What exactly Is Wrong with Polygamy anyway?

[Morley]

The same exact legal status they'd have in a monogamous legal system. I really don't see how there'd be any legal problems at all. Clearly both members of a married couple would have to consent before either one of them took a second spouse, but other than that the three-way marriage between Albert, Beth, and Charles could he treated legally as two separate two-way marriages, one between Albert and Beth, and one between Beth and Charles. What problems would arise from such a three-way marriage?

Of course, since Charles is only married to Beth, he could have his own polygamous marriage with Darla.

[Marcus]

The same exact legal status they'd have in a monogamous legal system. I really don't see how there'd be any legal problems at all. Clearly both members of a married couple would have to consent before either one of them took a second spouse, but other than that the three-way marriage between Albert, Beth, and Charles could he treated legally as two separate two-way marriages, one between Albert and Beth, and one between Beth and Charles. What problems would arise from such a three-way marriage?

Of course, since Charles is only married to Beth, he could have his own polygamous marriage with Darla.

he could, but “…the three-way marriage between Albert, Beth, and Charles could he treated legally as two separate two-way marriages, one between Albert and Beth, and one between Beth and Charles.”

Lol. Except that in addition to Albert’s “separate” marriage and Charles’ “separate” marriage, Beth is now legally married to both Albert and Charles. And so Beth is now a bigamist. So sure, no “legal problems at all.”

[KevinSim]

Marriage is meant to be a picture of Christ and the church. Polygamy would equate to whoring after other gods or idolatry. That is about all I have to say.

MsNobody, are you saying you don't want me to respond?

[KevinSim]

Huckelberry, if there's no way to practice polygamy without some enormous evil happening, and if things would be greatly better for everyone if polygamy wasn't practiced, then polygamy is inherently wrong. If the enormous evil was just from the way certain people practiced polygamy in the past, and the possibility exists that by tweaking the model, polygamy can be set up that doesn't have that enormous evil, then polygamy is not inherently wrong. Does that clear things up?

If my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bike.

Drumdude, what is that supposed to mean?

[KevinSim]

If it really is inherently inequitable, wouldn't it be that inequitable whether the man in question is married to the second woman or not? In other words, is there some difference in equity between a man married to two women, and a man married to one woman who is also carrying on a long term affair? And if there is no difference in equity, why is the former illegal and the latter legal?

You are equating inequity with legality, which is not how the terms equitable and inequitable are being used in this conversation. It is a specious comparison.

Marcus, what have I said that makes you think I am equating inequity with legality?

[Marcus]

You are equating inequity with legality, which is not how the terms equitable and inequitable are being used in this conversation. It is a specious comparison.

Marcus, what have I said that makes you think I am equating inequity with legality?

I am happy to explain.

You were making an argument about inequity:

If it really is inherently inequitable…

You then followed with this:

And if there is no difference in equity, why is the former illegal and the latter legal?

The language of your question above implies that there cannot be a difference in equity unless there is a difference in legality.

By using that language, you equated equity with legality.

However, the terms “equitable and inequitable” and “legal and illegal” are not being used interchangeably in this conversation, nor are they typically used interchangeably. It is not a valid argument, given the commonly accepted definitions of the terms, and particularly in a conversation such as this.

Really, though, I’d like to get back to the physics guys’ points, I think he’s had the most salient comments:

The word for one person having exactly two spouses at once is bigamy. Polygamy normally implies a larger number, perhaps even unlimited. And it wasn't clear from your initial post that you were ruling out more than three in a marriage. Your mentions of a man marrying two wives just seemed like an example.

Why are you thinking of stopping at two wives, though? If two would be fine, what would be wrong with three or more? If three would be too many, why are you sure that two would not be?

I find it hard to believe that you don't see the legal difficulties in modern polygamy. How hard have you really thought this through? How much do you know about family law? About parenting?

Part of what makes family law complicated is that although the law does not care whether adults sleep with each other, the law does try to protect rights of children. What relationships do you imagine between half-siblings or between stepchildren and their parent's non-parental spouse? What legal status would you assign to these relationships?

What legal status do you imagine this legalised bigamy to involve at all, actually? It's not a crime nowadays for a man to sleep part-time with two different women, and even have children with them both. So what would be the difference between that kind of arrangement without any polygamous marriage, and a polygamous marriage? How could that difference be significant enough to be worth anyone having, and yet not be significantly more legally complicated than monogamous marriage?

[honorentheos]

On this forum every once in a while someone will mention polygamy in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as if that's a guaranteed way of scoring points against that church.

I would say the guaranteed way of scoring points against the Church is to look at the details of how Joseph Smith practiced "polygamy." I put "polygamy" in scare quotes, because his relationships with women other that with Emma weren't really marriages. Consider:

• He lied to Emma about being in most of these "marriages"
• He manipulated the girls with promises of salvation for their entire families and the threat that Joseph would die by a flaming sword if she didn't do it. But hey! It's your choice!
• He publicly denied that these relationships even existed

That isn't marriage. In our culture (and in Joseph Smith's), being "married" means you are publicly committed to somebody with the implicit understanding that you don't hit on people who are married, that you don't sleep around if you are married, and that the married couple is responsible for the children they have.

That is not what Joseph Smith did.

For what it's worth, I think you nailed it with the comments above.

[KevinSim]

As an example of the misleading nature of your cut and pasting, the rest of my post you truncated above explains my point:

Marcus, it would indeed be misleading, if I had actually been talking about polyamory. My best recollection is that I didn't respond to the bolded sections because I wasn't totally convinced I was talking abiut polyamory. Perhaps I should have stated that instead of just ignoring those sections. Marcus, can you explain to me why you think I'm talking about polyamory?

[KevinSim]

And, as you should know, power corrupts. A polygamous man always abuses his harem in some way or another. Always.

If power really does always corrupt, then the problem isn't polygamy; it's patriarchy. The problem is that the husband has more power than his wife has, or wives have. If in a three-way marriage all spouses have equal power, the problem would go away.

You certainly appear to be arguing against monogamy for single women.

No; if they're single, that means they haven't found a spouse yet. Which means the odds are against them. There's a good chance they will never get married. So I'm not against monogamy for them; I'm against a legal system that keeps a large fraction of them from getting married at all. Or are you talking about single twenty-year-old women? Their chances of getting married are better than the chances of all single women taken together. And after all, who cares about single women who are older than 35, right?

[KevinSim]

And if there is no difference in equity, why is the former illegal and the latter legal?

The language of your question above implies that there cannot be a difference in equity unless there is a difference in legality.

No it doesn't. Manetho was implying that polygamy shouldn't be legal because it wasn't equitable. I was simply saying it was (or at least could be) equitable, and therefore asked Manetho why it shouldn't be legal. That doesn't mean I was equating equity with legality.