Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men. – Thomas Henry Huxley
One of the great paradoxes of human behavior is that sometimes, the leading opponents of relatively-unprecedented social change understand its implications much more fully than the leaders of those who support it for selfish (rather than philosophical) reasons. Certainly, the majority of those who oppose the change are just the typical social conservative, resisting change merely because it is change without any intellectual process whatsoever; those are not the people I’m talking about. I’m also unconcerned with born iconoclasts and self-congratulating “progressives” who embrace every new idea merely because it is new, again without any intellectual process whatsoever. The ones to whom I wish to call your attention are the leaders of both factions, the ones all the others follow. Those at the forefront of the conservatives need to think about all the possible ramifications of change in order to paint credible monsters in the blank portions of the map, while those who are only interested in the change because it benefits them have no concern for future implications of their cause, and are in fact highly motivated to ignore or downplay likely consequences which could rock the social boat far more than the general public (whose support both sides are vying for) is willing to accept.
Now, the situation is reversed in the case of true prohibitions, by which term I mean behaviors common throughout human history which were banned by minority actions due to some new dogma. Those calling for a repeal of prohibitions against prostitution, alcohol, drugs, pornography, etc have no need to dissemble because history records what societies were like before those prohibitions were in place; in such cases it is the prohibitionists who must lie, conjuring specters of epidemic child prostitution, stoned pilots crashing airplanes, and the like, which sensible people know to be false because society somehow managed to avoid collapse during all the centuries before whatever-it-is was banned. But when the social change is something really new, something groundbreaking, there is no such body of collective experience to draw upon. Those who first proposed abolishing the institution of slavery, for instance, were venturing into completely uncharted seas; no large, developed society had ever thrived and prospered except upon the backs of some very large unpaid or underpaid coerced class (slaves, serfs, prisoners, subject foreign populations, etc). And while eliminating chattel slavery was unquestionably the right thing to do, it’s also true that many of slavery’s defenders predicted the economic and social results of abolition more accurately than most of the abolitionists did. One might say that many pro-slavery people were morally corrupt but intellectually honest, while many abolitionists were morally correct but intellectually dishonest.
One of today’s uncharted seas is fully-normalized homosexuality. While not every traditional society condemned homosexuality as Judeo-Christian ones did, it also wasn’t given the full recognition and celebration of heterosexuality. Even in societies where pederasty was common and even accepted, virtually nobody ever took a same-sex lover as his primary social relationship; nearly all the great “homosexuals” of antiquity were married to women. Modern Western society is the first in history where large numbers of people not only recognize that homosexual relations aren’t anyone else’s business, but also that civilization isn’t going to collapse if a few people openly choose a same-sex partnership as their primary social and domestic one. But while we can safely ignore dire predictions of Divine Retribution thundered forth from fundamentalist pulpits, it is highly disingenuous to pretend that there will be no consequences from widespread acceptance of same-sex marriage, simply because every social change has some effect on society as a whole. I suspect most of these effects will be positive and a few will be negative (because absolutely nothing is ever wholly good), but the factors are far too numerous and the equations far too complex for me to ever hope to predict any of them. Besides, I’m biased in favor of personal liberty, and might therefore miss some of the negatives even if I were intellectually able to calculate them.
There is one likely consequence which I can predict, however, and though I perceive it as a good thing, it is (as I said in the first paragraph) something which is likely to rock the boat more than most of the general public is willing to accept right now. The opponents of same-sex marriage therefore keep bringing it up, while the proponents keep denying it, each for the same reason: they recognize that if the public understands this, it might turn the tide. When the US Supreme Court decided Lawrence vs. Texas, dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia correctly pointed out that “laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are…sustainable only…[if] laws based on moral choices [are valid].” Scalia’s moral position, that the state has a right to interfere in people’s private sexual affairs, was dead wrong, but his legal reasoning was faultless. Likewise, though the Vatican’s attempt to influence secular law is morally indefensible, its logic that arguments for same-sex marriage automatically imply polygamy as well is solid.
Proponents of “marriage equality” keep denying it, but they’re either lying or refusing to see what’s right in front of them: as I pointed out yesterday, if the government has no right to limit the sex of the parties to a marital contract, how can it possibly have the right to limit the number, duration or other factors? If it’s going to allow a wholly new kind of sexual contract which has never before existed, how can it legitimately disallow old and venerable sexual contracts such as polygamy and prostitution which are already legal in other parts of the world? It’s wrong and selfish to promote only one outcome of a legal principle while denying all the others; same-sex marriage proponents who oppose polygamy and prostitution are the moral equivalents of neofeminists who support a woman’s right to control her body in the case of abortion, but oppose it in the case of sex work. Sailing into uncharted seas inevitably leads to both wonders and perils, some of them predictable and others completely unforeseen; anyone who can’t accept that needs to stay at home on the shore.
Except as practiced in parts of the United States, Polygamy is a habit inextricably linked with coercion and oppression of women by men and intimately associated with loss of autonomy and loss of self-determination for those same women. There IS no good example of polygamy, and let’s face it we are talking about the mormonisians, where women would be tolerated for a moment gaining the upper hand in controlling the lives of multiple men thru marriage contract. Then again, if women like Maggie and a 22yo escort I recently met are my oppressors, then I’m lining up right away for some of that polygamastonian action
I’m not trying to say you’re wrong. However, the mainstream Mormons with their headquarters out of Salt Lake City have disallowed polygamy before 1900. It is the fundamentalist Mormons who still practice it. States with high percentages of mainstream Mormons more vigorously than other states seem to legally attack polygamy.
As far as polygamy necessarily needing coercion, I would say don’t be so sure about that one. Men on average if they can afford it and handle it time wise as well as emotionally have a moderate tendency to want a harem of women. Women have a mild tendency to let themselves be put into a harem if the man is wealthy enough as well as has enough status and if he can emotionally handle it within himself and manage the women well too. If you need examples, look to Hugh Hefner and Tiger Woods. Once polygamy becomes more socially acceptable, expect to see more men having harems and women supporting the notion too.
I forgot to note that there are many times more mainstream Mormons than fundamentalist Mormons in 2012 Anno Domino.
That some people might be coerced into something isn’t a very good argument for banning the thing. Else, everything would be banned.
Polygamy is already normal in the entire US, with most women “divorcing” to receive financial support from two or more husbands. This is what real coercion looks like: prison for recalcitrant husbands, more oppressive than anything women face in Salt Lake City, or Riyadh for that matter. As for their sex lives, most women practice polygyny. Rich, you are more brainwashed than the cult members you imagine.
I’m not into outright banning of polygamy, but you’re right – it’s difficult to find a good or even benign application of it. The women usually get screwed – no pun intended.
After studying this many years ago, I came to the conclusion that the early Mormon leaders were a bunch of perverted tyrants. Nothing against perverts – I resemble that remark myself sometimes – but someone who deliberately constructs a coercive system to satisfy their sexual perversions is the worst kind of sex offender.
Here’s the way it worked … Mormon “heaven” isn’t equal in all respects to all men. An extremely pious man ascend to the upper levels and become a GOD himself – of his own celestial kingdom. This route is only open to men though unless …
In the case of woman who wants the same kind of reward – then she can only enter a celestial kingdom on the back of a man she’s attached to through marriage.
A genius system. Women will compete for the most pious men – and guess who those would be? Correctomundo! It would be the men at the TOP of the Mormon leadership. So a Mormon elder would never have a problem finding lots of young brides to marry him.
Even with this completely uneven playing field – the elders weren’t satisfied, and high men could even reach down and steal the wife of an underling to make her his own.
Oh and … excommunication meant you could never gain entry into a celestial kingdom and … guess what happened with your wives in that instance? Right again – they left you because you had no coattails for them to hold onto!
I don’t hold this against modern Mormons – but sheesh – they certainly have no right to bitch about homosexual marriages given their RECENT past history. And – it’s a history that has never been explained properly. Joseph Smith and Brigham Young stated many times that polygamy was absolutely essential – a duty of every pious man – dictated by GOD himself. Then … inexplicably – at a time when the Federal government was placing immense pressure on the Mormons to give it up – Wilford Woodruff goes into a room to converse with God – and God tells him to give up this “essential” practice.
But does he give it up? Oh sure – but he “grandfathers in” all the previous plural marriages. Sooo … if it was okay to keep around for the folks who were previously married … then why did GOD command him to end the practice for future marriages?
Never explained. And that’s because God never said a word about plural marriages to Wilford Woodruff or Joseph Smith – they made it all up themselves.
The plural marriages were not grandfathered. A lot of women found themselves single mothers without property rights.
Now wait just a minuet- how is a guy who has a wife and a mistress NOT practicing polygamy, exactly? In what way does that preclude coercion and abuse? Since when has that caused the collapse of society? Last time I checked, the whole wife+mistress combo has been around for a VERY long time, and there have even been periods where it was considered normal. There are even cases where its a woman with a husband and a lover.
Polygamy is a totally natural practice for a human being, and as such, it has all the potential benefits (yes, I did say benefits) and pitfalls of any normal human relationship.
When I was in my late teens (at UNO) I was for a time the mistress of a gentleman in his early 30s, with the knowledge and blessing of his wife. Once when we were talking she told me that “every successful man has a wife, a mistress and a girlfriend”, defining the mistress as the one the wife knows about; she wanted me to help her figure out whom his girlfriend might be (I had no idea). I don’t really believe her theory, but thought you might enjoy the story.
When applied to humans, doesn’t “polygamy” usually mean … “the practice of having more than one spouse”? A mistress is not a spouse since she’s not legally associated with a man, is not considered a benefactor (unless he so states in his will) and inherits neither the debts nor the assets of the husband.
And, as a man – there is NO WAY I’d have more than one wife under one roof. That’s just a recipe for disaster. You’d have to give each wife “equal time”. You got eight wives that’s eight more birthdays and anniversaries for you to “forget”. That’s eight wives that would be screaming at me every time I buy a new guitar. Eight wives asking me … “does my ass look fat?” … and eight more times the lies racked up for the day you meet St. Peter – briefly that is, just as he shows you to the firey doorway.
I once read a study that said that women who lived in close quarters self-synchroize their hormonal cycles. With eight wives – that’s a Hurricane Katrina sized PMS storm happening every 28 days.
No thank you.
That reminds me of an old joke:
Q: What’s the penalty for bigamy?
A: Having more than one wife.
Now, THAT’s Funny!
Here’s Mark Twain on Mormon Polygamy from “Roughing It.”
Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only two days, and therefore we had no time to make the customary inquisition into the workings of polygamy and get up the usual statistics and deductions preparatory to calling the attention of the nation at large once more to the matter.
I had the will to do it. With the gushing self-sufficiency of youth I was feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform hereuntil I saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than my head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly and pathetically homely” creatures, and as I turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I said, “No””the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh censure””and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand uncovered in his presence and worship in silence.”
Very true. Even in Qatar – the country with the highest average male income on the planet – rich men are turning away from polygyny in droves.
They would rather give an amateur (misyar) an allowance to live in an apartment somewhere and visit them when convenient, than add an additional wife with all the financial, emotional and domestic problems that can bring.
I realize the legal definition is you cannot get a marriage licence with more than one person, however, I don’t think that definition is valid.
And besides, I totally agree with Maggie’s assertion that marriage should be treated like a contract, and bound by contract law.
That’s like saying drug use causes gang warfare. Bzzzt! LAWS AGAINST drug use cause gang warfare. Similarly, laws against polygamy drive all but the abusers from the field.
Or are you referring to the Muslim faith? It sure amazes me how most of those who would label masculinity as “rape culture” and engage in culture-war against it, are willing to do just the opposite when it’s part of that vicious, nasty religion and culture. For some reason leftists simply can’t see the hate that is built into Islam even when it’s attacked their own country. Maybe a few of them will wise up after they succeed in putting us under Sharia law.
If there is one thing I’m not worried about, it’s the US being put under Sharia law. I’m also not worried about being put under Talmudic law or the laws of Genghis Khan.
Does anybody know what the neofeminists DO have to say about Islam, Sharia, polygamy, etc?
Oops, no exception
You wrote that, “One of today’s uncharted seas is fully-normalized homosexuality. While not every traditional society condemned homosexuality as Judeo-Christian ones did, it also wasn’t given the full recognition and celebration of heterosexuality.”
I’m not at all positive that I’m right, but my reading ot Plutarch’s Live of Lycurgus and Life of Pelopidas lead me to believe that at least two of the classical Greek city states gave homosexuality the full recognition and celebration. Aslo, in Moralia, Plutarch says that when two Beoetian men wanted to marry, they would travel to Thebes so they could swear their fidelity on the grave of Iolaus, Hercules’ lover.
Not socially. Such celebration was only a philosophical thing among the educated men of the upper class, not a day-to-day reality as it is in our society. And even THOSE men still married and supported families.
My feelings on the subject are that the reason a person did not ‘marry’ someone of the same sex was because there was no possibility of children, and as such no need for the institution of marriage, which was initially designed as a contract to protect against the possibility of a mother being left with a child she cannot care for.
A homosexual who wanted children could get that by creating a marriage contact with a woman who had no need for a sexual relationship with her husband (maybe she was bisexual, or maybe she just didn’t have that much of a sex drive) so they could raise children together in a platonic fashion. As you’ve pointed out yourself, the obsessive link between love and marriage is a fairly recent development.
In the case where two men ‘married’ in antiquity, I chock that up to a lost in translation. One can swear an oath of fidelity in love to another person before a deity in a binding fashion without it being marriage, but I doubt most scholars would even realize the existence of a distinction.
The real problem with the whole messy deal is that marriage is severing two purposes that should not be linked- marriage serves as a socially recognized declaration of fidelity in love, and it serves as a socioeconomic contract (presumably for the sake of supporting children). Marriage should either be one, or the other, and not both. Moreover, it should not be considered the same when two people becoming a single unit economically with children and two people becoming a single unit economically without children.
Wait, hold on — Hercules and Iolaus were LOVERS? Did Kevin Sorbo know about this?
Now that more states within the USA allow marijuana recreational use as well as even more states allowing medical use than prostitution which I predicted at least once before on this site, I’m wondering whether polygamy will be accepted in more states within the USA than prostitution within my lifetime. I’m assuming that I’ll live at least another 30 years. Does anyone want to wager on that?
I’m not confident enough to offer a bet. My limited sense is that prostitution will take longer to decriminalize due to the economic component. There are large swaths of the population for whom sex (conservatives) and commerce (liberals) are dirty; sex work is the interaction between the two. It’s not something either of the morally retarded branches of politics seem likely to take up as a cause any time soon. The best we might get is that liberals start insisting that sex work be legalized (not decriminalized) so that it can more effectively be over-regulated and over-taxed (hurray!).
In comparison, legally protected poly relationships don’t involve money and, as Maggie notes, logically follow as a consequence of the battles being fought today. So it’s entirely plausible to me that the progressives of tomorrow will take up poly relationships as the new, trendy thing they can self-righteously bleat about after the war for gay marriage has been won. Progressives of today seem to oppose poly, but I wonder how much of that is an actual principled stand (if they even have any) or simply rhetoric to sound more reasonable to moderates and conservatives. Time will tell.
Progressives of today seem to oppose poly, but I wonder how much of that is an actual principled stand (if they even have any) or simply rhetoric to sound more reasonable to moderates and conservatives. Time will tell.
One taboo at a time; it is not possible to overturn all prohibitions against consensual behavior at once.
Now, of course there are those that only care about the rights of their own little faction, but each new freedom lays the groundwork for the next one.
I’m fairly liberal (left-libertarian, I’d put it), and I know a lot of other liberals – and commerce in itself isn’t dirty. (TBF, I do know a fair number of liberals who think big corporations are dirty as a knee-jerk reaction, but that doesn’t apply here).
It’s exploitation that’s a problem. Get rid of the pimp myth, and a lot of liberal opposition will evaporate.
Maybe, but I’m not so sure. Most people are of the mindset that profit is inherently evil: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/12/the_psychology_1.html#
As per their methodology, my bet is that most people would rate sex work as a high-profit, low social value industry; not something people are likely to rush to defend any time soon.
“laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are…sustainable only…[if] laws based on moral choices [are valid].”
This argument also flies in the face of reality. We do continue to set limits on many things. Driving is legal, but there are speed limits. Selling alcohol is legal, but you can’t sell it to minors. Having sex is legal, but not with minors. To pretend that all ability to regulate anything will be swept away by same sex equality is just another scare tactic.
But let’s take it farther- Should some of the above be illegal? Bigamy? Sounds like that should be up to the people involved. Adult incest? There’s genetic reasons why one shouldn’t, but beyond that it’s largely social taboo. Prostitution? Should definitely be legal. Masturbation? Oh yes, I’d love to see them enforce that. Lock up everyone who has masturbated. Who would be the guards? And what interest does the state have in preventing that? (That is based on old, bronze age Biblical prohibitions, because back then human population was small, and the leaders wanted men to father children, not wank off.) Adultery? Again, choice of the people involved. Fornication? What’s wrong with that? bestiality? Well, here I’m not sure the animal can properly consent. I also admit to arguing against it from a personal distaste factor. Obscenity? According to who?
Society should have to show an overwhelming benefit to be able to regulate any of those.
I agree with comixchick, laws based on moral values should be re-evaluated and thrown out if there is not overwhelming value to keeping such regulation.
Ah, but the other examples you name have other valid reasons for their existence. Scalia is a puritan, but he’s not stupid; he knows damned well that there is no compelling public interest in regulating any of those things, which is why he lists them in particular instead of rape and child molestation as true alarmists do. Note he said “adult incest”; the distinction is a window into his thought processes, which are crystal-clear even if his morality is muddy.
I Agree. This has always been the problem with Article 16 of The Universal Deceleration of Human Rights, which creates an either or situation: either the state has the right to limit marriage between consenting adults on moral grounds or it does not. In fact, adult incest is legal in parts of Europe but marriage and sex are not inextricably linked. What reason is there to deny two widowed sisters who live together from marrying and enjoying the same inheritance tax relief as a lesbian couple? Also the argument against incest on biological grounds is fallacious, couples with far greater risk of producing children with genetic defects are allowed to marry.
Well that’s true in the U.S. – but then again … HERE … the government doesn’t have access to your health records and therefore doesn’t know what kind of genetic defects you’re carrying.
Oh wait … I forgot … that was before ObamaCare came along and insisted everyone’s personal medical history be squashed into an electronic record for all the world to see.
Scientific paradigm shifts occur when new evidence destroys the old; and when someone questions the basic premises. Marriage differs only in that it is a social construct, it is an artefact. Are we now seeing this paradigm being questioned and found wanting: what, exactly, is marriage?
What strikes me as most interesting is that people seem to think that marriage itself defines the boundary of these relationships.
Harems (male, female, mixed), are 100% possible now. It’s just this religious stamp of marriage that doesn’t come along for the ride.
In US states that aren’t outright unworthy of living in, you want to establish a contract(s) that says person(s) A(…Z) gets a(…z) when you die, you can do that. You want to give some (or a great deal of) legal control over your affairs, you can do that too. Sexual interaction is simply a matter of informed consent (although that concept needs work… the whole “age line in the sand” thing is obviously broken) You can change your name at any time; legally or just for casual use. All those things apply to monogamous relationships, too.
The religious side of marriage… that’s simply a self-decieving playground for the superstitious, and I’m not even interested. The social side of marriage places almost all of its effects outside the relationship; it’s strictly about who you’re trying to impress, and why. The contract side of marriage auto-confers many things you can do manually; at the same time, it gives the lawyers and the courts control over things you just might not want them to have control over.
Personally — and make no mistake, I am speaking only for myself — I have decided, based on both experience and observation, that marriage, at present, is primarily a support system for religion, party planners and lawyers, none of whom are in my favor, and so I decline to participate. This has not interfered in any way with my having a long term monogamous relationship with a like-minded partner, or with our ability to manage ownership of material things, or act, legally speaking, one for the other.
“laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are…sustainable only…[if] laws based on moral choices [are valid].”
No, this is bad reasoning, and Scalia knows it, which is why he’s using loaded terminology in the phrasing.
He’s included masturbation (a classic example of an un-enforceable law); obscenity (there’s the little matter of the First Amendment; it doesn’t surprise me that Scalia would like to ignore it, though), fornication (also un-enforceable), adultery (ditto), and beastiality (legal codes generally only recognize animals as property, and this Supreme Court has ruled on other occasions that State laws regulating the use of private property are Constitutional, on grounds that have nothing to do with morality). He’s lumping in emotional triggers to link certain laws that people currently agree with with laws that people generally disregard. (cf. fornication and adultery). In short, if laws against beastiality are proper enforcement of a moral choice, then laws against fornication, adultery, obscenity, and masturbation would also be proper. Since the general public isn’t going to give up porn, sex outside of marriage, sex with people other than your married partner, and self-pleasuring, Scalia has just stated that all such laws are invalid.
I wonder if masturbation=handjob to Scalia…or maybe he means in public? As for your claims that the others are unenforceable, they certainly can be, even if not perfectly.
Y’all are all missing the point. It isn’t bad reasoning; it’s IRONCLAD reasoning. If government has no right to make laws against private moral behavior, than it doesn’t. Period. Full stop. End of line. Y’all are just not used to seeing an intellectually honest prohibitionist, one who comes right out and admits that the laws he supports are 100% arbitrary and can only be legally defended by the concept that the government can make any law it likes.
I think the scariest part of that, though, is that there is a chance a majority of people might just say, “Well, okay, if that’s what it takes to be safe, I’ll gladly give up a bit of freedom.”
Which is a violation of the Constitution ( a small document Scalia is pledged to uphold), which clearly states (and Chief Justice Robert Jackson made clear) places some rights above regulation and Congressional power (There’s also the small matter that if Congress has the right to pass any law, then the Supreme Court becomes superfluous, as no law could be rendered null and void by a Supreme Court decision. I doubt Scalia is suggesting he should be put out of a job…) No, this is a judge who wants a certain result, regardless of what the law might say. (And the government may attempt to enforce any law; however, some laws are by nature impossible to truly enforce. cf. the 18th Amendment. A law prohibiting masturbation would require monitors on every teenaged boy and girl in America, and would put the U.S. in the child porn business.)
Scalia may be wrongheaded – but he’s not violating the constituion.
Newsflash – all of the justices on the Supreme Court fit that description. This isn’t anything new.
Which rights were those? Reason I’m asking is because Robert Jackson was pretty much one of those justices who “wants a certain result, regardless of what the law might say”. See his opinions on “Dennis vs United States”.
“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects
from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the
reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal
principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty,
and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and
assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote;
they depend on the outcome of no elections.” Chief Justice Jackson
And yes, I feel that Scalia, and many of the Justices, do routinely ignore the Constitution on certain issues. The idea that ‘freedom of speech’ only includes certain types of speech is an obscenity in itself.
If polygamy and/or large harems were common practice for the elite, then there would be a shortage of women available for non-elite men. Consequently, the government would be forced to at least tolerate prostitution.
This reminds me of how prostitution has skyrocketed in PRC China as a result of a woman shortage caused by its one child policy. What makes this a little funny is that the PRC tried eliminating prostitution after they seized power for very similar reasons as the “abolitionists” argue.
And as I recall, a shortage of women is strongly correlated with violent crime and political instability. Add other long-term consequences such as less genetic diversity, I think the elite would have to be utterly stupid or short-sighted to permit polygamy. Besides, I think they prefer having one wife for giving themselves an heir (elites tend to prefer fewer children) and whores for sexual variety.
That depends on your definition of polygamy. If one guy wants to have 50 lovers, all of whom are economically dependent on him, then he can have it so long as he can afford it. If he wants to get some, or all 50, of those women pregnant, also fine, so long as he can afford to support all of those children. That, I think, would qualify as polygamy, whatever the paperwork happens to say.
But I highly doubt he will be able to prevent all 50 of those women from ever having other lovers, and if they end of pregnant from another man, well, then I suppose that child is not really his responsibility, is it? He may then decide to divorce that woman in particular, perhaps with a final settlement as to her payment for services rendered. He may decide that he doesn’t care, and take on the support of the child because he feels like it.
And whether he does or not, and whether he finds women who want to participate or not, is absolutely no ones business except the parties involved.
So long as children are provided for.
Which they will be, regardless of marriage, because there are already laws to take care of that, even if they could use some revision.
I was mostly thinking about polygyny, as I assume it would be the dominant form if polygamy was permitted.
I agree, there’s no reason to believe that some women won’t be unfaithful to their husbands in polygyny, but I believe enough women would marry wealthy men that competition in the marriage and sex markets would substantially increase.
For example, suppose there is a politically autonomous population of 10 men and 10 women. Suppose that one of the men is very wealthy, so he gets 6 wives. Now 60% of the female population is no longer available on the market. Then suppose that another man is well off, so he gets 1 wife. Now 20% of the men have wives, with 70% of the female population divided between them. That leaves 30% of the female population to be divided among 80% of the male population. Even if 3 of the men get married, that still leaves 50% of the men without wives. While some of the bachelors may seduce another man’s wife, the costs of infidelity will heavily deter them. So to the extent that it happens, I don’t see why it would reduce sexual frustration overall.
Alternatively, maybe some of the remaining 3 women will choose to be whores. Maybe 1 woman will choose to be a whore for 6 men, 2 for 7 or 3 for 8.
My example illustrates how polygyny can create a shortage of available women depending on how prevalent it is. More importantly, this shortage means that the ruling elite will have to pacify the sexual frustrations of a large number of bachelors. They can do that by capturing women in war or through prostitution. In humanity’s present stage of development, whores would be the most practical option. Now, I don’t believe that legalized polygamy would cause competition to be as extreme as my example, but it seems likely to me that it would make the marriage and sex markets far more competitive. If that happened, the ruling elite would be pressured to at least tolerate prostitution in order to pacify young men.
The only flaw in your argument is the assumption that in a society where polygamy is acceptable that the rules of infidelity will be as they are now. I also don’t really see the problem with the whole whore thing , either.
Ill also put forward that the situation where a man has both a wife and a mistress is already an instance of polygamy.
I don’t think having a mistress necessarily counts as polygamy. I believe present-day mistresses are often more short-term, so the mistress is only temporarily unavailable in the marriage or sex market?
I’m not saying there is anything wrong with whores taking responsibility for the sexual appetites of most men, but whores don’t exactly have reproductive sex with their clients like wives do with their husbands. If a few wealthy and powerful men father most of the children, that would have a negative effect on the gene pool.
It’s plausible that the rules of infidelity could become more relaxed than they are now, but I doubt it would cross class divisions. I just don’t see how a member of the ruling elite would be willing to share one of his wives with an “unwashed pleb.”
One could argue that marriages have become more “temporary” these days too, when you get down too it.
I am defining spouse rather loosely, but frankly the whole principle of marriage is kind of ridiculousness in a world where there is no difference in the legal status of a bastard child and a ‘legitimate’ one and anyone with half a brain is capable of using extremely effective birth control. Even if their is a child out of wedlock, the father cannot get away without contributing monetarily to the child’s care whether marriage is involved or not. Thus, as a means of ensuring the woman does not need to bear the overwhelming commitment of child rearing alone, marriage is completely nonessential. I assert that, as a consequence of that, its function has fundamentally changed and its legal definition is therefore no longer valid.
Perhaps infidelity taboos with not change so much, but I highly doubt a sufficient number of people will even be interested in polygamy to seriously effect the rations of eligible ladies to horny bachelors. It becomes much more demanding to have many people in a relationship when all of them are considered equals.
Go to the head of the class! No one sexual nonconformity, or even all of them taken together, can possibly change society as much as women’s rights, no-fault divorce, the elimination of bastard stigma and DNA testing have; people just like to pretend otherwise.
Polygamy isn’t in the cards for a widespread practice. Too many women are against it – and I would be too if I were them. Their marital assets are not protected to the extent they are in monogamous marriages. Wife number 7 doesn’t get half the marital assets when she wants a divorce – she gets 1/8th.
Ahh … but it’s a bigger pie? Not usually, not in the polygamous marriages I’ve seen.
The loss of half the marital property might be a problem for a gold digger, but not so much for a normal person. After all, the presumed wife would only need to commit to 1/7th of her resources to the marriage.
Your reasoning is flawed. People already can enter into these contracts you talked about. The government and society simply chooses not enforce or recognize them.
Oh, good grief. If you can’t understand how ridiculous that statement is, there’s no point in discussing it with you. Hint: An unenforceable contract is no more a contract than wax fruit is food.
To elaborate Contract enforcement is by definition a public affair. And the government does in fact have a good deal of freedom in terms of what contracts it chooses to enforce.
Enforcement is based on pragmatic public interest, not rights. You can have a contract saying you’re married to three other people, it obviously doesn’t mean anything but it’s your private business, why should it matter to anyone? Why should the government send armed thugs to insurance companies that won’t put four people on the same plan.
To enforce the rights of both the married group and the insurance company to freely contract with others; enforcing the rights of the citizenry being the principal function of government and all.
Again, people do not have a right to have whatever contracts or private arrangements they make be enforced.
Maggie’s argument is that the government has no right to interfere with personal contracts between consenting adults.
But people already do that, it’s just again, they don’t mean anything because the government won’t enforce them.
But contract enforcement is not a right.
That married group doesn’t have rights because it doesn’t exist.
You are completely wrong. One of the two main functions of government is to enforce contracts. If it refuses to fulfill that function, it becomes nothing more than a cancer on the body politic.
Oh, wait I forgot I was arguing with a anarchist libertarian group for a while.
A contract is just a private agreement. That’s why I was using the two interchangeably. A “contract-contract” is one that is legally recognized which is what you were thinking.
So again, people can enter to like group marriage with a little piece of paper that’s says they’re married. But nobody has to act like they are, anymore than they have to act like sovereign citizens are correct.
This is categorically false. Also, the government does not originate rights; it merely enforces them.
Really, I brought this on myself. I knew that I was arguing with people who were blinded by their political ideology. And yet I clarify what I was talking about even though I knew it was an important concept in their faith.
It was about as dumb as constantly using the word “cross” with a bunch of christian fundamentalists without clarifying that you weren’t actually talking about the Cross.
There’s only one person here “blinded by ideology”, and it isn’t any of the ones who have actually been out in the real world for a couple of decades.
That right there is a logical fallacy, specifically an appeal to authority.
People in the big bad “real world” can still be “blinded by ideology” like say, all the people who think sex work should be illegal that are older than you.
Plus, in the “real world” most people don’t think libertarianism works either, the majority of the experience and success in real world is behind other ideology that most people will work better.
“Work better”? If I was interested in pure utilitarianism, I’d just be evil. Morality is not a matter of what “works best”.
Come on, at this point you are just being rude. And this is coming from someone who is as critical of libertarianism as anyone on the planet, as Maggie well knows. So go back to your college philosophy textbooks, and quit misusing philosophy. Because any good philosopher will tell you: in philosophy, logic is not used to discover an argument’s truth, only its consistency. (Mortimer Adler, The Great Ideas.)
Thanks, Richard. Thanks to you posting this, I probably don’t need to throw in my two cents’ worth.
But I will anyway. I am not a libertarian. I thought I might be (I think the government should get out of the business of prohibiting icky behavior which harms no one except the person being icky, if him), but then I started talking to people who identify themselves as such, and that cured me.
And I’m having a hard time understanding what asmallnotch is talking about. Of course the government enforces contracts. Even libertarians, who openly debate whether or not the gub’mint should be building roads, who sometimes say that you shouldn’t need a license to practice brain surgery,* agree that government should enforce contracts.
So whuh?
* Because, you see, if you’re a lousy brain surgeon then after you kill your first dozen patients, well people won’t hire you to operate on their brains anymore. See, The Market (bows head in reverence) takes care of everything. Too bad about those dozen dead folks, but oh well.
And yes, I know that not all libertarians are like that, but some are, and I don’t know where ELSE you find such.
Ouch, my head is hurting. Which means that this is something I haven’t given much thought to.
However the late great Robert A. Heinlein did, beginning with “Stranger in a Strange Land,” to “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress,” to “Time Enough for Love,” to “The Number of the Beast,” “The Cat Who Could Walk Through Walls,” and finally “To Sail Beyond the Sunset.” Polygamy, polyandry, and group marriage can work, if you have mature, intelligent, unselfish individuals who are willing to put forth the effort which such a complex of emotions and personalities requires. However, Very few individuals are that intelligent, mature, and selfless (not altruistic, they’re two different animals; see my OpEdNews article “Illuminating Dichotomies” for more on this subject),
I think that such relationships are possible, but I do not think that they are long lasting unless circumstances make it a necessity.
Hello, Mr Girard, unfortunately I have to reply to this comment rather the one because of comment limits.
Yes, I was rude, I admit that. However, the problem is best illustrated by the fact that you were deeply insulting to me despite you having no reason to insult me.
Older people simply aren’t as polite as they think. The substance was that merely addressing logical inconsistencies in a argument is not enough to refute that argument. Of course, I devoted every other sentence to an argument that, while somewhat rude, did address the argument’s substance. And you come up and tell that I need to go back to my college textbooks.
And I called Maggie “blinded by ideology” because she called me once. It was totally out of nowhere. There was this psychologist she liked who got kicked off a blog and I pointed that the reason he got kicked was because he made a bad analysis of some data. And out of no where she just smugly declares that to be true. I mostly remember it because some crazy racist took that moment to start arguing with me and does anyone call out the racist. No, because that person was politically incorrectly or something.
Okay, I’m just rambling now. But, you guys dish out all the time, and can’t take it back. And you think you’re so much better at both than you actually are.
And seriously, how did you miss every other sentence in that comment?
Those logical inconsistencies of which you speak are there because Maggie, like most libertarians, begin with a far different set of assumptions than you or I do. Are their assumptions wrong? Yes, I believe that at least some of them are, but it is not a logical inconsistency if you follow through from hypothesis to conclusion: you must prove that their hypothesis is wrong, and then, Q.E.D. their arguments fall apart.
I assume that in the statement above, “I called Maggie “blinded by ideology” because she called me once,” you meant “she called me ‘blinded by ideology’ once. That, and the following paragraph, demonstrates that you are taking this personally, something one should never do if your actual goal is to inform, and not get in a pissing match. Inflammatory statements are like trying to teach a horse to sing: it frustrates you and annoys the horse.
Unless you have hidden some writing in one of your comments, I have read them all, and I did not “miss every other sentence in that comment.” Sailor Barsoom read the same comments, and came to the same conclusion I did.
I was venting by being as rude as people on this blog are to me, such as the first comment you left me.
Okay, so my argument didn’t make as much sense as I thought it would. The key is that a contract can mean an private agreement that isn’t actually an official, legally binding agreement or an actual contract that is legally binding. Not all private agreements are binding, such as verbal arrangements without proper witnesses. So not all “contracts” are real contracts. So there is no right to have every private agreement be real, thus there is not a right to have every marital arrangement be treated as a legally binding contract.
The problem with that argument is that I making in the comment section of libertarian’s blog and that even the non-libertarians were going to be thinking of a contract as not having that second definition. So I was very frustrated. And well, I have seen polite arguments, and people here don’t make.
I was making two arguments, one was the original one, and another one that was in response to the comment dealing with the real world experience. Sailor Barsoom replied to the comment containing the second argument, but his comment was in response to the first argument I made. Now, your comment may be also have been addressing that first argument. In that case, well I’m not going to apologize because frankly you don’t deserve one, but my response was based on the impression you were addressing the second.
One more thing, I don’t know if you think you’re just being clever or not, but all the snide little insults you keep putting in your comments are not helping. In fact, it’s very hypocritical and extremely annoying.
Pleas turn down your sensitivity level. I have not intentionally made a “snide” comment, other than the one about the college textbooks, which was only half-snide, because you seem to me to have forgotten some of the fundmental creeds of Philosophy, something I have accused certain posters on this blog of on more than one occasion. They have the excuse that I think that Ayn Rand may be the only “phiosophy” they have ever read, but it is obvious to me that you are better read than that.
Anger does not win arguments: Socrates made that point in his “Apology” 2400 years ago, mostly by pissing off his judges intentionally so they would force him to drink hemlock or accept exile. (See I.F. Stone’s “The Trial of Socrates” for more on this subject.) A piece of advice from an old guy: if you don’t want to win an argument, don’t get involved in it. And that is not snide, that is just a fact I’ve learned in my 56 years on this planet.
I may have a little sensitivity. You see, I knew I was angry and I had chosen to drop that argument but than you make a comment that you admit was “half-snide”.
I don’t actually study philosophy and this was after someone had already tried to attack for a perceived lack of experience. And you were saying that I needed to be more polite at the same. So in context it was much insulting than you intended.
Then please accept my apology for uintended hurt.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/2012/12/07/supreme-court-will-hear-gay-marriage-cases/6Dj99xxMPqBcM64vgbDRvK/story.html
This seems relevant.
If women were able to easily afford the things that they needed and wanted, food, clothing, housing, etcetera, I don’t think that they would ever want to be part of a harem. I think that they might not want to get married at all, who really wants to put up with someone else’s shit? Or, I think that they might choose to marry someone that they really liked, without regard to how much money that person earned.
Additionally, I think that if everyone could easily afford the things that they needed and wanted, people would tend to pursue their own happiness more, and mind other people’s business less. Much of our squabbling about politics and the law, is like crabs in a bucket pulling each other down as soon as one is about to gain their freedom.
I could go on and on, but I wanted to point out that people’s fighting and arguing in politics and law has a lot to do with competing for resources, and is not necessarily rooted in people’s fundamental rights.
Or, I think that they might choose to marry someone that they really liked, without regard to how much money that person earned.
How do you explain a supermodel – who could have any man she wants – marrying the ugly old rich guy? Instincts are powerful.
Was she a supermodel her entire life? What you learn early in life can stay with you long after it does you any good.
Will he stay rich longer than she will stay beautiful?
I posted this on yesterday’s column but it’s more relevant to today’s.
Polygamy is more complex to allow than gay marriage. Simply because in the current system of paperwork and laws there is an assumption of a single spouse.
From a strictly legalistic perspective, removing gender assumptions from law (and even the assumption of sexual relationship) is pretty straight forward. Any judge could reasonably be expected to make the proper substitutions.
But polygamy has no simple mapping onto current tort. So from an public policy perspective it really is a bigger deal.
Please note, I’m not saying it should or should not be legal, just that the legal ramifications are greater.
What about corporation law (as applied to polygamous relations)? You have multiple signatories, all with certain obligations and expectations. Granted, the introduction of (gasp!) sex might prove a bit problematic, jokes about corporations screwing customers and each other notwithstanding; but the law is nothing if not flexible.
Yeah, of course it can be dealt with. And treating marriage as a corporation might work well.
I was thinking about laws on implicit power of attorney or similar. With one spouse, it all maps cleanly. More than one, new laws need to cover the situation. Or just don’t allow plural marriage to use what amounts to a default contract.
I feel that all arguments of “if we let Group A do Thing X, then Group B will want to do Thing Y!!” are invalid. You don’t tell people they can’t do something because of what you’re afraid somebody else will want to do; you tell somebody they can’t do something because you’re afraid of those people doing that thing.
“If we let homosexuals marry, fathers and daughters will demand the right to marry!” is an invalid argument. We as a society, acting through our elected leaders and our courts, will say yes or no to incestuous marriages based on what we think of incest, not what we think of homosexuality or interracial marriage or bestiality or whatever.
Proponents of same-sex marriage probably make more references to Virginia v Loving than any other SCOTUS decision in history. But I suspect that even most people vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage wouldn’t suggest that interracial marriage should be kept illegal so that homosexuals wouldn’t have that example to rally around. People opposed to interracial marriage tend to be opposed to interracial marriage, no matter what gays have to say about it. People opposed to same-sex marriage tend to be opposed to same-sex marriage, no matter what the law is in interracial marriage.