Sentient alien - human marriages?

roguenuke said:

Okay, so I did ask this in another thread and it seems like a pretty interesting topic to discuss with allusions to how we view marriage.

So, if we found out that there are sentient aliens out there who come to Earth for whatever reasons, would it be okay for them to marry humans legally and what restrictions would you put on them and why.

Trekkies can look at as a Vulcan/human marriage. Or perhaps you prefer Alien Nation point of view, where they have no choice but to be here (since they crashed) and have become citizens themselves of our countries.

Would you insist they be citizens of the country? Would you insist on male/female pairings only? Would you insist they be able to procreate with us? Would you push to make all such relationships illegal?

And for all those who don't believe in aliens, either put aside your disbelief and pretend, or don't comment. The assumption is stated that there are sentient aliens as part of the thread idea and is necessary for progression of the thread.

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The issue would honestly strike me as being about on par with bestiality, or something similar. It's highly unlikely that an alien organism would even possess the physical features human beings find attractive (and vice versa), so I imagine that normal people probably wouldn't be lining up to jump its bones anyway.

However, where those rare perverted souls who inevitably would be interested in such liaisons are concerned, I don't see a particular problem with it.

It would be a pointless union (given the fact that reproduction would almost certainly be physically impossible), and I get the definite impression that most religions would probably frown upon the practice. However, given the fact that both parties seem to be able to give informed consent, there wouldn't be much of anything people could do to prevent such relationships from occurring on a legal basis.

I wouldn't recognize it as a real "marriage" per se, but I wouldn't have any problem with granting such couples the legal rights and protections afforded to most other unions (with the possible exception of adoption, of course).

sawyerloggingon said:

Were this day ever to come it would make the current gay marriage debate a foot note in history. I think the issue would go well beyond marriage and be about procreation itself. This would change the human race and create an entirely now species and the genetic implications of this as far as new diseases or syndromes would have to be studied for years. More importantly it would run the risk of creating whole new reasons for prejudice and race superiority issues. I could see riots and even wars over the issue.

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Not quite. The chances that a human being and an alien organism from a completely different biosphere would even possess mutually compatible genitalia, let alone be able to successfully reproduce using natural means, are slim to none.

You'd frankly have a better chance of getting a flower pregnant, if for no other reason than that the flower and yourself happen to have evolved on the same planet. :lol:

LOL, as long as all parties involved are consenting adults I honestly don't give a fat flying fig who marries who... period! :lol:

sawyerloggingon said:

Were this day ever to come it would make the current gay marriage debate a foot note in history. I think the issue would go well beyond marriage and be about procreation itself. This would change the human race and create an entirely now species and the genetic implications of this as far as new diseases or syndromes would have to be studied for years. More importantly it would run the risk of creating whole new reasons for prejudice and race superiority issues. I could see riots and even wars over the issue.

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As a Mormon, I believe more literally than most other Christians that God created us in his image and likeness. I also believe that he has created other worlds. It stands to reason, then, that the people of these other worlds would also have been created after God's likeness and image, and would therefore be very similar to us, likely even being the same species. If this is truly the case, then there would be no issue with these aliens intermarrying and interbreeding with us.

The definition of a species, by the way, is based on the ability of two organisms to sexually mate, and produce offspring who are capable of further mating and reproducing. There are many instances in which similar, but different species are able to mate and produce offspring, but those offspring are of limited fertility, if they are fertile at all.


That aside, if the inhabitants of another world were not created by our God, in his own image, just as we were, then it is to be expected that they would be significantly different from us, almost certainly incapable of interbreeding with us, and there's a good chance that the parts wouldn't even fit.

roguenuke said:

Okay, so I did ask this in another thread and it seems like a pretty interesting topic to discuss with allusions to how we view marriage.

So, if we found out that there are sentient aliens out there who come to Earth for whatever reasons, would it be okay for them to marry humans legally and what restrictions would you put on them and why.

Trekkies can look at as a Vulcan/human marriage. Or perhaps you prefer Alien Nation point of view, where they have no choice but to be here (since they crashed) and have become citizens themselves of our countries.

Would you insist they be citizens of the country? Would you insist on male/female pairings only? Would you insist they be able to procreate with us? Would you push to make all such relationships illegal?

And for all those who don't believe in aliens, either put aside your disbelief and pretend, or don't comment. The assumption is stated that there are sentient aliens as part of the thread idea and is necessary for progression of the thread.

Click to expand...

Nope. In all likelihood if we discovered an alien species or if they discovered us, they would be on a totally different intelligence level than us. It might be like the difference between us and fish. There could never be any possibility of consent in that case. It would be like marrying a dog or having sex with a minor. Without having the intelligence to know what your relationship would entail, you could not have consent.

Well this would have to actually happen before I can form a final opinion.

It seems very improbable that we'd ever encounter alien sapients who were close enough to us physiologically that sexual attraction would be likely, and far more improbable that reproduction would be feasible.


But for the sake of argument, let's say it was so. Let's say the aliens were more or less humanoid, that the genitalia and sexual practices were not entirely incompatible, that there wasn't something about us that totally grossed them out or something about them that totally grossed us out, like smell or something. It's a stretch, but I suppose it is possible.


It can be tricky, marrying someone from another nationality or culture with very different customs, norms, expectations, and so on, just within the human race. I knew a guy who married a Japanese girl from a rather traditional family, and culture clash was such a problem that he said it was the primary reason they got divorced.

With aliens, I'd think it would be at least an order of magnitude worse.

If we could reproduce together, producing half-alien half-human children... there would be a lot of concerns there. Biocompatibility, allergic profiles, genetic virility (whether they'd be sterile), the possibility of incubating new dangerous diseases which neither species had natural immunity to... there would have to be careful study done.


Offhand, I'm not really leaning towards forbidding it by law. I am generally disinclined to tell others what to do with their life, as long as their actions do not impact mine substantially, or threaten to destroy the society I live in. I'd be very cautious about the notion though, and would sincerely hope that my children/grandchildren/etc didn't decide they wanted to marry an alien.

roguenuke said:

Okay, so I did ask this in another thread and it seems like a pretty interesting topic to discuss with allusions to how we view marriage.

So, if we found out that there are sentient aliens out there who come to Earth for whatever reasons, would it be okay for them to marry humans legally and what restrictions would you put on them and why.

Trekkies can look at as a Vulcan/human marriage. Or perhaps you prefer Alien Nation point of view, where they have no choice but to be here (since they crashed) and have become citizens themselves of our countries.

Would you insist they be citizens of the country? Would you insist on male/female pairings only? Would you insist they be able to procreate with us? Would you push to make all such relationships illegal?

And for all those who don't believe in aliens, either put aside your disbelief and pretend, or don't comment. The assumption is stated that there are sentient aliens as part of the thread idea and is necessary for progression of the thread.

Click to expand...

I would have no problem with it. I would have loved to get my hands, er whatever on one of those green Orion women.

I always wonder why people believe sentient alien life couldn't be very humanoid. It is just as possible as any other likelihood, and from our own experience, of high probability.

Now, it is certainly highly improbable that they would look just like us or even be able to procreate with us without help, but from scientific research, we have found certain sameness or similarities throughout living things, even things that are fairly alien to us.

Scientists estimate about 60 billion alien planets capable of supporting life in our galaxy alone.

Our galaxy could contain 60 BILLION alien planets capable of supporting life - double the number thought before | Mail Online

And chances are good that life would develop similarly on different planets that have similar atmospheres and planet characteristics as ours. And we look for planets that are like ours when we look for possible life-bearing planets.

roguenuke said:

I always wonder why people believe sentient alien life couldn't be very humanoid. It is just as possible as any other likelihood, and from our own experience, of high probability.

Now, it is certainly highly improbable that they would look just like us or even be able to procreate with us without help, but from scientific research, we have found certain sameness or similarities throughout living things, even things that are fairly alien to us.

Scientists estimate about 60 billion alien planets capable of supporting life in our galaxy alone.

Our galaxy could contain 60 BILLION alien planets capable of supporting life - double the number thought before | Mail Online

And chances are good that life would develop similarly on different planets that have similar atmospheres and planet characteristics as ours. And we look for planets that are like ours when we look for possible life-bearing planets.

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Interesting, but let's not get overly optimistic here. "Capable of supporting life" doesn't necessarily mean "capable of supporting human-like life as we know it". There are so many factors: gravity, atmospheric pressure and composition, elements present/common in the crust, radiation levels (a nonrotating tide-locked planet around a red dwarf probably would not have a magnetic field to protect against radiation like Earth), and so on.... lots of worlds could be capable of harboring "extremophile" bacteria but not any kind of life we'd be interested in doing the horizontal mambo with.

Still, if even 1% of those potentially habitable planets are actually "habitable by human-like life" that would be 600 million worlds in our galaxy.... quite a few.

Goshin said:

Interesting, but let's not get overly optimistic here. "Capable of supporting life" doesn't necessarily mean "capable of supporting human-like life as we know it". There are so many factors: gravity, atmospheric pressure and composition, elements present/common in the crust, radiation levels (a nonrotating tide-locked planet around a red dwarf probably would not have a magnetic field to protect against radiation like Earth), and so on.... lots of worlds could be capable of harboring "extremophile" bacteria but not any kind of life we'd be interested in doing the horizontal mambo with.

Still, if even 1% of those potentially habitable planets are actually "habitable by human-like life" that would be 600 million worlds in our galaxy.... quite a few.

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Oh absolutely. I would estimate even fewer than that would be truly actual life-bearing worlds at the same time as us, and then only a small percentage of that amount bearing sentient life. Earth didn't bear sentient life for the vast majority of its existence, so it isn't likely that all life would start at the same time or develop at the same rate as us.

But even if only a few thousand planets in this galaxy were to bear sentient life, it isn't beyond imagining that some if not quite a few of those lifeforms might not be humanoid, vice reptilian or insect-like or water-bound life forms or something completely unimaginable to us.