I personally have never possessed nor read a strong argument against polygamy, and I become confused when some pro-gm folks would not also support polygamy, as such individuals can never articulate their reasons.
I support both, but I can easily understand why a person might support one but not the other. The problem is that their
argumentation, based in the idea that marriage is a right or that the State has no business concerning itself with it, do not support this position. As is the case with most people and most issues of morality, their reasoning is subconscious.
This thread does not need to involve gay marriage at all. I actually believe we could have a better discussion if gay marriage were included as little as passable.
Not to drag an unwanted subject into the discussion, but if polygamous marriage is to take any form except for pure polygyny or pure polyandry-- or people committed to multiple, separate concurrent marriages-- then it would require that two or more people of the same sex be allowed to marry each other.
Indeed, this is my secondary motive for supporting homosexual marriage, right after ensuring that children raised by homosexual couples receive the benefit of having married parents.
Do you think legalized polygamy in society would affect you in any way? If so, in what way and to what degree?
It would allow me to take more than one wife legally, which is something I would like to do. If combined with same-sex marriage, it would allow me to marry one of my blood brothers and his wife or wives as well-- providing additional financial and emotional security, providing additional role models of both sexes for my children, and minimizing the disruption of my children's lives should I die before they are grown.
Do you think polygamy could help lower the divorce, juvenile crime or runaway rates; or improve academic performance?
Only marginally, unless it were accompanied by a resurgence in family values. The cultural expectations of marriage would have to be modified, and the expectations of duty between parents and children would have to be heightened. Polygamy itself would not accomplish these goals, but I think they would provide a stronger foundation for such changes.
If you can argue the polygamy brings increased economic security, how would polygamy affect the abortion rate?
I believe it would decrease the rate of abortion amongst married women. I do not think that it would have much, if any effect, on the rate of abortion among teenaged or single women.
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A general sense of fairness that most people have that everyone should be entitled to be with someone else. If men were permitted to be with multiple women, there would be an equal number of men without a spouce. It is a fight against "the survival of the fittest".
I think it is better for the species and for the psychological well-being of men that a significant number of men of every generation are bled off in violent conflict with other men. It feeds an instinctual need in the masculine psyche and if such conflict is regulated by society, it would reduce the more uncontrolled and destructive expressions of masculine territorial and hierarchical aggression.
A more moral objection. Men who take multiple spouses inherently have less time and resources to care for each additional spouse and child. Whether this actually leads to a poorer quality of life for them is another matter.
A common argument among female advocates of polygamy is that sharing the time and resources of a good man is better than having the undivided attention of a mediocre man. The argument makes sense to me, and this seems to me a decision that individual women should be allowed to make for themselves.
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However, I do not believe that civil marriage in the US is well equipped to do this. ... For technical reasons alone, trying to adopt marriage as is, to polygamy would make a legal mess.
This, I will readily agree with. It would require considerable restructuring, and despite my support for polygamy, the prospect gives me pause.
if a child biologically belongs to two of the parents, but not the 3rd (or forth...), do the other parents have legal rights?
At the risk of sounding repetitive, this is all the more reason that parentage should be separated from biology. With clear and definitive declarations of parentage, these issues are much more easily understood-- and, when necessary, decided.
If multiple adults are registered as the legal parents of a child, and there is a custody dispute, the family court should review all possible placements for the child and decide on which is most conducive to the child's well-being. While the dissolution of a polygamous marriage could very well lead to there being more than two options, it does not change the fundamental questions the court must answer.
if there are two women involved, can the non-birth mother sue to take custody away from the birth mother?
This issue arises in monogamous homosexual marriages as well. If Heather has two Mommies and they divorce, does she go with her biological mommy, the mommy who stays at home with her, or the mommy who makes more money?
if polygamy as practiced by the fundamentalist LDS church were to become legal and protected, a lot more people would be hurt, and it would be much harder to help them.
Indeed. While I have no objections to arranged marriage,
forced marriage is always bad medicine-- and the artificially high ratio of husbands to wives undermines any of the benefits of polygamous marriage that one would expect.
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What I'm envisioning, though, is a giant social network; one man, married to four women, each of whom have multiple husbands, each of whom have multiple wives, and so on. ... What would stop this from happening?
I would argue that in order to join a marriage or to add another member, it would require the consent of all people currently married-- and then, every person currently in the marriage would be married to every other person. This would mean that marrying strangers would retain an element of considerable risk, and should hopefully limit it to people who intend to live together as a family.
That's why homosexual marriage is legally necessary for my objectives.