of cohabitation that the family had. He said that Utah's polygamy law, by banning people from even living and speaking as if they were in a plural marriage, had been drafted specifically to address those Mormons who disagreed with the LDS Church's decision to ban polygamy and therefore discriminated against a specific religious group. Any law discriminating against a specific religious, racial, gender, etc., group needs to subjected to heightened scrutiny to see if it promotes a compelling government interest, and since most laws fail to meet a test of hightened scrutiny, this law failed as well.

This thread is not about Same-Sex Marriage! Nor it about laws banning pedophilia, rape, bestiality, or any other sexual activity where someone is abused or unable to give adult consent. Actually, I am interested in instead comparing it to laws that criminalize adultery (which still exist in some parts of the US).

Adultery is grounds to initiate divorce proceedings everywhere. But in some places it is actually a criminal offense that can be punished by fines or imprisonment. In the US military, which has its own code of laws, a soldier can be legally punished for having sex with someone other than his/her spouse even if the soldier's spouse consents to being in an "open marriage." The military justifies this law with the maintaining of order and discipline. If an open marriage leads to jealousy and divorce, or if it causes scandal on a base, it can harm the order, morale, and cohesiveness of the troops.

I think that laws criminalizing consensual adultery fall into the same category as laws banning consensual non-legal polygamy and should be overturned wherever they exist outside of the military. As for in the military, the order and discipline argument already allows for people's freedom of speech to be curtailed while in the military (ie, you have the support the mission and keep secrets or you can be legally punished). I am not sure if this argument also means that soldiers' right to privacy also should be infringed upon.

Are there any other non-homosexuality cases where the issues touched upon by this polygamy case can apply?

Note that this case and this discussion has nothing to do with allowing people to legally marry more than one person. It is about private behavior among consensual adults and the freedom to be open about what you believe your private behavior represents - but not about homosexuality because it's a dead horse and not what I'm interested in discussing here. So be careful in your replies!
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
I think the judge is correct. The law has no business telling me who I can live with or sleep with, given always that we're talking about consenting adults. Nor can I see any compelling interest that makes banning free speech in this area NOT a violation of what's left of the First Amendment.
 
Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :
 
I've been wondering about this for some time. After all, traditional Islam endorses men having up to four wives (though it appears that a woman can't have four husbands), and there are many practicing Muslims in the US. What arrangements do polygamous Muslims make for themselves? Are Wives 2, 3, and/or 4, assuming consensual relationships, considered "married" solely in the religious sense, and not in any legal one?

I do wonder, though, whether laws against bigamy don't infringe on the First Amendment rights of religious groups endorsing plural marriage.
 
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
I disagree with two things on this. First that the issue with plural marriage and polygamy is really about religion or morality. Second, that there are no effects.

I'm on mobile as I type this, so I may not format very well, but the second issue is the effect on the actual parties involved, particularly the women and children. The Supreme Court of British Columbia (Canadian province of) found
quote:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/canada-s-polygamy-laws-upheld-by-b-c-supreme-court-1.856480
"I have concluded that this case is essentially about harm," Bauman wrote in the decision that was handed down Wednesday morning in Vancouver.

'I have concluded that this case is essentially about harm.'
— B.C. Chief Justice Robert Bauman
"More specifically, Parliament’s reasoned apprehension of harm arising out of the practice of polygamy. This includes harm to women, to children, to society and to the institution of monogamous marriage."

But he suggested the law shouldn’t be used to criminalize minors who find themselves married into polygamous unions.

So the courts shouldn't tell you who to sleep with unless the person does not consent. And they should prevent abuse of women and children.

Consider: most of these polygamists are older men marrying young women, and even if they start young and marry like-aged women (or teenage girls as I understood it when Canada was reporting about the fundamentalist Mormons), children married to children at the start, and then the boy grows up to marry teenagers, often not really willing teenage girls who haven't really consented.

Prevent harm, that's the key issue.
 
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
You shouldn't ignore the harm to the young men who cannot find partners, and the harm to society caused by having a cohort of young men about who know that they cannot find partners because their elders have cornered the market.* We aren't ordered like herd animals.

*See what is happening in India where the shortage of women is due to odd features of the birth rate. Then add in the attitude to the dominant males.
 
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
Well, what about this case, where a mature man and four educated and mature women decide that their religion encourages a man to have multiple wives and they wish to follow that path? Should they be penalized because some people will misuse the situation? Their show has heard input from the kids. As far as I could see, they are not being indoctrinated to follow this lifestyle. A number of the teenaged kids have said plainly that they don't intend to live in such a household of their own. And the parents don't have a problem with that.

As for Muslims, I have heard from a local teacher that she knew a case where the husband got separate houses for his wives and their kids. The later wives are euphemistically referred to as "sister-in-laws", and the kids as "cousins". But the kids sometimes messed up and called them brother or sister. [Snigger]
 
Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
Adults who want to be polygamous should absolutely be able to, but in the FLDS it's absolutely a harmful practice. Older men marrying very young girls (sometimes only just pubescent) and boys targets of serious abuse and even abandonment, since they are a threat to the men who want many wives. Look at the Warren Jeffs case and how much the boys suffered.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
Was the US law on polygamy about legislating morality in the first place? I had thought it was part of the political battle against the Mormon church. I had read somewhere, Wikipedia?, plural marriage existed in ither American sub-cultures as well, though not a common practice in the main.
IIRC, it was not until the Mormons proclaimed it publicly that it became officially illegal.
 
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
One case of a television family does not represent the issue at all. This is about one family. Laws and rules are set for the general case and general population. I am perfectly willing to steam roll over one unusual family's rights in the interest of the general case. Unless you can trot out a lengthy list of cases like this one. There are limits to individual rights and freedoms.
 
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :
 
What about my earlier question: Should the government be allowed to make adultery a criminal act? What about consensual (agreed upon by the spouses) adultery? Going further - could a spouse claim that an agreement between the two spouses permitting adultery means that adultery cannot be used as grounds for a divorce? (The choice of grounds in a divorce (say, adultery vs. unreconciliable differences) can affect the division of property, custody rights for children, and can also affect how easily and quickly a divorce can be obtained.) This kind of gets to the core of one of the few areas left where sexual morality that is not based on the adult human consent offered between the partners of the immediate sex act is enshrined in law.
 
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
One case of a television family does not represent the issue at all. This is about one family. Laws and rules are set for the general case and general population. I am perfectly willing to steam roll over one unusual family's rights in the interest of the general case. Unless you can trot out a lengthy list of cases like this one. There are limits to individual rights and freedoms.

Why not just use existing laws against child abuse and unlawful detention to rein in the abusers?
 
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
One case of a television family does not represent the issue at all. This is about one family. Laws and rules are set for the general case and general population. I am perfectly willing to steam roll over one unusual family's rights in the interest of the general case. Unless you can trot out a lengthy list of cases like this one. There are limits to individual rights and freedoms.

Well, then make all "pledges" for an underage person to marry upon reaching marriageable age illegal. I would also make sure the marriage age is 18 everywhere even with parental consent and even if the age of consent is lower.
 
Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :
 
I wish we could separate the issue of plural marriage from the issue of its abuses. Aren't they separable?

Certainly, underage people should not be pledged in marriage, nor should they marry. Certainly of-age people should not be compelled to marry when they might prefer to remain single, or to marry someone they don't wish to marry. These are abuses of individual liberties as broadly understood in most western cultures.

Setting aside underage arrangements and compulsion, though, what "harm" exists in plural marriage? AFAICS, if all parties in such an arrangement consent to it, the primary harm is not necessarily to the individuals or their offspring, but potentially to a system of domestic laws predicated on the pair-bond model, and to a system of inheritance laws predicated on the same pair-bond model.

Frankly, it makes my head ache to contemplate how an estate gets divvied up when a spouse dies leaving several surviving spouses and their offspring. But those are legal issues, not human rights ones, and I imagine they can be worked out.

Though it is a little offputting, I must say, that these plural marriages never seem to contemplate a female head-of-household with two or three husbands.
 
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
One case of a television family does not represent the issue at all. This is about one family. Laws and rules are set for the general case and general population. I am perfectly willing to steam roll over one unusual family's rights in the interest of the general case. Unless you can trot out a lengthy list of cases like this one. There are limits to individual rights and freedoms.

Well, then make all "pledges" for an underage person to marry upon reaching marriageable age illegal. I would also make sure the marriage age is 18 everywhere even with parental consent and even if the age of consent is lower.
Such "contracts" can't be legally enforced anyway. Even a pledge for an under-aged person to marry a certain person in a non-plural marriage in the future would not be enforceable under the law. It all gets down to people raising their children in an environment that does not promote autonomous decisions by anyone that is the problem, not plural marriage in and of itself.

Speaking of getting one's views on this subject from television, the TV news media is only going to publicize the most lurid situations where there is purported abuse. The families trying to live quietly and happily under the radar don't get much air time. We may not want to live our lives that way, but that isn't to say othjers might not make a considered choice to do so.
 
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
I'm not sure the issues are separable, mainly because the information about it indicates that it is associated with clear social evils, like the age disparity, incomplete or non consent of the girls or young women.

Adultery? Not in the same category, unless someone is being aggressive, but then we're talking about an assault.

People think and do all sorts of things they think their religion instructs, like cutting off the end of their male children's penises and mutilating the genitals of their female children's. Ww tolerate the first one, though don't fund it via the health plans in Canada, and made the second one a crime. Tolerance in the male penis cutting because the damage doesn't appear bad enough to make it illegal. Illegal in the female genital cutting because the damage is sufficient to make it worthy of prevention at the level of criminality.
 
Posted by jbohn (# 8753) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I think the judge is correct. The law has no business telling me who I can live with or sleep with, given always that we're talking about consenting adults. Nor can I see any compelling interest that makes banning free speech in this area NOT a violation of what's left of the First Amendment.

Agreed in full.

This may be a first. [Biased]

[ 18. December 2013, 19:59: Message edited by: jbohn ]
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
What about my earlier question: Should the government be allowed to make adultery a criminal act? What about consensual (agreed upon by the spouses) adultery?

Adultery is still illegal in several U.S. jurisdictions. In the only one I'm personally acquainted with, "adultery" is defined not just as sex outside of a legal marriage, but sex outside a legal marriage that contributes to that marriage's dissolution.

There's an interesting wrinkle in having adultery rate as a criminal offense, at least as far as American law goes. The Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination does not normally come in to play in purely civil trials (like divorces) unless they touch on matters which are also criminal offenses. In other words, if adultery is not a criminal offense, proving it is as simple as subpœna-ing your spouse and asking if they've ever had an affair. In states where adultery is a crime, that spouse can simply plead the Fifth.

States that still have adultery as grounds for divorce usually include a clause in their adultery statutes disallowing such claims in cases of "condonation". (Yes, that's a real legal term.) In other words, if you have your spouse's prior permission or post facto forgiveness for an adulterous act they can't change their minds later and use the adultery as grounds for a divorce.
 
Posted by pydseybare (# 16184) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:


People think and do all sorts of things they think their religion instructs, like cutting off the end of their male children's penises and mutilating the genitals of their female children's. Ww tolerate the first one, though don't fund it via the health plans in Canada, and made the second one a crime. Tolerance in the male penis cutting because the damage doesn't appear bad enough to make it illegal. Illegal in the female genital cutting because the damage is sufficient to make it worthy of prevention at the level of criminality.

I am not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure that in male circumcision the 'end of the penis' is not, actually, cut off. And whilst skin is removed in both male and female circumcision, rather more of the genital organ is removed during female genital mutilation than is removed during the snip of the foreskin.

One can function perfectly normally with a circumcised foreskin, the same cannot be said with a female 'circumcision'. Hence it is perfectly rational to seek to protect women from the latter without seeking to ban the former.
 
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
no prophet:
quote:
I'm not sure the issues are separable, mainly because the information about it indicates that it is associated with clear social evils, like the age disparity, incomplete or non consent of the girls or young women.
Could you provide a link that has the information that plural marriages are heavily weighted towards the marriage of minor girls. Thanks.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by jbohn:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I think the judge is correct. The law has no business telling me who I can live with or sleep with, given always that we're talking about consenting adults. Nor can I see any compelling interest that makes banning free speech in this area NOT a violation of what's left of the First Amendment.

Agreed in full.

This may be a first. [Biased]

Also agreed. The apocalypse may well be nigh, all we need is a fourth horseman.
 
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Could you provide a link that has the information that plural marriages are heavily weighted towards the marriage of minor girls. Thanks.

There's plenty of data, I realize you and some others are sceptical and promoting of individual rights. I say they are secondary and should in some situations be curtailed.

quote:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/diary-of-flds-leader-recounts-marriages-to-12-year-old-bc-girls/article5 74515/
the now-jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs called two men in Bountiful, B.C., and told them to bring their 12-year-old daughters to the United States to be wed, according to passages from Mr. Jeffs's diaries presented in a B.C. court Tuesday.

Mr. Jeffs, who was in his late 40s or early 50s at the time and already married to dozens of women, told the men the girls would become his new wives.

quote:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/a-polygamous-society-is-always-wrong-lawyer-tells-landmark-trial/article 589432/
“A polygamous society consumes its young. It arms itself with instruments of abuse and shields itself behind institutions of secrecy, insularity and control. It depresses every known indicator of women’s equality. It is antidemocratic, anti-egalitarian, antiliberal and antithetical to the proper functioning of any modern, rights-based society.”...

Some critics of the law have argued polygamous marriages should only be outlawed if they involve abuse, coercion or exploitation. Mr. Jones rejected that argument.

“These societal harms are felt regardless of whether any particular polygamous relationship is good or bad,” he told the court.

Here's another with some background of the situation in Canada: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-s-polygamy-legislation-1.856477

So I say back to you and the supporters of "don't tell me who and how many I can marry or sleep with" side of the debate, show me data that says polygamy is without harm. The conclusion is that polygamy is sexist, exploitive of women and children, in the situations where it is practiced. This is different from young adult promiscuity, which this is not at all about. If you're a young person and you locate someone on a dating/sex site, and both of you want to do whatever, and you have brief bangs with one or more people, that's another debate. The polyamory idea is also another topic. This is about something else.

[ 19. December 2013, 01:42: Message edited by: no prophet ]
 
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
Thanks for the leg-work. The articles are interesting, but they don't tell us much but that communities of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are abusive, which we already know, and statements that most polygamous relationships are inherently abusive which is asserted but not backed up.

Again, perhaps we wouldn't want to live like that, but adults with some effort can make different choices. And if they are held against their will without choice, that is another legal issue for which the law has remedies. If children are forced into marriage, that is against the law, too. We should use the laws that are specifically against known abuse. Frankly, "protecting women" by blocking a relationship choice sounds like they are being infantilized by the law.
 
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
I don't know Lyda. When they are infants we need to protect them, not marry them off. I don't know that we have polygamy outside of Mormon sects. I know Islam get raised as authorizing polygamy, but I haven't located a case of this in western countries. I suspect it might also be abusive. I have real trouble with odd readings of religious texts that people want to use to justify their behaviour. Women and children in most of the texts are essentially objects and bit players and we never hear about how they felt about anything. They just bear children, while the goats and sheep do the same.
 
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
I don't know that we have polygamy outside of Mormon sects.

It exists, although it's not that common. Earlier this year it hit the headlines when a little girl, Alanna Gallagher, was abducted, raped and murdered. Alanna's mother was/is in a polyandrous relationship with two men, one of which was her legal husband, and Alanna considered both men her fathers.

[ 19. December 2013, 03:34: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]
 
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
The age disparity in polygamy is a product of simple mathematics. In most societies, there is a roughly equal number of males and females at birth. Unless this is seriously upset by subsequent events - especially excess deaths of boys and young men through disease, wars or similar, there will not be an excess of women available for men to practice polygyny, the usual form of polygamy, which we have been discussing*. Thus, any man wanting to practice polygyny will need to look for younger wives. The more wives are sought, the younger the women involved will be. In societies where females are under-represented for various reasons, this would be even more dramatic. (I'm not sure if there is a favouring of boys in the Yemen, but this is a place where over young girls are married, and then may die in too early pregnancies.)
*Historically, one way in which the men concerned made sure of an excess of women was to remove other men from the market by establishing castes of eunuchs or celibates - the former is obviously not available in modern societies. This would obviously have flattened the age range of women available.

[ 19. December 2013, 06:53: Message edited by: Penny S ]
 
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
The age disparity in polygamy is a product of simple mathematics. In most societies, there is a roughly equal number of males and females at birth. Unless this is seriously upset by subsequent events - especially excess deaths of boys and young men through disease, wars or similar, there will not be an excess of women available for men to practice polygyny, the usual form of polygamy, which we have been discussing*. Thus, any man wanting to practice polygyny will need to look for younger wives. The more wives are sought, the younger the women involved will be. In societies where females are under-represented for various reasons, this would be even more dramatic. (I'm not sure if there is a favouring of boys in the Yemen, but this is a place where over young girls are married, and then may die in too early pregnancies.)
*Historically, one way in which the men concerned made sure of an excess of women was to remove other men from the market by establishing castes of eunuchs or celibates - the former is obviously not available in modern societies. This would obviously have flattened the age range of women available.

Great. So don't let anyone legally marry more than one person. If a married couple start living with someone else and have kids with them too and call themselves a family, who is to stop them? How would you stop them?

Plus, LGBT people who enter relationships with people of the same sex alter the mathematics of this a little bit, don't they? We're talking about the laws here in the West, not in Yemen.

As for Yemen, raise the age of consent and the marriage age to 18 and enforce it very strictly. That's easier said than done, though, in a country that has spent most of the last century with either a civil war or an armed insurgency, and where Al Qaeda-esque groups frequently take justice into their own hands.
 
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
The polyamory idea is also another topic. This is about something else.

As long as someone can only legally be married to one other person, how can you ban polygamy/polygyny while still allowing polyamory? Do you have to ask more than 2 adults cohabiting and raising kids together whether they are doing so out of a religious belief in polygamy or not? Does it seem fair to only go after the households with one man and more than one woman?

[unlike these speculative households, UBB tags always go strictly in pairs: I have made it so]

[ 19. December 2013, 18:48: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
As long as someone can only legally be married to one other person, how can you ban polygamy/polygyny while still allowing polyamory?

I fear I don't understand this question because the answer to the question as asked is mindbogglingly simple: you don't issue marriage licenses to any more than 2 people per, and then you don't regulate who lives with or has sex with whom. Boom. You have legally mandated maximum-2-person marriage, but allowed polyamory.
 
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
And you ensure young girls don't marry old men.
 
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
As long as someone can only legally be married to one other person, how can you ban polygamy/polygyny while still allowing polyamory?

I fear I don't understand this question because the answer to the question as asked is mindbogglingly simple: you don't issue marriage licenses to any more than 2 people per, and then you don't regulate who lives with or has sex with whom. Boom. You have legally mandated maximum-2-person marriage, but allowed polyamory.
But I thought what no prophet was saying (which s/he seems to indicate now was not what s/he was saying) was that you can't even allow a man to live in a house with multiple women and call them his wives while only being legally married to one of them. This was because of the danger it will be used to marry young girls to old men, perpetuate particuarly cruel forms of patriarchy, and create subcultures where young men who cannot get wives are ostracized. So I thought no prophet was in favor of banning even the "performance" of polygamy (like the part of the Utah law that was overturned) not just the legal reality of someone marrying more than one person. That's why I was asking, if you ban polygamous cohabitation (not just marrying more than one person) for older religious men and younger religious women, how can also avoid not banning it for young hippie polyamorous people living with other young hippie polyamorous people?
 
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
And you ensure young girls don't marry old men.

Could you please read my reply to mousethief above and clarify exactly what kind of law you support?
 
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
One that prevents harm. The law in Canada, which I support, prevents these religious nuts from marrying teenagers when they are 2 and 3 times their ages. It also triggers examination of the kids of such families to ensure they are not in need of protection. Many laws in Canada do not outline rights the way Americans expect them. No one has a right to do something that harms someone else. I am for laws that protect children and the vulnerable. Here, the police and child protection would make a judgement that someone is endangered by the behaviour, which is what happened in BC with the fundamentalist Mormons. Someone in a like-aged polyamorous relationship, or non-married polygamous common law relationship would be untouched by the criminal code. Except if they were harming children, which includes the children's psychological wellbeing, which is a judgement of Child Protection and can be discussed and reviewed in family court.
 
Posted by gorpo (# 17025) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
As long as someone can only legally be married to one other person, how can you ban polygamy/polygyny while still allowing polyamory?

I fear I don't understand this question because the answer to the question as asked is mindbogglingly simple: you don't issue marriage licenses to any more than 2 people per, and then you don't regulate who lives with or has sex with whom. Boom. You have legally mandated maximum-2-person marriage, but allowed polyamory.
That would be cruel for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th "wives"... They are allowed to live as if they were spouses, but not get the legal recognition like the 1st spouse has. And if the legal definition of marriage has changed enough to allow unions between two persons of the same sex, it makes absolutely no sense why it cannot change in order to include unions between more then 2 persons.
 
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
Let them marry, but when they start messing up the children, then we get excited. Oh, when do they not mess up the children? Ah yes.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by gorpo:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
As long as someone can only legally be married to one other person, how can you ban polygamy/polygyny while still allowing polyamory?

I fear I don't understand this question because the answer to the question as asked is mindbogglingly simple: you don't issue marriage licenses to any more than 2 people per, and then you don't regulate who lives with or has sex with whom. Boom. You have legally mandated maximum-2-person marriage, but allowed polyamory.
That would be cruel for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th "wives"... They are allowed to live as if they were spouses, but not get the legal recognition like the 1st spouse has. And if the legal definition of marriage has changed enough to allow unions between two persons of the same sex, it makes absolutely no sense why it cannot change in order to include unions between more then 2 persons.
I still don't get it. If these people are all doing this of their own free will, why is it any of my business or the state's?
 
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on :
 
The problem with applying current marriage law to plural legal marriages (ie, one person marrying multiple people (as in the polygamy discussed, where the multiple wives are not married to each other but they are all married to the same man) or multiple people all marrying each other (so if there is one man and multiple wives, they are not only all wives of the same man it also wives of each other)) - the problem with working this into the framework of marriage law is that divorce proceedings with division of property and child custody decisions are bound to become so complicated which each additional spouse that at some point the state has an interest in limiting the kinds of marriage contracts that people can enter into. I am all for people doing whatever they want as long as it's consensual, non-abusive, and among adults, but I haven't seen a legal framework for plural marriage that is both egalitarian for all spouses and manages to avoid a legal nightmare in the case that someone leaves the marriage.
 
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
I haven't seen a legal framework for plural marriage that is both egalitarian for all spouses and manages to avoid a legal nightmare in the case that someone leaves the marriage.

Is that so hard? Children of the plural family are owed support by all adult members - splitting support amongst N people isn't much harder than splitting it between two.

Then you either begin with the marital property assumption (all property is split N ways, so one person leaving such a marriage takes 1/N of the property), or you begin with the individual property assumption (each person takes out what he put in). Then, as in existing divorces, you tweak for equity (if for example one spouse gave up work to raise the family's children, you give him a share of the pension funds owned by the working spouses).

Yes, there's more arithmetic, but I'm not sure that the legal principles are really any different.
 
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :
 
In principle there is no reason why plural marriages shouldn't be legal. In practice it's a lot more complex than allowing equal marriage for gay or mixed race couples. Custody of children is going to be problematic. If all co-parents adopt all children of a plural marriage, and one (or even both, potentially) of the biological parents leaves the family, is custody of the children going to be even more tricky to resolve? Are there any issues with allowing more than 2 people to be the legal parents of a child? Are plural marriages a selection of overlapping bilateral relationships or are they a group relationship? Is there even only one answer to that question? Surely any legal framework will require at least 2 models; one where one partner leaving dissolves the partnership and the other members must form a new partnership without them, and one in which each member has a relationship with one or more of the other members and a member leaving only affects the relationships with that member.

I think for the sake of those people who are in polyamorous relationships, particularly those with children, a legal framework for registering those relationships should be put in place, but it's going to be a lot more complicated than the stroke-of-a-pen solution that removes the barriers to equal marriage for couples.
 


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