We already have a thread discussing gay marriage, but I made this separate thread to discuss a separate corollary issue. Donald Rumsfield is in the press right now for claiming that gay marriage wil lead to polygamy, and I'm having a hard time with a logical argument counter to his claim. I think my posting track record in clear support of gay-marriage is pretty clear (and that is not the issue of this thread), but why can those same arguments not be applied to polygamy?

If multiple consenting adults want to get married, why should that not be allowed?

(please don't confuse this thread as my support of polygamy, its intent is to be a place to discuss arguments about it. IMO the solution is to remove the government from all marriage entirely, but that is not going to happen)

AFTER GAY MARRIAGE, WHY NOT POLYGAMY?
http://www.vice.com/read/after-gay-marriage-why-not-polygamy

5/23/2013 9:28:05 AM

A)I don't see the connection between allowing same sex-marriages and allowing polygamy. Marriage could be defined as a contract between 2 people.
B)Aside from the logistics of all of our systems that only have 2 slots for married partners, I see no valid argument against outlawing polygamy.

5/23/2013 9:41:41 AM

Well I think you start getting into the question of "what is marriage and why do we have it". To me marriage is to handle things like joint property ownership, custodianship, etc. Polygamy just makes that more confusing. I guess I would be fine with it, but they should have to pay for the additional complications that it makes.

5/23/2013 9:44:10 AM

Quote :

"A)I don't see the connection between allowing same sex-marriages and allowing polygamy. Marriage could be defined as a contract between 2 people."

the connection is that the distinction is pretty arbitrary. why 2 people? why not only 1 man and 1 woman?

5/23/2013 9:47:12 AM

Contracts are usually between two parties.

5/23/2013 10:05:03 AM

that's not a very good argument. two-party contracts are between 2 people, plenty of contracts involve more.

5/23/2013 10:13:42 AM

Most are between two people, that makes it less arbitrary.

5/23/2013 10:22:16 AM

i doubt that's true

5/23/2013 10:30:17 AM

Are three people joining together in the same contract at the same time or is a man joining different people in different contracts over a period of time?

5/23/2013 10:32:53 AM

i see no reason it could not be multiple two-person contracts, if contracts are an issue.

5/23/2013 10:36:32 AM

I would assume after two people marry and one of them would like to enter into marriage with another the initial person would have to agree.

5/23/2013 10:40:38 AM

Not saying I'm in favor or against polygamy, but I want to point out the significant legal jump going from gay marriage to multi-person marriage.

The problem is that the legal code isn't really setup to handle multiple spouses right now. Gay marriage was pretty straight forward, but when you start multiplying the number of folks involved, you have to really start rethinking issues like property inheritance, power of attorney, taxes, etc. What happens for example if first wife wants to do one thing but second and third wife disagree? Does the child of first husband have precedence over children of second or third husband?

Yes, you can have pre-nups and other pre-negotiated agreements, but even those can still become messy fast even if they're air tight, and unlike two-person marriage, you won't have a wide body of legal precedence to fall back on.

Personally, I think maybe it's time to just remove marriage as much as possible from the legal system and simply set up a sort of package "power of attorney" type thing you can grant whomever you choose.

5/23/2013 10:44:31 AM

^^it would depend how the first contract is written

[Edited on May 23, 2013 at 10:45 AM. Reason : f]

5/23/2013 10:45:04 AM

Honestly if this happens I see less than 1% of the population using it.

I would also assume it would be abused by predetorary people.

I'm indifferent.

5/23/2013 10:49:02 AM

Quote :

"but when you start multiplying the number of folks involved, you have to really start rethinking issues like property inheritance, power of attorney, taxes, etc. What happens for example if first wife wants to do one thing but second and third wife disagree? Does the child of first husband have precedence over children of second or third husband?"

but those things already have been thought about. families involve multiple people and all of those issues already apply to them. additionally, people have been forming trusts for a long time and often use them to do things like purchase homes together, there is no reason a multiple-person marriage couldn't operate like a trust.

[Edited on May 23, 2013 at 11:20 AM. Reason : ^much less, about 500,000 "couples" now]

5/23/2013 11:19:25 AM

Quote :

"Most are between two people, that makes it less arbitrary."

I think these alone will swamp the count:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-user_license_agreement

5/23/2013 11:29:12 AM

Quote :

"there is no reason a multiple-person marriage couldn't operate like a trust"

What about child custody?

Additionally this poses a huge potential for abuse when it comes to benefits, as you could marry a huge group of people and receive all of their social security, insurance, medicare, disability, pension, etc.

Quote :

"I think these alone will swamp the count: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-user_license_agreement"

Those are still between two parties, the licensee and the licenser. If you by a peice of software that I already own, you don't become a part of my contract, mine is still the same, you just have the same agreement with the same person, but they are still between two people.

[Edited on May 23, 2013 at 11:35 AM. Reason : ]

5/23/2013 11:31:53 AM

child custody is not any more clear-cut or easy to decide with 2 parties, so i'm not sure that's a good reason.

i'm not sure why the benefits are an issue. those benefits would still be paid if the respective parties each had a separate spouse, why does the person paying the benefits care if they go to the same person?

5/23/2013 11:42:06 AM

Why can't people love each other without the legal system is the real question. Are you that afraid of divorce?

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

5/23/2013 12:16:16 PM

for things like power of attorney where you want one authority then the person who is incapacitated could specify a list of people in order. idk why that would be specific to polygamy either.

if you're filing jointly than each separate income increases your tax burden and any joint benefits are split between the filing members. or have people pair off or file individually. not hard.

for insurance its just adding another member to the family which increases premium costs. likewise when benefits for that insurance are paid out they are distributed to the remaining members.

obviously you'd want to codify all of this in law and private contracts and while the individual changes are probably pretty simple, getting them done all at once would be harder.

but I agree with this

Quote :

"Personally, I think maybe it's time to just remove marriage as much as possible from the legal system and simply set up a sort of package "power of attorney" type thing you can grant whomever you choose."

removing marriage as a legal and governmental contract and replacing it with something more flexible and useful would be the superior option.

5/23/2013 12:22:16 PM

Getting gov out of marrriage has a certain appeal. And it may help address this issue as well eventually.

I think getting rid of amendment 1s, Prop 8s, DOMAs, and those sort of bans for same-sex couples is a step in the right direction of getting the government less involved. I'm fine with the government getting out of the marriage business completely as an ultimate goal if that's where our society ends up, and just letting people sign what contracts they want, and churches do what they want, that's certainly one path to equality.

But that's not going to happen in my lifetime, although marriage equality under the law for same-sex couples is more of a likelihood. And until government is out of the marriage business entirely, it's still going to be tied to hospital visitation, inheritance, immigration, property rights, insurance, being able to change your name, and so many other things in our society, not just taxes, so I'm glad to see so many politicians, states, and countries moving towards the freedom to marry so fast these days.

5/23/2013 12:53:14 PM

right, so why should those things not be applied to polygamy?

5/23/2013 1:10:15 PM

Why even ask that question? What's wrong with polygamy?

5/23/2013 1:13:26 PM

i can't find a logical argument against it, hence this thread

5/23/2013 1:16:34 PM

^^

In societies with high inequality you end up with young men with raging hormones and no one to fuck. This leads to suicide vests (middle east) or rampant drug abuse (utah).

I generally am ok with it philosophically, but I think there may be practical arguments against; even if it's a little slippery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_boys_(Mormon_fundamentalism)

[Edited on May 23, 2013 at 1:27 PM. Reason : a]

5/23/2013 1:26:51 PM

Hmph, I always wondered why it was so easy to get good weed here.

5/23/2013 4:17:04 PM