"Big Love"

"Family of Marsupial Centaurs" by Salvator Dali 1940

 

Watching Larry King Live the other day with all these polygamy families being interviewed made me realize that perhaps I have indeed been leading a sheltered life. It's not something that we are so familiar with in New York....well not until HBO brought it into our cozy Manhattan homes with the series "Big Love". The only link I can see to anything I remotely understand is the appearance of the funky young actress Chloe Sevigny who has as much to do with polygamy in the suburbs as I do with knitting sweaters.

I did remember that the original Mormons happily practiced polygamy a 100 years ago within their own sects, but today seem to deny that they still find it an acceptable practice within certain segments of their faith.

Be that as it may, as with everything that we as bloggers write about, sometimes we land with subjects we know a lot about and sometimes like this one, virtually nothing before we start our due diligence. This is so not my subject, and frankly aside from being at the outset of my research clueless, I was still fascinated by the sheer numbers of how many polygamy sects there are in the U.S. So now of course as with everything else, I come to you with an opinion.

Charles Krauthammer wrote about this recently, which is when the subject first caught my attention, popping out of the closet like a jack in the box. It's interesting that he brings up an old line of argument which puts the polygamists, (in fact he means to say polyamorists, the practice which is actually not supported by polygamists, for the obvious reason that it gives the women the choice of having more than one husband) and gay activists in the same line of fire:

These stirrings for the mainstreaming of polygamy (or, more accurately, polyamory) have their roots in the increasing legitimization of gay marriage. In an essay 10 years ago, I pointed out that it is utterly logical for polygamy rights to follow gay rights. After all, if traditional marriage is defined as the union of (1) two people of (2) opposite gender, and if, as advocates of gay marriage insist, the gender requirement is nothing but prejudice, exclusion and an arbitrary denial of one's autonomous choices in love, then the first requirement -- the number restriction (two and only two) -- is a similarly arbitrary, discriminatory and indefensible denial of individual choice.

This line of argument makes gay activists furious. I can understand why they do not want to be in the same room as polygamists. But I'm not the one who put them there. Their argument does. Blogger and author Andrew Sullivan, who had the courage to advocate gay marriage at a time when it was considered pretty crazy, has called this the "polygamy diversion," arguing that homosexuality and polygamy are categorically different because polygamy is a mere "activity" while homosexuality is an intrinsic state that "occupies a deeper level of human consciousness."

But this distinction between higher and lower orders of love is precisely what gay rights activists so vigorously protest when the general culture "privileges" (as they say in the English departments) heterosexual unions over homosexual ones. Was "Jules et Jim" (and Jeanne Moreau), the classic Truffaut film involving two dear friends in love with the same woman, about an "activity" or about the most intrinsic of human emotions?

To simplify the logic, take out the complicating factor of gender mixing. Posit a union of, say, three gay women all deeply devoted to each other. On what grounds would gay activists dismiss their union as mere activity rather than authentic love and self-expression? On what grounds do they insist upon the traditional, arbitrary and exclusionary number of two?

What is historically odd is that as gay marriage is gaining acceptance, the resistance to polygamy is much more powerful. Yet until this generation, gay marriage had been sanctioned by no society that we know of, anywhere at any time in history. On the other hand, polygamy was sanctioned, indeed common, in large parts of the world through large swaths of history, most notably the biblical Middle East and through much of the Islamic world.[...]

As for gay marriage, I've come to a studied ambivalence. I think it is a mistake for society to make this ultimate declaration of indifference between gay and straight life, if only for reasons of pedagogy. On the other hand, I have gay friends and feel the pain of their inability to have the same level of social approbation and confirmation of their relationship with a loved one that I'm not about to go to anyone's barricade to deny them that. It is critical, however, that any such fundamental change in the very definition of marriage be enacted democratically and not (as in the disastrous case of abortion) by judicial fiat.

Call me agnostic. But don't tell me that we can make one radical change in the one-man, one-woman rule and not be open to the claim of others that their reformation be given equal respect.

I am not sure I see it the same way. To throw the bloody shirt of gay marriage into the polygamy debate is a dangerous and slippery slope. Polygamy asserts not a right to love several others but a right to marry them all. Because a marriage license is a state grant, polygamy is a matter of public policy, not just of personal preference. Polygamy is, structurally and socially, the opposite of same-sex marriage, not its equivalent.

Same-sex marriage stabilizes individuals, couples, communities, and society by extending marriage to many who now lack it. Polygamy destabilizes individuals, couples, communities, and society by withdrawing marriage from many who now have it. More than likely it only increases the weekly shrink bill, and certainly does absolutely nothing to encourage the already dwindling faith within a society which has already abandoned the idea of following the teachings of the New Testament. 

Gay marriage is more likely to be recognized eventually, whereas polygamy is likely to stay out in the cold as a part of the 'flexible partnership system' we are simply not ready to accept.

Comments

[mary]

hello miss beautiful.. i like your sense of art.
this blog is so wonderful.

[a guy in pajamas]

Hi, Stefan,

Thanks for the clarification and additional information! It's a good point that those behind the same-sex marriage movement are not exactly the same as those behind the polygamy movement. I think there are diverse groups involved, and the motivations for each group may be very different, e.g., between a Hollywood liberalizer and a Muslim polygamist, but they do seem to have found common ground in certain policies.

[Darrell]

If it supports the abolition of marriage, they are for it. The feminist writers in the 60s and 70s targeted marriage as the institution promoting the enslavement of women, the lynchpin of male domination. They were asking their "gay brothers" to push for marriage in an attempt to destroy that institution--THEIR WORDS and THOUGHTS. Why should I doubt them? Now we are starting to see quotes stating that they hadn't given much thought to polygamy, but if it hastens the demise of marriage, sure, why not? I don't fully get their logic, but I can imagine they are saying that if a young person can not instantly visualize a marriage in tradition terms(one man with one woman), they won't aspire to that goal for their life. I don't know if that is true, but it can't help. If you wanted to lessen the credibilty of the honorifics Doctor and "Father"(for a priest), I guess a good way to do it would be to let anyone use them with no restrictions, wouldn't it?

[Stefan]

Guy in Pajamas (another great moniker!!),

It is not necessarily that those that are behind the same-sex marriage movement are exactly the same but many have a found a common ground. I was speaking about those in mass media who are behind the public relations onslaught for gay marriage and other sexual liberal social policies. They also have many allies in the liberal wing of Democratic Party. The key to the policy/legal approach they have been successful in pursuing is found in the language of Lawrence vs. Texas. As Michelle Mittlestat wrote in the Dallas Morning News:
“What really sparked Justice Scalia’s ire in the sweeping Lawrence vs. Texas ruling was the determination that morality cannot be the sole justification for government to ban behaviors widely deemed immoral. “This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation,” he wrote in his dissent.
The ruling marked the Supreme Court’s most explicit step yet in creating a right to privacy in the bedroom, many legal experts say. In its wake, Justice Scalia predicted, laws banning same-sex marriage, prostitution, bigamy, incest, adultery, masturbation, bestiality and obscenity would be vulnerable.”
If there is a constitutional right to privacy then it can be easily argued that the adults in a relationship only need to be “consenting” in order to receive a constitutional level protection their relationship. There is no public judgment that can be made in regards to the number of participants, who those participants are (brother/sister for example), or if the relationship results in exchange of sex for money. If a particular relationship has a constitutional right then no the equal protection clause will be the killing blow to any policy that favors traditional marriage.
Those that support gay marriage often say they don’t favor bigamy or polygamy but don’t bet on it. That is a key to their current talking points designed to look like they are not moving the goal posts…yet. As I noted the Gay Rights movement and Hollywood are in the same camp and you can be sure that if Hollywood in starts laying the PR groundwork to make polygamy normal then you can be sure that the Gay Rights movement supports it.

[a guy in pajamas]

Alexandra,

You specifically linked Stefan, and ShrinkWrapped's (great moniker!) comments as examples of people who argued that polygamy is destabilizing. I've gone back and read them again.

In reading Stefan, he makes an explicit connection between same-sex and polygamous relationships: The tie in from gay marriage to polygamy is not a joke though. There is a group of people (a lot in the media, universities, and especially Hollywood) who are obsessed with no-holds-barred sexual liberalism and they are working their tails off to impose this on the culture. ... This life-style is packaged and sold to us on TV, through movies, music, commercials, magazines, you name it. They have sold the gay lifestyle to us for years in the hopes of mainstreaming and normalizing the behavior.

That's a fairly strong statement about homosexuality and why it has become as acceptable as it has today. He continues: They are now confident that they will eventually win through the courts and are starting to move the goalposts. “Big Love” will undoubtedly get us to like the characters and see that they are just regular people struggling through the difficulties of their lifestyle choice. We are to sympathize and accept. We are to be “compassionate”. The attempt to redefine marriage as nothing more that an arrangement made between “consenting adults” is a door that you can drive an aircraft carrier through (so to speak).

Stefan here equates same-sex marriage and polygamy, noting the salesmen (Hollywood, etc.) will attempt to get the same results from using the same methods to sell polygamy as they did with the sale of the homosexual lifestyle.

There are groups setting themselves up to ride in on the coattails of gay marriage. There is very little concern for marriage itself but rather it is being used cynically as a stamp of validation from the culture as a whole. It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

It sounds to me as if Stefan sees the reasons behind the movement for same-sex marriage as the same as those for polygamous marriage. Since we have been 'sold' on same-sex marriage, it has been 'normalized,' and the salesmen are now trying to sell polygamy. The movements to legalize both same-sex marriage and polygamy are cynically using marriage as a stamp of validation. It would seem both are part of the same wolf in sheeps clothing. Of course, maybe I have misread, in which case, Stefan, I apologize, and ask if you would, please, correct me.

Likewise, with ShrinkWrapped: ... I suspect that the same-sex marriage proponents will eventually convince most Americans that they have a good case (though I am somewhat agnostic about it; I worry about unintended consequences for society from something that may well be in the best interests of some individuals.) As far as polygamy goes, it strikes me as part of a flight from intimacy that has been going on since the 60's, when uncommitted sex and pleasure seeking began to replace fidelity and long term commitment as a prerequisite for sexual relationships.

He expresses concerns about possible unintended consequences of same-sex marriage, and his theory about the flight from intimacy towards pleasure-seeking could be equally applied to homosexuality. Again, maybe I have misread him, and if so, ShrinkWrapped, I apologize and ask you to please correct me.

In both of these posts, which you recommended as showing the destabilizing influence of polygamy, there is instead a clear link made between the movements to legalize same-sex marriage and polygamy. The moral arguments for both are the same.

Additionally, just like same-sex marriage, it doesn't take a massive movement for something, it only takes a litigious family, e.g., an American Muslim family of one husband and four wives, suing to have their marriage recognized under the law. If same-sex marriage is recognized, then the legal precedent that sets will be the key argument for those suing for recognition of polygynous / polygamous marriage.

Again, same-sex marriage in every way supports the arguments for polygamy. Given that the moral arguments are the same and that the demographic effects either for stabilization or destabilization would be negligible, it's clear that they are equivalent and related social movements and not in any sense opposites.

[a guy in pajamas]

Well, obviously, I didn't get back here yesterday. Work actually happened -- my!

Alexandra,

For the sake of clear communication, whenever and wherever I use any of the terms polygamy, polygyny, or polyandry, I will use them in accordance with their common usage, as documented by my dictionary. The common usage of the word polygamy automatically includes both polygyny and polyandry.

Of course, if you insist on defining terms by practice, then in the practice of communicating in the English language, the use of the word polygamy automatically includes the meanings of both polygyny and polyandry.

( :-D Sorry, I just had to say that!)

Alexandra: If you say that the equivalent of polygamy is same sex marriage 50 years ago, and the only reason it won't be accepted is because we don't want it to be, ... it obviously suggests that we should look upon it as progress.

Just briefly, I don't buy the progressive view of history, so the idea that some (or any) movement or event somehow represents some kind of 'progress' doesn't get any traction with me.

Back to the debate: Thanks to your explanation, I can see how polygyny would be a destabilizing factor in a nation where it was both widespread and in which women have no choice in the matter.

However, your explanation isn't relevant to the US for a simple reason*: Polygyny will never be statistically significant here. There aren't that many Americans who want that lifestyle, and those that do probably already live it. This is the same for same-sex marriage: those homosexuals who wish to have a legal marriage now are already living that life. Legalizing either same-sex marriage or polygamy will not change what is already being practiced, it will merely give it legal sanction, and in both cases, the demographic effect on the US population of 290,000,000+ will be negligible. If legalized, neither same-sex marriage nor polygamy would have any significant destabilizing influence, nor for that matter any significant stabilizing influence. Again, there is no real difference between the arguments for same-sex marriage and those for polygamy.

(*There are other reasons, like the fact that there are more women than men in the US (so monogamy alone does not give everyone a shot at marriage), and that women have an equal say in marriage and equal divorce rights, voting rights, position under the law, etc. For that matter, by your reasoning, same-sex marriage likewise deprives people of partners: if two men get married, two heterosexual women will have no partners. This isn't balanced by female same-sex marriage because there is a higher population of male homosexuals. So, same-sex couplings would also have a destabilizing effect.)

[Darrell]

If anybody could ever understand your nonlinear thinking, we'd all be in trouble.
1. But WWII was more than 50 years ago! The past is the past, can't we forget it? What have you done for us lately?
2. When told what we have done for you lately..."Look what we did for you 200 years ago!" (Ignore the fact that we were European, ignore the fact that it had more to do with annoying the Brits than helping us.)

We thank Monsieurs Lafayette and Kosciesko every year, by the way. We have Dutch doors and import gin. And go on Dutch dates. It's a two-way street all right, but we are just wondering about the cobwebs on your side of the highway. And by the way, if you get your news and analysis about Bush from the Left, what makes you believe you know what is really going on here? Did Pravda and Izvestia give you some insight into the Soviet worker's paradise?

[Michael Galien]

Without the Europeans you would not be living in the US. Without the French and Dutch you would still be ruled by the British.
Some people should try to understand that Europe and America helped eachother, it never was a 1 way street.

[Darrell]

You have no idea, Michael. Of course it wouldn't have been "Germanic Russians." It would have been the Germans in the 40's. OR the Russians afterwards. In the slang you like to throw around now, "you'd be somebody's bitch." Too bad you can't really see that. Isn't it lucky for you that someone more mature, more insightful did? As Colin Powell said all we ever asked you was for a spot to bury our dead. I would add that you should stop defecating on our graves.

[Michael Galien]

Well, we must be extremely lucky because without the Americans we would clearly be communist nazi's, ruled by the Germanic Russians. Oh, and we would be extremely poor too.

You are right, I appologize for every kind of criticism I ever wrote, about US policies.

From now on I will not criticize Bush anymore. Thank you for that.

[Darrell]

Michael,

I only answered you out of courtesy.
You have no idea what I know, and what I don't. I am well aware of all the participants in every global action the US is involved with(Netherlands recently raised the total of its troops in Afghanistan from 600 to 1300[US:~130,000}.) I am talking to you, not the Netherlands. I wholeheartedly agree that this conversation is pointless: I didn't initiate it. I would suggest you do some research and learn about the complete extent the US still supports Europe. Ever wonder why the Euro dropped to $0.50 after its introduction? That's what the market said it was worth. Know why it rose? Was it Europe's 1-2% growth rate or its double-digit unemployment? Do you know why US industry went metric? Or why we unilaterlly banned tetraethyl lead? Or spent the $billions in research and development, and the $billions more to produce the high temperature/high pressure refining technology to come up with an alternative(giving away the virtual monopoly the US had in the world petrochemical market because Europe stayed with existing technology and had the price advantage. You once said 'how long must Europe keep paying for the US sending troops to help out with fighting the Nazis?' My short answer would be it can end when our fathers and brothers come back to us. My long answer would include spending $billions since to save your butts from the Soviet clowns that wanted you as 'pets' and useful idiots. And all the $billions in direct and indirect aid(like the switch to metric) since to prop up your economy. In case you're confused as to why the switch benefited you, the US had complete market dominance in the machine tools market and our economy is the market-maker for the world. If the US would have insisted that all imports be in English units, Japan certainly would have switched over(I had a conversation with a director at MITI in the 1980's who confirmed that the Japanese were all set to do just that when they were waiting for Jimmy Carter's decision). Think Europe could have lost the US market? So many things that not even Americans are aware of. Mostly because they been hidden by our cowardly elected representative that got tired of justifying foreign aid to the American people in the 70's. I say cowardly because they tranferred the burden to American industry and its workers without even a debate.

[Michael Galien]

Anyway: I have had it with this useless discussion. You have your opinion, I have mine.

[Michael Galien]

Darrell, Darrell, Darrell.

What an incredible sarcasm! I am quite sure you must be very proud at your ability to be sarcastic. That must really bring some joy into your life.
I am not going to play this 'what country is better' game with you. One last thing though; yes, we will deal with the Iranian problem. Just as we (the Netherlands) supported the war in Afghanistan ánd in Iraq and delivered troops for it. Some education for you: Europe exists out of many many countries with different policies.
So before you start dissing the Netherlands about not participating in whatever, you should do a little research. For instance; did you know that we are sending troops to one of the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan, that some are there already and that just yesterday they were fighting with the Taliban? Did you know that we are taking over that part of Afghanistan because the Americans want to withdraw troops? That we are one of a few countries, willing to run such high risks?

No, Darrell of course you don't know that.

[Alexandra]

A Guy In Pajamas,

If you say that the equivalent of polygamy is same sex marriage 50 years ago, and the only reason it won't be accepted is because we don't want it to be, just as we were kicking and screaming 50 years ago, it obviously suggests that we should look upon it as progress. That is how I understood it to mean. I disagree, and say that it would bring us back hundreds of years, and more.

Regarding my paragraph about polygamy and its subdivision polyandry as opposed to polygyny, I am clear:

[...] polygamy is polygynous: that is, one husband, multiple wives. Polyandry (one wife, many husbands) is vanishingly rare, and absolutely not condoned by polygamists, in fact not allowed. Thus, in light of current American politics as well as copious anthropological experience (a "huge majority" of the human societies for which anthropologists have data have been polygamous), any responsible planner must assume that if polygamy were legalized, polygynous marriages would outnumber polyandrous ones — probably vastly.

If you say that it will be the people's choice whether polygamy is accepted, then I still repeat the above which is that polygamists not only do not condone but do not allow polyandry, therefore will definitely not be the advocates of it. I am not sure how your two statements would tally 1) that the reason polygamy is not accepted is because we do not want it to be and 2) that this supposed modern equivalent would by default include polyandry, which by the way is not mentioned anywhere in your comment, and does not automatically fall under the auspice of polygamy, otherwise how could polygamists disallow it. Our dictionary and practice, may not always agree.

Or are you suggesting that the advocates of this proposed law would not be polygamists themselves? That would indeed be highly unusual, and in my opinion improbable.

[a guy in pajamas]

Alexandra,

Thank you very much for your reply! Just a quick riposte; I'll try to reply a bit more fully tomorrow.

Your original argument that polygamy was the opposite of same-sex marriage was that "polygamy is a matter of public policy," ergo, it is "structurally and socially, the opposite of same-sex marriage ..."

Your conclusion does not follow. Marriage of any kind is a matter of public policy, and on that point, all marriage is on the same grounds. You have since, however, made a good case that polygamy destabilizes communities, which I'll address tomorrow when I'm more awake.

Moving on to your assumption that the path of polygamy is a path to some sort of liberalization/modernization, and a way forward, ...

I really said no such thing. I pointed out that your arguments didn't hold up, and I asked someone to actually explain how polygamy was a destabilizing factor instead of just assuming everyone believed it was.

To be clear, I do not believe polygamy would be a path to liberalization or modernization.

I am not sure whether you have understood this, but polygamy is polygynous

I really don't mean to be contrary, but in common usage polygamous means having more than one wife or husband at the same time. If you meant to say that polygamous relationships are usually polygynous, then I apologize. However, I think you are confusing how polygamy works in non-democratic nations where women have no choice in the matter of marriage with what would happen when a highly developed, democratic nation legalizes polygamy -- two very different things, and certainly the US would not legalize only polygyny.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply. I'll try to succinctly state the rest of my position tomorrow.

[Darrell]

Aren't you guys handling the Iranian situation? How's that going? I thought this was your chance to shine, to show Americans how to handle international crises. Did you know that the goal was to make sure that Iran did not develop a nuclear weapon? Wasn't Iran a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? Didn't Europe hold a press conference a couple of weeks ago saying "Good news! Iran has the bomb years ahead of schedule!" Next time we should make sure you are clear on the point. What's your "new" slogan? Better 'med than dead? (For Mohammed, Muhammad, PBUH)

As far as you making comments. How many times must I say this--go ahead! But if you are going to start off a comment about illegal immigrants in the US saying our ancestors were illegal themselves and criminals to boot and the US should let everyone come in that wants to, you are going to a sound "...FY and the horse you didn't ride in on, and the boat you didn't come over on..." You can say the Netherlands should do this, because that is your lifeboat. And for your future information, most American immigrants were part of the Enlightenment...We just chose not to stop after the 18th century---and came here. Now excuse me. I have to fluff my Dutch wife.

[Michael Galien]

well, darrell,

That is funny because it is remarkable how people who criticize 'foreigners' for criticizing the 'USA', are the same Americans that let no opportunity be unused when it comes to dissing Europe.
What I find funny is that everybody thinks they have the right to talk about, for instance, the Middle-East (Iraq, Iran, etc.), but when a foreigner talks about the USA - oops, that's not the idea behind it at all!
Talking about invading Iran is the ultimate intrusion. So if I am not allowed to criticize the US government, be sure that you will never again, criticize any country like that anymore.

Just to let you know of course, I believe everyone has the right to talk about everything. If you want to criticize the Netherlands or our PM, please do so. Actually, I would concider it a great sign because most Americans simply don't care about the Netherlands. So, if you'd just know the name of our PM, you would have won my respect.
Did you know that most Dutch think like that? That if a person speaks a little bit Dutch (just a few words) and if that person knows the name of some of our politicians, they already won our sympathy and they can criticize us about just about everything (except of course when they start acting like we all wear wooden shoes and are farmers, that would be something like saying all Americans are wild shooting cowboys).

[Darrell]

What's the real issue here, honestly? Is it love? Love denied? Love that can't speak its name? Heck no! People can establish any sort of personal relationship they desire in the US, and they have had that ability for years. You can find someone to perform a commitment ceremony, book the finest hotel or ballroom(as long as you respect their rules), and spend all the money you can get your hands on. And then some. Nothing is stopping you. Since marriage is a contract, you can contact lawyers who have been putting together packages of "marriage" contracts that address all the issues that have come up over the years--visitation during hospitalization, limited power of attorney agreements for health care decisions, inheritance, disposition of property in the event of dissolution of the agreement, etc. Lawyers in big cities have been doing this for years and many offer special rates(like $200-400) because they have turned their finely crafted contracts to simple legal forms that merely have to be filled out and filed. So what's the real issue? What these contracts CAN'T do is bind your employer to offer health coverage for your significant other or compel the insurance company to accept the arrangement. And a few other things. So once again, it's all about the money. A case-in-point is what happened when the first State allowed same sex couples to marry--within minutes, a new spouse added her name to her partner's existing lawsuit against her doctor, alleging loss of affection(denial of spousal rights)because her partner could no longer provide sexual services due to said doctor's negligence. That's the stuff of love songs and poetry all right!

Present your case to the American people and let's all vote on it--as a Nation, not by single State in a backhanded attept to force the issue down everyone's throat(marriages recognized in Mass. will, most likely, have to be recognized in all 50 States).

[Darrell]

No it didn't take me long at all. It actually popped in my head the first nanosecond I saw one of your comments about immigration. Weeks ago. Brevity is the soul of wit, Michael, and some fights don't require more than one punch. A clever man, like you, should know that. Of course, you should also know about spelling a person's name like they do. Everyone has an opinion, Michael, just like they have the assorted body orifices. Expressing your opinion is fine. And welcome. One should do it in moderation. Just keep in mind you're a "guest" in this country--avoid saying "The US should do this or that.." And realize that every thought that pops in your head is not golden. Just reread your history of comments. As for me, do I tell you how to stain, finish, or paint your wooden shoes? Nope. I leave that to the experts.

Gotta go now. I have work to do and perhaps, other comments to make later. Debating I save for debates, and when it's likely to make a difference.

[Michael Galien]

Darrel,

"Well, Michael...if you move here you can vote here. Same with US immigration policy. Are we clear? OK, then."

Wauw! It probably took you a long time to think of that clever answer didn't it? You see us debating / talking about this subject in long and thoughtful posts and your highly reasonable answer are 3 sentences huh?
Maybe you should understand that for some people this discussion is not so much about the US, but about government functions. In other words; what we regards government's duty and what not. Maybe you should think about that before you post such a smart comment.

[Alexandra]

A Guy in Pajamas,

I think Kenny has the moral Christian argument pretty much covered, so I shan't go down that path, needless to say I fully agree with him.

Moving on to your assumption that the path of polygamy is a path to some sort of liberalization/modernization, and a way forward, rather than what it actually would be, which is a way to go back to ancient times, and societies long extinguished.

I am not sure whether you have understood this, but polygamy is polygynous: that is, one husband, multiple wives. Polyandry (one wife, many husbands) is vanishingly rare, and absolutely not condoned by polygamists, in fact not allowed. Thus, in light of current American politics as well as copious anthropological experience (a "huge majority" of the human societies for which anthropologists have data have been polygamous), any responsible planner must assume that if polygamy were legalized, polygynous marriages would outnumber polyandrous ones — probably vastly.

So there goes your liberalization, modernization and equality right out of the window.

The real-world practice of polygamy seems to flow from men's desire to marry all the women they can have children with, and nothing to do with a true liberal democracy, which you seem to think is important, in anything like the modern sense. As societies move away from hierarchy and toward equal opportunity, they leave polygamy behind. They monogamize as they modernize. That may be a coincidence, but it seems more likely to be a logical outgrowth of the sheer arithmetic of polygamy, which again you seem to think irrelevant.

[...] polygamy [is] likely to deny the opportunity of marriage to anyone, but even if [it] did, what does it matter

When one man marries two women, some other man marries no woman. When one man marries three women, two other men don't marry. When one man marries four women, three other men don't marry. Monogamy gives everyone a shot at marriage. Polygyny, by contrast, is a zero-sum game that skews the marriage numbers so that some men marry at the expense of others.

For the individuals affected, losing the opportunity to marry is a grave, even devastating, deprivation. (Just ask a gay American.) But the effects are still worse at the social level. Sexual imbalance in the marriage scenarios has no positive social consequences and many grim ones. I am not about to spell out what they are, if you are seriously telling me you are not aware of any, only even a little reading up on this may go a long way.

Such problems are not merely theoretical. In northern Arizona, a polygamous Mormon sect has managed its surplus males by dumping them on the street - literally. The sect, "has orphaned more than 400 teenagers ... in order to leave young women for marriage to the older men." The Arizona paper goes on to say that the boys "are dropped off in neighboring towns, facing hunger, homelessness, and homesickness, and most cripplingly, a belief in a future of suffering and darkness."

Every unbalanced polygynous marriage, other things being equal, leaves some man bereft of the opportunity to marry, which is no small cost to that man.

The social dynamics of zero-sum marriage are ugly. In a polygamous world, boys could no longer grow up taking marriage for granted. Many would instead see marriage as a trophy in a sometimes brutal competition for wives. Losers would understandably burn with resentment, and most young men, even those who eventually won, would fear losing.

By this point it should be obvious that polygamy is, structurally and socially, the opposite of same-sex marriage, not its equivalent, as I said right in the beginning, which you quote in disagreement.

As the public focuses on a subject it has not confronted for generations, the hazards of polygamy are likely to sink in. In time, debating polygamy will remind us why our ancestors were right to abolish it. The question is whether the debate will reach its stride soon enough to prevent polygamy from winning a lazy acquiescence that it in no way deserves, for as Stefan said above it is simply a "wolf in sheep's clothing".

I am not going to repeat the sound arguments made here regarding the obvious destabilization which polygamy invites, but I am a little perplexed that you feel no argument has been presented that polygamy is destabilizing. Shrinkwrapped, who is a professional Psychoanalyst, weighs in above, to name but a few, but Kenny's moral arguments alone should provide a good starting point.

[a guy in pajamas]

Polygamy asserts not a right to love several others but a right to marry them all. Because a marriage license is a state grant, polygamy is a matter of public policy, not just of personal preference. Polygamy is, structurally and socially, the opposite of same-sex marriage, not its equivalent.

Same-sex marriage likewise asserts, not a right to love someone of the same gender, but a right to marry them, and this is also a matter of public policy, not personal preference. In every way you mention, the two are equivalent. How can you conclude they are opposites?

And, sorry to restate my initial question, but this is something our courts will have to address one day. Why should same-sex marriage be permitted and not polygamy?

I just can't see the logic:

1. Same-sex marriage and polygamy are both matters of public policy, not preference -- no difference in the two there.

2. Neither same-sex marriage nor polygamy are likely to deny the opportunity of marriage to anyone, but even if they did, what does it matter? Given the choice, people will choose the relationship that suits them best. Neither type of marriage 'denys' anyone their first choice of marriage arrangement, but not allowing either type does deny some their first choice of arrangement.

3. No argument at all has been presented that polygamy is destabilizing. It has been asserted, but no facts or logical arguments have been given in support.

If same-sex marriage is accepted, then the only real thing keeping polygamy from being accepted is the fact that most people don't want it to be. (Just like same-sex marriage 50 years ago.) They are not otherwise distinguishable.

Anyway, just my three cents.

[a guy in pajamas]

slowtrain: All you have to do is study the Old Testament, particularly the lives and times of Abraham, Jacob, David and Solomon or visit the regions of the world where polygamy is still the norm, to see how destabilizing polygamy can be to societies.

One, why is the Bible an authority on this? It does present some of the possible problems, as well as benefits, of polygamy, in the form of historical anecdotes, but it is not a sociological study on the topic. Two, since I haven't been to a society where polygamy is currently the norm, please explain this destabilization.

What I find very troubling in our society is the ease with which people make simplistic hypothetical arguments on very serious matters, while ignoring historical evidence and facts on the ground in diverse and relevant places that should serve as guide in dealing with such matters in our society.

What I find troubling is that people either offer vague non-answers to questions about very serious matters without actually saying anying relevant, or dismiss such questions out of hand, then attack the person asking the questions.

[Darrell]

The US has Spain beat...The Ninth Circuit Court has discussed giving whales and sea creatures "standing" in the Court so that "they" can proceed with environmental lawsuits against the US Government and the Dept. of the Navy. It's from memory, but I think it is designed to shut down some US Naval bases...They don't call it the 9th "Circus" Court for nuthin'.

[Darrell]

Well, Michael...if you move here you can vote here. Same with US immigration policy. Are we clear? OK, then.

We shouldn't have to vote to keep the policy the same. That burden should fall on those who want to change the status quo.

[gringoman]

Incidentally, on the subject of unintended consequences in making the institution of marriage "progressive". Many would say that to argue against "gay marriage" because it may lead not only to legalized polygamy but even legalized bestiality, is a ludicrous argument. Maybe they're right. (There are certainly other arguments, and probably more cogent ones.) And yet, what does one make of today's socialistas de Espanya? First they demonstrated their peace-love by withdrawing their forces from Iraq. Then they legalized so-called "gay marriage." What next? Well, here's a question: if an animal is granted human rights, why would it not be elegible for "marriage" with a homo sapien? A ludicrous question, you say? Ludicrous even after Spain's socialistas (hat tip lgf) grant human rights to apes, here in the best of all potentially utopian worlds where we will all practice the brave new religion of equality?................

Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero’s Socialist Party is working hard at advancing Spanish society to a state of true egalitarian utopia, by granting human rights to apes. Yes, really. (Hat tip: Barcepundit.)

The Spanish Socialist Party will introduce a bill in the Congress of Deputies calling for “the immediate inclusion of (simians) in the category of persons, and that they be given the moral and legal protection that currently are only enjoyed by human beings.” The PSOE’s justification is that humans share 98.4% of our genes with chimpanzees, 97.7% with gorillas, and 96.4% with orangutans.

The party will announce its Great Ape Project at a press conference tomorrow. An organization with the same name is seeking a UN declaration on simian rights which would defend ape interests “the same as those of minors and the mentally handicapped of our species.”

According to the Project, “Today only members of the species Homo sapiens are considered part of the community of equals. The chimpanzee, the gorilla, and the orangutan are our species’s closest relatives. They possess sufficient mental faculties and emotional life to justify their inclusion in the community of equals.”

[Kenny Pierce]

But in both adoption and custody disputes, in which the government has the responsibility to evaluate the likely quality and stability of the child's new home, the question of which type of "marriage" is "best" is relevant, and I think it's entirely reasonable for the government to define the type of family structure that it considers most conducive to a child's well-being, and to give that structure significant preference in assigning guardianship of a child.

Can the government walk in and take a child away from abusive parents? (I hope you would answer, "Of course!") Well, then, they'll have to put the child someplace. And if there are several different people who all want the child, the government will be responsible for acting in the best interests of the child -- which means that among other things it's entirely reasonable for the government to define the family structure it deems most desirable, and to give strong preference to those people who have taken the necessary steps to conform to that family structure.

Thus I would, in general, ceteris paribis, rather see a child be adopted by a heterosexual couple than by a lesbian couple or a menage a trois or a serially promiscuous gay man or by J-Lo and her husband du jour; but I'd rather see a lesbian couple adopt a child than see the child languish in a Ukrainian orphanage -- and I'd rather see a fine lesbian couple adopt a child than see the child go to a heterosexual couple both of whom were alcoholics. I know a gay adoptive father who is an absolutely admirable guy and a top-notch father and I think his kid is quite lucky, and I would put him ahead of many of the heterosexuals I know if my own kids were going to be orphaned and have to find a new place to live. If he wants to adopt another kid I'll do whatever I can to help him. So I hardly think that family structure should be the only consideration. Still, I do think family structure should be one of the more important things judges are allowed to take into account in custody and adoption hearings -- but that means you have to have defined the family structures that society deems preferable. What that structure should be is wide open for debate; but to say the government should express no preference at all is, in my opinion, to shirk our responsibility to the children.

To take up a quite different type of concern: not all agreements are agreements that are drawn up in contract form. In many cases society establishes basic assumptions of what is to be expected from certain types of relationships. If you enter into that relationship and do not specify that you're not going to meet those assumptions, and then you later violate them, it is highly problematic for you to say, "Hey, I never agreed to that!" In wiser societies, people draw up marriage contracts -- because the parents of the two young lovers insist on it. In the United States, though, for a long time, thanks to the rather silly ethic of "romance" that tells parents to butt out and leaves all such negotiation up to young persons whose infatuation convinces them that such a contract could never be necessary because Our Love Will Be All We Need, those obligations have tended to be left implicit. But contracts in which each person makes great sacrifices based on assumed commitments from the other person, but in which the commitments and obligations are never spelled out and thus are a fertile ground for miscommunication or deliberate reneging with feigned innocence ("I had no idea you thought that's what marriage meant!") -- such contracts are a really terrible idea and a source of tremendous conflict. The people involved in such conflicts will wind up in court, where the courts will have to untangle the messiness of purely oral contracts in which there is no documentation and his-word-versus-her-word, and the less clarification the law has provided by definition, the more of a problem such cases will be (especially since the less the law clarifies, the more dominant will be the personal prejudices of whichever judge happens to be seated for the case).

I therefore think it's perfectly reasonable and useful for the government to say, "Look, we are going to define 'marriage' as a default set of mutual obligations and rights, and if you sign up to be 'married' without making explicit up front any derivations from those obligations, then later on down the road your spouse will have the legal right to hold you to those obligations." For example, I don't see anything wrong with legally saying that each partner agrees to stop engaging in sexual relationships with anyone other than the new spouse, unless the spouse grants an explicit variance (as in a marriage that is open by mutual consent). Furthermore, I don't see anything wrong with saying that one of the obligations assumed in a marriage, unless a variance is granted in advance, is that the spouse will not take a competing spouse. In other words, you could codify what the words, "I take you to be my lawfully wedded husband," are understood to mean in ordinary English, and then say that if you didn't tell the person you're marrying that you really mean something other than that, they can hold you to it.

Now, to me this in itself still leaves people perfectly free to invent their own kinds of living arrangements; they just have to do so by mutual agreement. But if you are inventing your own arrangements and drawing up your own contracts, then I don't see why you would need the government's label -- unless there were advantages to having the government's label, which advantages would come from some function of lawful marriage other than what I've set out here.

It does seem to me, however, reasonable to combine this function with the custody-of-children function. That is, since custody concerns require the government to consider which family structures are (generally speaking) better for children, and since the cultural resistance to marriage contracts coupled with the real and complex web of mutual obligations that build up in a marital relationship create a need for clarification of obligations where no explict contract has been signed, it is reasonable to address both issues simultaneously. That is, you decide what you as a society thinks are the set of obligations between "married" adults that creates the best atmosphere for children; you define "marriage" in those terms; and you tell people, "You are free to invent your own kinds of sexual agreements but insofar as they vary away from the standard we have defined, you won't be able to appeal to your 'marriage' as a reason for us to look with favor on your requests for the custody of children; and if you sign up to be 'married' and don't write your own contract then these are the obligations you will be legally considered to have assumed."

[Kenny Pierce]

Michael,

On inheritance law: I don't have any problem with saying that when you die, if you don't have a will then the default is that the money is equally divided between your wife and your children. That requires you to define what a "wife" is, and I don't have any problem with saying that legally you can only have one, or only four, or whatever, as long as all you have to do to make your own arrangements is make an explicit will. In this case I don't think it matters all that much what the rules are as long as they are simple and straightforward -- other than that I think you should be obligated to leave a certain percentage of your estate in trust to any minor children you leave behind -- or else to leave it to their surviving parent, on the assumption that that parent will be financially responsible for them.

In other words, inheritance law is no place to start if you want to talk government into defending monogamous heterosexual marriage, since all that matters is that the rules be clear enough to keep the courts from being cluttered in disputes. On that, again, I think you and I very much agree.

[Kenny Pierce]

Michael,

One quick point of clarification: "child support" is, in the United States, the technical term for the money that a divorced parent who doesn't have custody of the child is obligated to contribute to the child's support. It is also known as "what my father-in-law rarely got around to paying..." Nowadays, with the explosion of illegitimate births in the U.S., you don't have to have been married; you just have to be demonstrated to have been the biological parent of a child. But the point is that "child support" isn't something the government pays; it's something the non-resident parent (usually the father) pays.

When the American government does try to support children by direct financial means, it mostly does so not by giving you money but by agreeing to take less money away from you at tax time. The major exceptions are of course welfare -- which, predictably, has had a devastating effect on the cohesion of families in the subcultures that are "helped" thereby -- and subsidized higher education -- which, equally predictably, has resulted in an explosion in the cost of higher education, which seized upon the "financial aid" pretext as a way to establish a discriminating monopoly AND grab a front-row seat at the government trough.

We are entirely in agreement that you can't justify an increase in government power by saying, "But if everybody did thus and such it would be good for society." That's not really what I'm saying, though. I'm saying that who wills the end, wills the necessary means: if you say, "X is the government's job," then you can't also (unless you're an ass) say, "But the government is not allowed to do what it has to do in order to get that job done."

I believe in a bloody tiny government myself; and in a government that wasn't doing anything more than I would want it to do, there would be very little need for government involvement in marriage. However, there are certain things that a government has to do or else the concept of "rights" (which are fundamentally not just a claim that other people have to respect, but are also generally considered something that other people have a moral obligation to defend if you are too weak to defend yourself on your own) loses any practical reality. And one of those is to win wars. If you expect the government not just to respect, but also to protect and ensure, your rights, then you can't encourage the government to pursue policies that discourage people from having and cherishing children.

And of course when you start handing over to the government all kinds of other functions such as the education of children and the care and feeding of the elderly, each new function carries with it whole new invasions of liberty that are necessary if the function is to be carried out.

Let me back up a second. When you say you believe in "individual freedom," well, that is also my starting point, though I would phrase it as, "People ought not be subjected to violence and/or fraud unless they started it." But there will be people who make use of violence and fraud to get what they want, and they will have to be stopped, unless the only thing one means by, "People have a right to..." is the politically useless, "It sure is nice to imagine an unrealistic world in which everybody was nice to each other." In particular, if a country is seen as weak, it will be vulnerable to exploitation by its violent neighbors. And if the country next to yours -- the old Soviet Union, for instance, or Iraq if you happen to be Kuwait -- if the country next to yours is run by violent people who decide to come take your stuff away, how are you going to stop them if your population consists predominantly of childless fifty-year-olds? Or, to be quite a bit more relevant, if alienated twenty-year-old Muslim youths in the Netherlands decide forty years from now to establish mob rule of the Dutch streets, who's going to stop them if there are two of them for every twenty-year-old Dutchman? You, at age sixty-five or whatever?

Now, I will say that it is my opinion (which can hardly be anything but speculative) that if governments were not engaged in a number of social programs that to my mind are none of their business (Social Security being the most relevant in this context), the natural incentives to have children who will grow up to be responsible adults would be enough to do the job, as said incentives have been throughout most of history. If you or I had absolute power then our laws on marriage would probably look a lot alike because our laws on all kinds of other social programs would probably look alike. That is to say, you or I would probably do to most government programs what P. J. O'Rourke once recommended for a famously dysfunctional U. S. ministry: "Here at last is a simple problem with a simple solution. Take the entire U. S. Department of Agriculture out behind the barn and kill it with an ax."

But since it is not politically reasonable to expect government to dial itself down to where I think it ought to, and since there are any number of government programs that actually worsen the incentives against childbearing, you're going to have to expect to see other programs to try to mitigate that impact -- or else you'll see disastrously plummeting rates of childbirth. And after a while you'll be Greece, staring at the face of pension obligations that add up to a quarter of your GNP, which means you're screwed.

[Michael Galien]

As you may notice I believe in quite a small government ;)

[Michael Galien]

Darrell; does that automatically mean I should agree with that? That I should agree with those 'lines'?

Kenny,

One of the assertions a lot of people make is this: If something is in the benefit, or has an impact on the (entire) group / society, it is (almost automatically) a government duty / responsibility.

I do not agree with that assertion at all. Is it in the benefit of society that children grow up in stable families? Sure it is. But does that automatically mean the government should take care of it? Nope.
See; when ones starting point is individual freedom, one is willing to accept certain things (for instance, that not everybody lives by the same moral values as you do)
when the the starting point is 'great future for society / group' you are willing to accept certain things (for instance, government infringing (is that a word?) in personal lives).
It is quite obvious what my starting point is.

Besides that: In Europe (and the US in a smaller way) we decided to make our governments bigger and bigger. Church became smaller, thus we made the government bigger / larger (i am talking about the last give or take 30 years). Did this, however, result in 'more stable homes'? No. The divorce rate is getting higher every year. Did people become more 'moral' in socialist Europe? Nope.

To me, moral values are not the federal government's business. From who then? Well, from individual citizens / parents, ánd I would like: the Church. It is a sad thing that the Church became smaller in Europe the last decades. Because, whereas the government does not have the moral high ground, the Church does.

Inheritance disputes: a law should be made about it and it should say something like this: "let every person make a will in which the person clearly states who inherits what. To preserve authenticity it should be signed by a lawyer".

"child support disputes" (government giving money to parents because... well... they have children?)?
We have that in The Netherlands as well and here is a nice answer: completely and utterly ridiculous. If one is dependant on child support, one is clearly not financially able to raise children. Why would someone else pay for your children?
Of course private organizations could give money to people who need it (for their children), that would be great, but the government?
Look; the government should not infringe on your right to raise a family, but that does not automatically mean it should give you money to do so.

Does this answer your question? If not, just say so and I will happy to get into it more / better.

[Darrell]

"Marriage, while from its very nature a sacred obligation, is nevertheless in most civilized nations a civil contract and usually regulated by law. Upon it society may be said to be built, and out of its fruits spring social relations and social obligations and duties, with which government is necessarily required to deal...it is within the scope of the power of every civil government to determine whether polygamy or monogamy shall be the law of social life under its domain." DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED
STATES IN THE CASE OF GEORGE REYNOLDS OF UTAH,
CONVICTED OF BIGAMY. 1879

"Monogamy is inextricably woven into the fabric of our society. It is the bedrock upon which our culture is built. In light of these fundamental values, the State is justified, by a compelling interest, in upholding and enforcing its ban on plural marriage to protect the
monogamous marriage relationship."
Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 215 (1972)

And so many more. And society has the say in setting other rules for marriage, like the age and sex of the participants, as well. But what would Thomas Jefferson say, you might ask? Let's examine a Bill he wrote for the Virginia Legislature in 1789 he said,
"Whosoever shall be guilty of rape, polygamy, or sodomy with a man or woman, shall be punished; if a man, by castration, a woman, by boring through the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch in diameter at the least.” (Virginia Bill number 64; authored by Jefferson; 18 June 1779).

It appears that "the lines" have been pretty well drawn for quite some time...

"Polygamy has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and until the establishment of the Mormon church, almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and African people. At common law the second marriage was always void (2 Kent's Com., 79.), and from the earliest history of England, polygamy has been treated as an offense against society. After the [407] establishment of the ecclesiastical courts, and until the time of James I. it was punished through the instrumentality of those tribunals, not merely because ecclesiastical rights had been violated, but because upon the separation of the ecclesiastical courts from the civil, the ecclesiastical were supposed to be the most appropriate for the trial of matrimonial causes and offenses against the rights of marriage, just as they were for testamentary causes and the settlement of the estates of deceased persons.

By the statute 1, James I., chap. 11., the offense, if committed in England or Wales, was made punishable in the civil courts, and the penalty was death. As this statute was limited in its operation to England and Wales, it was at a very early period re-enacted, generally with some modifications, in all the colonies..." DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED
STATES IN THE CASE OF GEORGE REYNOLDS OF UTAH,
CONVICTED OF BIGAMY. 1879

[Kenny Pierce]

Michael,

I think the point is that I know of no really effective defense of an official governmental recognition of a "married" status other than (a) the desire to encourage stable families for the sake of the moral character and emotional well-being of the nation's children, (b) straightening out inheritance disputes, and (c) straightening out child support disputes (which of course brings us right back to kids). That is, other ends to which government involvement in marriage is supposed to be a means, could be equally or better effected through other means.

Do you know of any such alternative defense?

[Kenny Pierce]

On the question of baby-sitters showing children inappropriate material (I could have posted this link on the freedom-of-speech-in-school thread, too, I suppose): given that roughly half of this teacher's students are adolescent males, I'd say the punishment is unlikely to effect the desired behavioral modifications...

[Michael Galien]

Kenny,

Thanks for the explanation, if you do not mind I will only react to the explanatory comment.

You seem to draw this debate very much to children, whereas the topic as such is not children, but same sex marriage and (to a lesser degree) polygamy.
Connecting the dots, you seem to imply that I act as if the government has no say in 'family life' so to speak. In how people raise their children.
However; that is not what I said. What I said is this: I believe it is none of the government's business to intervene in WHO people want to MARRY with. That is my message. Not: it is none of the government's business to intervene in family life.

As you might notice, the difference between the two is huge. The latter opinion (no business family life) implies that the government should never intervene, whereas the first opinion (my opinion) implies that the government could intervene in extreme situations.

When I say it is none of the government's business to intervene, to mess with, who people want to marry, I do not rule out, however, that the government does have something to do with the consequences of that lifestyle.
For instance: if someone wants to have more than 1 wife, that should be politically possible. However; if that means that that person is marrying 10 women and having 30 children, but living on a minimum income job, thus is unable to provide for those children, the government should be able to intervene (if the situation is quite bad).

Now, one could argue "but where, exactly, do you draw the line? How many wives, how many children?". The answer is: the line is not a number like that. The judge should decide every time, on that particular situation. The line is, always, 'is that person able, or unable to take care of his children'. Now, for some people it may mean that the 'line' is at having 10 children (for instance if that man has a very well payed job). For others however, the line may be at having 4 children. It depends, time and time again, on that particular situation.

Kenny, you also say:
"I don't want to hear anybody complaining about "government interference in my life" when that government interference is made necessary by the very services that that person demands from the government. If you don't ask the government to do much for you (that is, you don't ask the government to inflict much violence on others in support of your personal needs and desires), then you have the right to tell the government to piss off and leave you alone. But if you're running around demanding that the government interfere in all kinds of other people's business, then I don't want to hear the whining when they interfere in yours."

I agree with that completely. That is one of the things that tends to irritate me on socialists; they complain when the government intervenes in their lives. But on the other hand they have caused the government to be so big, to intervene in just about everything.

If they do not want that they should plead for a smaller government or quit whining.

[Kenny Pierce]

Alexandra tells me that my rant was sufficiently incoherent that she doesn't know what it means; so let me try to clarify. The argument runs basically as follows.

1. No society survives if it either has no children, or else raises its children to be lazy, violent, and dishonest.

2. Having children is expensive, inconvenient, and greatly limiting to one's freedom of choice in ways too myriad to count. Persons who act primarily out of self-interest require strong incentives to overcome these disincentives.

3. Properly raising the children you have is everything I mentioned in #2 raised at least an order of magnitude.

4. Those who demand from the government benefits and services that cannot be provided without a steady flow of numerous and virtuous (honest, hard-working, civic-duty-fulfilling) young people, cannot complain if the government institutes policies meant to ensure that society continues to produce a steady flow of numerous and virtuous young people...

5. ...which has long been and remains one of the principal justifications for family law, including laws encouraging certain types of generally healthy family structures and discouraging the widespread adoption of generally pathological ones.

To go somewhat more deeply into #2 and #3:

The severe economic cost of bearing and raising children has traditionally been offset by their ability to provide economic benefit to their parents once they've grown up, i.e., disproportionately in their parents' old age. Therefore any society that adopts policies that on the societal level break the nexus between having children and raising them well, and being well cared for when in your old age you become unable to care for yourself, is a society that will see a dramatic drop in the birth rate, as the balance of self-interest at the individual level shifts dramatically away from having children. If such a society, therefore, does not replace that natural (but now destroyed) economic incentive with other economic incentives (tax breaks, etc.) to make up the deficiency, the birth rate will plunge and the steady flow of numerous and virtuous young people will dry up...which is a disaster for any society foolish enough to bring it upon itself.

A less philosophical and tactful line of argument may also be discerned in that rant, something along these lines:

I don't want to hear anybody complaining about "government interference in my life" when that government interference is made necessary by the very services that that person demands from the government. If you don't ask the government to do much for you (that is, you don't ask the government to inflict much violence on others in support of your personal needs and desires), then you have the right to tell the government to piss off and leave you alone. But if you're running around demanding that the government interfere in all kinds of other people's business, then I don't want to hear the whining when they interfere in yours.

[ShrinkWrapped]

This is a complex topic that deserves several more posts,but I will toss in my $0.02. First, I want to thank Kenny Pierce for a terrific rant; it dove tails with some of my thoughts. Children do best growing up with a married mother and father (to each other) in a committed, loving relationship, and we should support that as best we can, even if it is approached more often in our wishes than in reality. AT the same time, I suspect that the same-sex marriage proponents will eventually convince most Americans that they have a good case (though I am somewhat agnostic about it; I worry about unintended consequences for society from something that may well be in the best interests of some individuals.) As far as polygamy goes, it strikes me as part of a flight from intimacy that has been going on since the 60's, when uncommitted sex and pleasure seeking began to replace fidelity and long term commitment as a prerequisite for sexual relationships. Obviously uncommitted sex and pleasure seeking has always been part of male-female relations, but the hedonic aspects, once the birth control pill allowed for sex and procreation to be separated, became idealized by the proponents of "free love" in the long, lost 1960s. Once pleasure became elevated over love, responsibility, and committment, easy divorce and co-habitation became prevalent and destructive of families.
One unintended consequence of those changes: most of my young patients come to me for help with their difficulty in entering into true intimate relationships; it is very sad to see so many young people who have no clue what intimacy means and requires.

[slowtrain]

I should make clear that my analogy is not particularly attributed to the author of the comment, it is used in general to illustrate the notion that Polygamy is stabilizing to societies, whereas the contrary is the case in societies where polygamy is practiced.

[Dub Dublin]

Those that refuse to recognize a slippery slope in "gay" marriage are blind. Doug Wilson pointed out the absurdity of the situation quite well in a post on his blog in 2004 at http://www.dougwils.com/index.asp?Action=Anchor&CategoryID=1&BlogID=131 and excerpted here:

The state of mind called Massachusetts is all set for homosexual marriages on Monday. A friend of mine put it well this morning. "Oh, great. Now John Kerry can marry Ted Kennedy."...

What we really need are for some courageous Massachusetts Christians to head down to the court house on Monday morning to apply for their marriage licenses. Some time ago I read a conversation (of the kind that floats around the Internet) that went something like this.

"Yes, Robert here and I would like to get a licence."

"But John, you are already married."

"My wife doesn't mind. In fact, she suggested it."

"I'm sorry, but we have to limit couples to an upper limit of two total."

"Why?"

"Well, that is how it is traditionally . . ."

"Oh, right. Like you care about that."

"Well, I'm still sorry. We can't do what you ask."

"So it is the official policy of the state of Massachusetts that bisexuals cannot express their sexuality within the holy bonds of matrimony?"

"Come again?"

"Bi-sexuals. People who are interested in both women and men. Count them. That requires at least two others to be included in the holy bonds of matrimony."

"I'm sorry. Next?"

"No, wait! My brother Robert and I want to get married!"

"Your brother?"

"Right. We are really close. Now we want to be closer."

"But . . . but . . . that's incest!"

"I thought you might say that. And Robert and I talked about it. We think it would only be incest (not that there is anything wrong with that set of choices) if we were going to have sex. But we are not planning on having sex. That would be gross."

"Why do you want to get married if you're not going to have sex?"

"Lots of reasons. Companionship. Blue Cross. Things like that."

"But you can't do that!"

"Now you are telling me that Massachusetts requires married couples have sex? What happened to the government getting out of the bedroom . . ?"

"Well, I am sorry, Mr. . . Oh, hello! Thanks for coming, officer."

[slowtrain]

"Also, I see no evidence that allowing polygamy would destabilize any part of society."

That is because you probably have no experience with polygamy. All you have to do is study the Old Testament, particularly the lives and times of Abraham, Jacob, David and Solomon or visit the regions of the world where polygamy is still the norm, to see how destabilizing polygamy can be to societies.

What I find very troubling in our society is the ease with which people make simplistic hypothetical arguments on very serious matters, while ignoring historical evidence and facts on the ground in diverse and relevant places that should serve as guide in dealing with such matters in our society. It is like the warning label on a pack of cigarette that warns of the danger of cancer, yet people foolishly ignore the warning believing that the outcome will be different for them or as a person knowing the deleterious effect of illicit drugs, yet convincing himself that people who became addicted did not use the drug properly and that he would — it is the “it won’t happen to me syndrome”. As is often said, fools rush in where angels fear to thread.

[Jeremayakovka]

These threads are getting so dense and woven...
To cut to the chase: I can see the kids' storybook, written under polymagist pedagogy, "Alex Has 8 Mommies"!

[a guy in pajamas]

For the sake of argument:

Polygamy destabilizes individuals, couples, communities, and society by withdrawing marriage from many who now have it.

You mean that people will actually get divorced in order to remarry into polygamous relationships? What else could you mean by 'withdrawing marriage from many who now have it'?

Statistically, there are more women than men in the US, so it is actually more likely that by NOT allowing polygamy, you are withdrawing the option of marriage from some that would otherwise have it. If polygamous marriages became common, instead of just a tiny fraction of all marriages, you might have a point, but do you think they will become so? Also, I see no evidence that allowing polygamy would destabilize any part of society.

On the slippery slope argument, it's a valid logical argument -- if you allow same-sex marriage, why restrict marriage at all? Logically, this is a very valid question, and if same-sex marriage becomes an accepted norm, our courts will, sooner or later, have to answer it. (It doesn't take a lot of people wanting to do it; it takes one litigious person and a good lawyer.)

Michael: Secondly; the reasoning is ridiculous. It is a reasoning of socialists: if we do not limit it here, it will not be possible to limit it anywhere, thus we limit it here.

No, this has nothing to do with nationalization of industry, redistribution of wealth, etc. It has to do with logic. How can you say that same-sex marriage is OK, but polygamy isn't? Upon what values do you base that judgment, and why should I accept those values any more than you accept the values of those who want marriage to be 1-man 1-woman? As you yourself have argued, if they aren't really hurting anyone, what does it matter what consenting adults do?

[Stefan]

Slowtrain, I agree completely with you regarding the theological understanding (a.k.a.: reality) of marriage and procreation (a great resource is JPII’s stunningly brilliant “Theology of the Body”). Technically, in a free country, we cannot prevent many of the strange living arrangements people wish to make. In that sense government is (and should remain) impartial to “lifestyle choice” generally but it has a uniquely compelling interest in supporting the traditional family. Since people are already free to make living arrangements based largely or exclusively on sex I see no reason for them to complain about being excluded or left out of something. They have no real need for legal recognition or sanction to live as they wish. Their demands are deeply disingenuous in that regard. I also agree that the child sex crowd is really pushing hard, especially in the academic world through anthropology, psychology, and the phony and fabricated “field” of Sexology. That is a canned hunt, so to speak, because often their “findings” will support an ever expanding sexual license. Just like “medical ethicists” somehow always wind up being in favor of “medical” killings or genetic manipulation.

[Kenny Pierce]

Michael,

I haven't weighed in much here, but it seems to me that you would like to see marriage, as a political construct recognized by the government, completely abolished?

Having finished this comment and then having read through the preview thereof with mounting horror, I realize that for the first time on Alexandra's blog I have really let go and delivered myself of a true gun-slinging, intemperant, cathartic libertarian
rant. Um, Michael, I don't think what follows actually has that much to do with you; you seem to have hit a button. It would be an act of Christian charity on your part to refrain from taking it personally. I've decided to go ahead and post it, somewhat reluctantly, because I don't have time to clean it up and besides I think Alexandra will get a huge kick out of it as it stands...and after all, if it makes you think badly of me, I suppose I'll deserve it since this is how I really feel about government and Social Security and education and...well, as you'll see I wandered rather far from the topic of polygamy. You'd better read fast because it's entirely possible that an hour from now I'll have reconsidered and begged Alexandra to yank it.

Without having taken the time to formulate it clearly, I would say that children are (a) one of the highest of all social priorities, and (b) a particularly thorny case for human rights since they are (1) not capable of assuming adult responsibilities and (2) for the first several years, during which their character is largely formed, largely defenseless against influence through input. Children, the mentally handicapped, and those who have been severely injured represent the real challenges of political thought; if the world were composed of nobody but consenting adults political theory would be vastly simplified. But it isn't.

For example, even if I were not a Christian, I would not be pleased that my child are essentially forced to grow up in a sexually saturated world. Yet if parents are to have the viable option of choosing their own timing for introducing topics of sexuality to their children, then the outside world has to refrain from saturating my children's environment with sexuality. I think it is entirely reasonable for a society to say that there are certain behaviors in which consenting adults are allowed to engage, but not in front of the children, i.e., not in public. Two people who choose to engage in sadomasochistic sex in front of me, do me no particular harm even if there's no convenient way for me to leave the premises. Two people who choose to engage in sadomasochistic sex in front of my five-year-old boy very arguably do significant harm to the child, as would any baby-sitter who let my five-year-old watch gang-bang pornography. Unless all parents who wish to raise their children with a reasonable degree of innocence are to be essentially imprisoned in their houses until the children are ten years old, then some limits will need to be placed on the license of self-centered, don't-give-a-shit-about-others adults to behave in public as best suits their own personal gratification, as well as on the license of sexual-freedom evangelists to subvert the moral teachings other parents are trying to inculcate into their children.

Meanwhile, you have, as a result of the fragility of human life and of the fact that when you are old you will probably not be able to take care of yourself and therefore will have to live off other people's sweat and tears and bedpan-emptying, a moral responsibility to choose one of four options: (a) have children to whom you are a good enough parent that they will love you and care for you in your old age, or at the very least recognize that you cared for them when they couldn't care for themselves and they have an obligation to return the favor, (b) save enough money to be able to pay strangers to take care of you in your old age, (c) be such a nice person that lots of people who aren't related to you love you enough to take care of you in your old age even though you don't have anything but a smile to give them in return, or (d) be willing to fall over and die, with no whining, when you get sick in your old age, if so be that nobody out of the simple goodness of his heart decides to pay the cost of your fecklessness. If the government decides (extremely foolishly, IMHO) to relieve you of the responsibility for making that choice and living with the consequences, then the government is essentially promising you that when you get old and sick, the government will, by threat of force, seize the money of the children of people who DID go to the trouble to birth and raise good hard-working citizens, and will then spend it on your irresponsible ass. In which case at the very least you ought to admit that the government to which you have ceded such responsibility, and from whom you are requesting on your behalf the commission of such violence, would be a bunch of damned fools if it did not proceed to enact a bunch of policies designed to ensure that as many people as possible would have children and that those children would be raised in the manner most likely to make them honest, hard-working, tax-paying citizens throughout that old age during which you plan to demand government subsidies.

Which is to say, any government that both encourages (even through omission, much less through commission) the destruction of a social ethos of stable, child-bearing families as the dominant expectation imposed on all adults, and also promises to guarantee Social-Securityesque programs for all its citizens...is a government whose collective IQ falls short of the number of children one reasonably virile North Rim polygamist can churn out in a decade or two.

Let's not hear any libertarian talk about the rights of people not to have the government interfere with their private lives, unless you're ready to admit that people also have the right not to suffer the government's redistribution of wealth by force of arms. (Which, for all I know, you may be.) That bloody 15% self-employment tax that the government takes from my and my children's pockets, in order to subsidize a program that will have collapsed long before I can receive any benefit from it (and that even if it hasn't, will provide me only with such money as the government forces somebody else to fork over), is a helluva lot bigger invasion into my life than it would be for the government to say, "Look, if you and your wife want to invite another woman to move in and form a permanent menage a trois, and you want to father litters of kids from both women, you are welcome to do so; only don't ask us to provide special recognition and special subsidies and special tax breaks to the second woman."

It also is a fundamental responsibility of the government to be able to fight wars upon demand, and wars are fought by young adults -- and, unless you want to see lots more Abu Ghraibs, by young adults of reasonably sound character. Would you rather have government policies that encourage solidly high rates of childbirth and solidly high rates of parentage-by-one-parent-of-each-gender, or would you rather have a government policy of compulsory military service for everybody under thirty? If the U.S. didn't have (thanks mostly to Red-Staters) a birth rate at near-replacement levels, we wouldn't find it nearly so easy to maintain an armed forces composed entirely of volunteers. If we left it up to the Blue-Staters then their dire predictions of a reinstated draft might actually wind up coming true; but fortunately for those who do prefer to staff our military with volunteers, the Red States have a lot of people who down through the years have looked at the choice between having a first-rate wine cellar and no kids, or of drinking Michelob and spending their off-hours at the soccer field, and have chosen the latter.

I'm not saying that people ought to be forced to have kids, or even that the choice not to have children is an immoral or (in every case) a selfish choice. But the choice either to have no children, or alternatively the choice to prioritize your own temporary subjective happiness above the development of their character -- either of these is a choice that imposes both present and future costs on society; while to make the very high economic and personal-time sacrifice necessary to raise children of fine character, is a choice that imposes very high costs on the individual but very much benefits society. If society chooses to mitigate the impact on the latter class of people, then the former class would be ungrateful indeed to complain.

Again, there is a very high correlation between the birth of children outside of wedlock, and crime rates -- by which I mean that children born outside of wedlock are vastly more likely to prey upon society as violent criminals than are children who are born to and raised by a married couple. Is it really that unreasonable, if the predominant opinion among members of a society is that a particular family structure produces law-abiding and hard-working citizens at a much higher rate than do alternative family structures, for that society to choose to offer special incentives to people who choose the inconvenience of that family structure? (After all, monogamous and lifelong marriage with children is, very much, an inconvenient lifestyle -- the children part no matter your gender and probably, certainly if you're a decently attractive male, the monogamy part as well.)

That's not a very carefully thought-out set of thoughts but you can see, I think, where I'm going.

I might add that if a gay man of my acquaintance were to want to adopt one of my Kazakh orphans for whom I'm seeking parents, and I had (which is entirely possible) a high regard for his character overall despite disagreeing with him on that particular controversial moral point, I would actively help him adopt the kid. So don't read my position as being as extreme as it probably sounds; remember that I'm trying to highlight problems with what seem to be your views. I'm probably much closer to your general viewpoint than are the other commenters on this blog, as a Christian libertarian; but the question of public policy vis-a-vis children is the toughest place to figure out tradeoffs.

I would also point out that the more you ask the government to do for you (meaning, the more money you want the government to take away from other people and divert to yourself), the less grounds you have for telling the government not to stick its nose in your private business. For example, if somebody tries to refute what I say about the societal benefits of children by complaining about the cost society pays to educate the children through property taxes imposed on everybody (including the childless), I will like a shot come back and say, "Great -- let's abolish public schools, leave the education of children up to parents (who, while we're at it, we should advise right now not to expect any support from the government in their old age, which is a bloody good incentive to the parents to make sure their children are well-educated), and up to whoever wants out of the kindness of his heart to help the parents out, and let the market take over...unless you are under the impression that our children would be much better fed and nourished if governments ran all the supermarkets and if you had to pay a food tax to the government to pay for your groceries even if you were actually not using the government stores because you thought supermarkets did such a better job of providing nutrition to your children that you were paying the exorbitant extra cost of a complete second grocery bill." Our children in America are well fed and crappily educated. If Sam Walton and Howard E. Butt ran the schools and the government ran the supermarkets, they would be well educated and crappily fed. Personally I'd like to see them well educated AND well fed but this doesn't seem to be a particularly popular desire among American voters, Dubya in particular much preferring his approach of All Children Kept Behind (Except The Ones Rich Enough To Pay Exorbitant Property Taxes On Houses With Grossly Inflated Prices Due To The High Reputation Of The Local School District, Or Else To Pay Both Their School Taxes And The Costs of Private Education). Hell, even school vouchers are too drastic a retreat from socialism for the Shrub's taste, it would seem.

Which is yet another point: if the education of children is so much the government's business that the government has to interfere (with all the typical consequences of government interference in a market sector) at every level from Head Start to post-graducate education, then how would you argue that the government has no standing whatsoever to attempt to see to it that they are also raised in stable environments by people who will teach them moral characteristics such as honesty and hard work?

If, in short, there is any place in political philosophy for Family Law, or for a government education policy funded and implemented by the threat of government violence, then marriage is, in simple point of fact, the government's business, insofar as it impacts on the ends and purposes for which Family Law may validly be enacted or insofar as its justification rationally parallels the justification of Pell Grants.

[slowtrain]

"People can bind themselves to each other for life in any way they wish, the government doesn’t care, but it does have a compelling interest in giving an additional boost to the relationship that is responsible for the natural rearing of the next generation male/female marriage."

The fact that a man and a woman differ in such clearly functional, purposeful, and complimentary ways is clear evidence of intent and purpose on the part of the Creator. Since the contrary did not suffice, any attempt to change the fundamental order of nature holds potentially disastrous consequences, perhaps not as far as the society is able to see yet, in the contemporary rationale and inherent limitations of humans, but surely in the dispensation of time.

Since only heterosexual couples can and do naturally rejuvenate the human population, including the homosexual population, there should be no argument as to the definition of marriage or the essence thereof. Arguments that are made contrary to this fact tend to be existential in nature — meaningless, purposeless and terminal. They are direct contradiction of what everyone knows to be evidentiary and true.

The fact is that it takes a man and woman to produce a child; this extends to sperm and egg taken from a man and a woman and fertilized outside the woman’s body. Recreational copulation is largely a matter of choice and hardly the essence of marriage. Marriage is a natural institution that ensures the viability and perpetuity of the human race. The perpetuation of the human race is central to marriage, it is not incidental as some would like to suggest. The pleasure that comes from copulation is rather incidental, it is not of as much necessity as the preservation of the human race. Perhaps, it is as in a delicious meal, it is not the taste that is of essential necessity rather it is the ability of the food to nourish and keep the body healthy.

None of us, including homosexuals would be in existence today, to argue on the issue in question or make choices thereof, had our grand parents and parents not kept the primary responsibility of every living human being — the perpetuation of the human existence. In so doing, they recognized the fundamental and perhaps ultimate responsibility of every living human — procreation, through the union of man and woman, not only to produce offspring to maintain the existence of the human race, but also to raise them in a manner that maintained the viability of man and woman, and invariably the human race. This is in keeping with God's command to Adam and Eve, to be fruitful and multiply; clearly a command that homosexuals cannot fulfill.

My comment should not to be misread as something against homosexuals as people. I say this because it is often the case that anyone who speaks the truth on this issue or differs on the issue is summarily labeled a homophobic or bigot. It is equally sad, that homosexuals have essentially defined themselves by their sexual preference, thus making it the essence of their personality. That is both shallow and tragic — a terminal definition, if you will. As much as it is viewed as liberating, it is even more limiting. There is more to humans and marriage than recreational copulation, and people who make it the center piece of their identity are committing a serious error that could only hurt them, in addition to the fact that they hurt society in the ways already stated.

"There are groups setting themselves up to ride in on the coattails of gay marriage. There is very little concern for marriage itself but rather it is being used cynically as a stamp of validation from the culture as a whole. It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing."

Stefan, it is already happening, and it is not only the polygamy advocates, but also those who advocate for incest and those who argue that children enjoy sex and should not be denied and we can be sure there are more to come out of the closet when the standard is finally destroyed.

[liquid]

stefan---"It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing"

Well said Stefan! Well said!

[Stefan]

Michael,
My starting point is that the status of LEGAL marriage is the business of the state. People can bind themselves to each other for life in any way they wish, the government doesn’t care, but it does have a compelling interest in giving an additional boost to the relationship that is responsible for the natural rearing of the next generation male/female marriage. This does nothing to prevent anyone else from doing anything they like with whomever they like for however long they wish.

The tie in from gay marriage to polygamy is not a joke though. There is a group of people (a lot in the media, universities, and especially Hollywood) who are obsessed with no-holds-barred sexual liberalism and they are working their tails off to impose this on the culture. For “Hollywood-ers” the focus of life is on fame and power. They are self-obsessed and self-loving. They have fully embraced self-worship which takes the form of pleasing yourself through any and often every indulgence. This life-style is packaged and sold to us on TV, through movies, music, commercials, magazines, you name it. They have sold the gay lifestyle to us for years in the hopes of mainstreaming and normalizing the behavior. They are now confident that they will eventually win through the courts and are starting to move the goalposts. “Big Love” will undoubtedly get us to like the characters and see that they are just regular people struggling through the difficulties of their lifestyle choice. We are to sympathize and accept. We are to be “compassionate”. The attempt to redefine marriage as nothing more that an arrangement made between “consenting adults” is a door that you can drive an aircraft carrier through (so to speak). There are groups setting themselves up to ride in on the coattails of gay marriage. There is very little concern for marriage itself but rather it is being used cynically as a stamp of validation from the culture as a whole. It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

[gringoman]

Real Ugly American and Weekenderman:

You make points about homosexual "marriage" that are too much for the world of fashion, chic, and "progress" to accept. Of course you are going to be denounced as narrow-minded bigots (although at Alexandra's site they usually won't bite, punch or throw bags of unmentionable.)They will scream that you "hate" them (not, fortunately, here, where it will be sotto voce.) Every point has its counter-point. You will never convince the aggressives and the agendophiles. They know what they want, and they know how you get it in emasculated society run by lawyers.As the Romans knew, a man convinced against his will/Is of the same opinion still. As for the non-obssessed who are nevertheless sympathetic to the aggressives, they will just have to wait and see whether society will buckle. And will it? Of course it will. They don't know or don't care that once the homosexuals get their "civil right" of "marriage," the entire society, including the schools, will be subjected to their indoctrination via this or that tenet of "fairness" and "civil rights" and that dissenters may be guilty of such lawyer constructs as "hate crimes." You don't have to be an Oswald Spengler to see where the West is going, even beginning to celebrate sterility. In other words, the example of all human history, plus the common sense and instincts of the majority of human beings, is aboout to face the great secular legacy of Hitler and Stalin: the politically correct police force. In a wonderful twist on Darwinism, the "strong" will survive---well, for a while, anyway. And guess who these "strong" are?

[slowtrain]

Patrick O'Hannigan is absolutely correct; polygamy and polyamory are “signs of small love”, perhaps, evidence of absence of real love. It is apparent that society has tended to speak of love when lust (erotic love) was intended. I reality, polygamy and polyamory are clear evidence of incontinence. They are lust for sex, similar to lust for power and lust for wealth.

As far as the Islam allowing polygamy, what is often quoted is an aberration of what was actually said and intended. What the Koran actually said was that a man could marry as many wives as he wanted, provided he can love them equally. Of course, this is essentially an admonition that a man ought not to marry more than one wife, since everyone knows that it is impractical for a man to love two or more wives equally or a woman to love two or more husbands equally, for that matter. The notion of four wives or as many wives as a man can provide for was a later day substitution, hence an aberration.

The reason for polygamy is as diverse as the people that engage in it. In some societies, some claim cultural exigencies, as some of the comments have noted, others claim it is out of necessity, for example in rural subsistent farming communities around the world, where people still engage in non mechanized agriculture and where a man's ability to acquire land depends on how much land he can consistently hold by farming over a long period, hence more wives translate into more children, which in turn translates into more hands on the farm. Of course, there are also others such as the Mormons, etc. Except for the latter, in some of these communities as well as others, it is also a status symbol to have more than one wife and many children. There is also the relatively new dynamic stemming from postmodernism and cultural relativism. Some even argue that the idea of one-man-one-wife or sexual fidelity is contrary to the human nature, which as they say inclines a men to be hopelessly attracted to many women and women likewise, hence, the increasing acceptance and popularity of “serial polygamy” in Western societies.

It is clear that this latter notion is the main reason for the embrace of the evolutionary theory and contempt for Judeo-Christian morality found in The New Testament. As Huxley wrote in the Confession of a Professed Atheist, “We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.” Such inclination is depicted by the movie Kinsey—portraying Alfred Kinsey, a nineteenth century entomologist and counselor, who specialized in substituting conscience with emotional impetus, particularly unrestrained sexual urges and conducts. Kinsey, who frequently engaged in wife swapping as well as other promiscuous sexual practices, actively encouraged practices such as inter-marital sex, polygamy, and perhaps, even sexual contacts that borders on pedophilia.

Polygamy and polyamory are incontinence, pure and simply, they are inherently destabilizing to society; there is no valid argument to be made for either.

[Liquidlifehacker]

We sit back and in our comfort say, Oh this or that won't ever really be an issue 'HERE' but take a look at the past and see how change has rolled on through our history right up to our current status. There are many end result issues that can become harmful down the road if polygamy were to be made legal and although we don't like to think that far ahead and although we sweep it under a rug because we might not feel that offended or hurt in any way now, it IMHO, is an issue to stand firm on for the west and our children's future. The welfare issue has already been brought up and today we can look around and see that many of the youth don't even bother getting married but have chosen instead to use the welfare system as part of an economic foundation that allows some men to pregnate several women and are thus on the dole or welfare. Some couples have chosen against marriage because the dole or welfare rewards them not to marry. It's already an attitude of "plan B is to let the govt take care of the offspring" and then the individual moves on to it's next creation. As abortion has become birth control for so many women....the welfare system has become the same solutional choice for the men when responsibility knocks at the door. Now if we allow these generations to somehow be rewarded for legal marriage of multiple women and children can you even imagine the bottle neck situation of our court systems? Sure the lawyers will get fat on the twisted marital hog, but what will it do to society? I guess there would continue to be more lawyers than engineers in the future here huh?

We already have children that have been raised as 'a number' in daycares...where every meal was outside the home or "driven through" on the way after work and I tell you this generation's foundation of the family unit is warped out of decisions made from the past. When in the future 'the older crowd' are tossed away more and more I can only shake my head and sigh with a "what did you really expect? Where were you when they needed you to take care of them? Weren't you too busy to be part of their caretaking? Didn't you pay for someone else to do it? Didn't you toss them off to be under someone else's care because you had to have your career or there was no father in the home to help out? Now, years later, as you are older and in need, you wonder why you are tossed in nursing home compounds without any personal one on one contact by a family member?" Who taught this generation to make such cold decisions concerning your care? Who taught this generation to be so shallow? Who taught this generation to walk away without a conscience?

We are teaching our children to do that! How many children today watch their parents take care of their grandparents in their homes? How many children today see family units built on good foundations of ethics and principals anymore? We will all will reap what we sow from generation to generation. We are making decisions all the time that unwind and tangle up the very foundation of society's future. We have and continue to carve out the world of tomorrow.

For example, on how each generation effects the other, in parts of India they have been using the technology of doing ultrasounds to determine the sex of their babies and if it's been a girl many times they abort. Now over time there has been a consequence to this decision and now there aren't enough girls to marry. So what do they do? Instead of stopping this aborting behavior they just create a new situation where it's common practice now to double team the deal of arranged marriage, meaning that if your son wants my daughter then your son better have a sister for my son. Double deals.

As for thinking one can stop the crazy thoughts and desires of others, well, thats some real denial. The past has rolled on into the future and it's harvest time for some of the decisions made back there. Do you see how when someone says, If we allow this today then there will be someone standing in Washington filing a court claim to allow a man to marry his dog? Sure it sounds absurd today....but you open that can of worms and all typse of critters of evil are going to come crawling out. The more we harden our hearts and desensitize ourselves in the name of "progress" we somehow continue to close the doors to political correctness of "closemindedness" and yet we definately open the doors to allow just about anything and everything! It's freedom for all crazy desires and perverted ways. So what are we to do? Do we open a few doors with stipulations? Look into the past and see how that has worked out. The flood gates gush with people standing in line for "their choices and their rights" no matter how absurd their demands are and remember there is always a lawyer being born that is willing to help make that cause come true; no matter how they have to bend/reinterprete our constitution to do it.

I will close by adding this... IMHO, polygamy is a real danger for the west because once it is allowed....once that door is open on a legal path... then Islam will flourish in a way it never has been legally possible prior and once multiple wives are part of the landscape you can guarantee sharia law will emerge with a fierce grip to control those multiple islamic breeding grounds.

Decisions made today reflect the images of tomorrow.