The next great step in civil rights?

[Nubclear]

Normal monogamous relationships are a stable influence. You can see this by looking at studies.

And vegetables are better for you than candy.
Ban candy

[Jon Miller]

We ban Heroin.

JM

[Bkeela]

That's not the next great step: legalised beastiality should be next. Then beastial marriage, then paedophilia can be dealt with.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by GePap


Multiple marriage has been around for as long as single marriage. Given the reality of marriage was a social contract, therte is no logical reason to have a problem with any form of polygamy, be it polyandry or polygyny.

Justifying an institution or practice just because it has a long history is a fallacy.

One of the ways antebellum slaveholders in United States for example justified slavery, was to point out that slavery had always existed in human history, so it must have been a good institution.



Anyway, I'm not so sure I can whole-heartedly support full legal recognition of polygamous marriages.

[GePap]

Will people please stop using polygamy as synonimous with polygyny!

polygamy = marriages between multiple people
polygyny = marriage between one man and multiple wives
polyandry = marriage between one woman and multiple husbands

So for those trying to argue that polygyny is inherently male dominated, please use polygyny, not polygamy because it includes polyandry.

That is all.

[Drake Tungsten]

Anyway, I'm not so sure I can whole-heartedly support full legal recognition of polygamous marriages.

Bigotry...

[johncmcleod]

Polygamy is an inherently dominative relationship. Say you have one wife and three husbands. The wife has an inherent advantage in the power structure. Same goes for the other way around, the more common way. The wives are inherently at a disadvantage. They all have to compete with each other for the husband's attention, and the husband gets all of their attention. And each of the wives is more expendable.

Though most monogamous relationships are male dominated, monogamy isn't an inherently biased structure, and polygamy is. I think we could all agree to this. As far as Tassadar's consent argument goes, I don't like it because things don't work like that in reality. What ends up happening is women are raised in societies that force them to believe in and 'consent' to these relationships, and they are raised to be so subservient that they will enter into this type of flawed relationship without question.

Of course with the equal power logic you could justify polygamous marriage if the amount of husbands and wives are the same (2 husbands and 2 wives all married together, or maybe 3 people of the same gender) but I don't see any reason for the state to sanction it. A monogamous heterosexual and a monogamous homosexual relationship are quite similar and deserve the same rights, but once we start talking about the polygamous marriages, things get different. There are vastly different relationship dynamics to them (not to mention different amounts of people, which changes things legally and financially), so I don't see why they have to have the same laws applied to them.

How about this, is it physically possible for someone to enter into an equal power polygamous marriage (such as 3 husbands and 3 wives, or 5 people of the same sex) and have a normal, healthy relationship? Humans were meant to have monogamous and that's what works psychologically. I don't see how you could have it otherwise and not be incredibly f*cked up. I can see how allowing gay marriage helps the social good, but I don't see how allowing polygamous marriage would.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Normal monogamous relationships are a stable influence. You can see this by looking at studies.

Which studies? Do these studies say, perhaps, monogamous relationships are more stable influences than a single parent?! What about comparing it to polygamy.

Or do you mean they are more stable in that they last longer? Because I fail to see how anyone can consider monogamous marriage to be pretty stable nowadays with the divorce rate being what it is.

And you completely ignored my request to study utopian societies. You asked where the evidence was, I referenced some, and then you made no effort to investigate my claims. I am not going to do your work for you.

Awww... you are sooo cute when you are faux dismissive. You mean utopian societies in the 18th and early 19th Centuries? Because we do know, of course, that women were treated as equals in those times

You are basing your statements on nothing, you aren't even trying to base your statements on anything. I have claimed my hypothesis is based on evidence, but you refuse to investigate my claims, because it doesn't coincide with your wishes for reality.

This reminds me of something similar... oh wait, I know!

"I have proof that there are Communists in the State Department"
"What proof? You mean like X which doesn't fit?"
"No, you are ignoring my evidence, I'm not doing your homework for you!"

Making claims based upon no evidence isn't worthwhile to me, or anyone who reads any of your posts.

Like you are doing .

There is no evidence that monogamy is better than polygamy. Any 'proof' is based on the fact that the only people that engage in illegal acts aren't exactly the creme of society and that utopian societies engaging it were from eras that women were oppressed in general society anyway!

Humans were meant to have monogamous and that's what works psychologically.

I remember similar arguments with homosexuality. Humans were meant to be heterosexual and that's what works psychologically. The ONLY reason it works psychology for everyone was (and for the most part is currently) because homosexuality was sanctioned and thus it was a struggle to be gay in a world where that behavior was banned.

And why should the state recognize heterosexual monogamous marriage? That type of social engineering is not something the state should get involved in.

Anyway, I'm not so sure I can whole-heartedly support full legal recognition of polygamous marriages.

While Drake was being facetious (mostly, I suppose), I'll be serious in saying:

Bigotry...

Of all people, I expected you to be more understanding

[MrFun]

Originally posted by johncmcleod
Polygamy is an inherently dominative relationship. Say you have one wife and three husbands. The wife has an inherent advantage in the power structure. Same goes for the other way around, the more common way. The wives are inherently at a disadvantage. They all have to compete with each other for the husband's attention, and the husband gets all of their attention. And each of the wives is more expendable.

Though most monogamous relationships are male dominated, monogamy isn't an inherently biased structure, and polygamy is. I think we could all agree to this. As far as Tassadar's consent argument goes, I don't like it because things don't work like that in reality. What ends up happening is women are raised in societies that force them to believe in and 'consent' to these relationships, and they are raised to be so subservient that they will enter into this type of flawed relationship without question.

Of course with the equal power logic you could justify polygamous marriage if the amount of husbands and wives are the same (2 husbands and 2 wives all married together, or maybe 3 people of the same gender) but I don't see any reason for the state to sanction it. A monogamous heterosexual and a monogamous homosexual relationship are quite similar and deserve the same rights, but once we start talking about the polygamous marriages, things get different. There are vastly different relationship dynamics to them (not to mention different amounts of people, which changes things legally and financially), so I don't see why they have to have the same laws applied to them.

How about this, is it physically possible for someone to enter into an equal power polygamous marriage (such as 3 husbands and 3 wives, or 5 people of the same sex) and have a normal, healthy relationship? Humans were meant to have monogamous and that's what works psychologically. I don't see how you could have it otherwise and not be incredibly f*cked up. I can see how allowing gay marriage helps the social good, but I don't see how allowing polygamous marriage would.

Uh . . . . . as to regards of your comment that monogamous marriages are more inherently equal that is blantantly false.

Historically, traditional monogamous marriage has been male-dominated and until later in the nineteenth century (maybe even into early twentieth), wives were pretty much property. Although even then, women found other ways to assert themselves around some of the laws.

But at least today, monogamous marriage is much more equal between husbands and wives than in the past -- at least in Western countries.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Anyway, I'm not so sure I can whole-heartedly support full legal recognition of polygamous marriages.

Bigotry...

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by MrFun
But at least today, monogamous marriage is much more equal between husbands and wives than in the past -- at least in Western countries.

That's a good caveat. In say, some backward countries like Saudi Arabia, I don't think the women in polygamous marriages (and they do have some) are worse off in terms of equality than those in monogamous marriages.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Bigotry...

Of all people, I expected you to be more understanding

Well this is exactly what the people trying to protect gays from suffering like the rest of us said would happen if gays were allowed to marry. I'd expect him to be against it since he and others like him argued that this wouldn't be the inevitable result.

[chequita guevara]

I would argue that 1) monogamous relationships aren't really all that stable in a society in which women are free to leave (and really weren't that stable in a society where men could keep lovers on the side but their wives couldn't). 2) the failure of polygamous experiments in the 19th and 20th century communes were a result of the the hostility of contemporaneous society and also of the oddball people who attempted to form them. 3) what business of the government is it in promoting stable relationships anyway?

[DinoDoc]

Is this what you tell Bunny when you want to explain why you don't want to get married?

[chequita guevara]

We've been married for three years.