When ever polygamy is talked about it always seems to center around the FLDS clan in Short Creek. Seldom is the polygamist group in Centenial Park (located a few mile from Short Creek) seems to have been able to come up with much better implementation of polygamy. Where girls can be promised at 16 but can not be married until they are 18 years old. A few weeks ago, DateLine NBC did a report on the polygamist of Centenial Park.
I hardly see this as eliminating the problems. It helps with the child abuse/rape issue but there is certainly much more than this!
Where FLDS are the post child for what's wrong with polygamy, the Centenial Park polygamist would be the poster child of how well a polygamist community can work.
Similarly to how there were kind slave holders and cruel slave holders. Shall we hold the good ones up as the ideal?
Ths institution of the harem is not in the best interest of children, women, men, society, or the world. Even the best case scenario is not what is healthiest for humankind.
Some polygamist groups may have over come the problems of underage marriages. So should we give the CP polys a break. Or is the mentality here "the only good polygamist is a dead polygamist".
Personally, if there are ADULT, consenting folks who have not experienced coercion, manipulation, and isolation, and who have the freedom to mate as they wish, who want to engage in whatever form of alternative partnering they desire, then I have no problem with it so long as children are not hurt, (which I think they are in the vast majority of polygamous situations).
If polygamy was to become legal, then what would the ground rules need to be?
First, I do not think multiple partnering should be legal due to the complete mess it would create for the legal system, and more importantly the horror it would create for children.
Having said that...
WOMEN as well as men should have the same rights... I do not see the possibility of the laws changing so only men get multiple legal partners.
There should be education and information, freedom, and lack of coercion, manipulation, and isolation.
There should be clear rules regarding all things legal, (again this would be a total mess).
(Take a woman marrying several men who each want to marry several women, who have children all over the place wondering who and where their family is, courts not knowing who is responsible, partners wanting child support after divorce, etc. etc. etc.)
Under no circumstances should children be allowed to marry.
How is that for starters? ;-)
~dancer~