now that the gay marriage is the law of the land, can anyone truly deny the right for 2 girls to marry the same guy?

[NickB1967]

Originally Posted by Nepenthe

^I appreciate the argument against that takes into account more than just "it's wrong" or "it makes me uncomfortable."

But I'm not sure the assumption that "even a small number of males accumulating wives would lead to a woman shortage" is accurate. And I'm not sure polygamy would be widespread (perhaps the financial benefit would be much reduced or nonexistent after the first spouse). And why are we only considering polygamy and not polyandry? I've known plenty of bi-sexual people; maybe a contract is between two women and three men. Or one woman and four men.

Think about it, and do the math.

If there is more a less a man for every woman and vice versa, we have a much more stable society than we do if we have a society with wealthy patriarchs having harems, and lonely rootless single men prone to crime and violence.

Polyandry, outside of a few kooky and kinky people, isn't going to happen. It never has in human history.

[NickB1967]

Originally Posted by Old Gringo

You can marry more than 1 woman already if you really want to. Some isolated burgs in S Utah have plenty of that.

Or, you could move to Iran, Egypt, Libya, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia if it's that big an issue for you.

Dive in!

And those societies are all messes. Enough said.

In those heretical Utah compounds, the young men are kicked out once they get old enough, because the older patriarchs want more wives. This does not end well.

[MTQ3000]

Disappointing, I thought you were going to hit the usual bestiality angle. . . .

But why are we arguing against a committed threesome? Are y'all gay? lol

Mick

[Nepenthe]

Originally Posted by NickB1967

Think about it, and do the math.

I have thought about. And the math I believe is much more complex than you're making it out to be. Show me the math that illustrates "if even a small number of predominant males are allowed to accumulate more than one wife, as happens in polygamy, there is now a 'female shortage.' "

And, I'm still not sure it would be very widespread.

Originally Posted by NickB1967

Polyandry, outside of a few kooky and kinky people, isn't going to happen. It never has in human history.

Yah, that's easy. Women have not enjoyed the standing and agency that they have only very recently begun to enjoy. An appeal to history here holds little water.

As I said earlier, I think eventually a "marriage" will be, for example, defined as a 10 year contract between 8 people to raise x number of children sharing genetic material from 6 of them. You and I will both be dead.

And as I posted earlier: 9 Different Visions Of What Families Will Look Like 50 Years From Now

[Redraven]

The issue has already been raised right here in Yellowstone County, Montana, a month or so ago.
A married man applied for a license to legally marry his common-law second wife, based on the equal rights wording of the Supreme Court decision about homosexual marriage. The county clerk, when last heard from, was waiting on a decision from the Attorney General about whether to issue the license or not.
We are still waiting.
I find it interesting that when the marriage issue was being discussed long ago, the Civil Contract was brought up as a possible solution to the marriage controversy. IIRC, the LGBT community rejected the idea, stating such a Civil Contract was "against the law".
It was OK to change the MARRIAGE laws, but changing the Civil Contract laws was not possible.
Now some are saying that changing the multiple marriage laws would be too much trouble?
Not if equal rights are involved!

[markjames68]

The issue of multiple partners in a marriage will take a while. The first issue to be resolved will be incestuous marriage between two people, as long as both parties are adults and not in a custodial relationship, because some states already don't prohibit it and the 14th Amendment argument can apply.

So brothers, feel free to marry your sister. Or your brother. Or your cousin.

[danielj72]

Pandora's box is open. Of course polygamy has a strong legal argument, as does any other unconventional marriage arrangement. Any sexual deviant can claim that they deserve the same "equal protection under the law" that has worked for gay marriage. I do believe marriage will now end up meaning very little, soon anyone will be able to marry anyone they want, or even whatever they want. The effects this will have on families and society will unfold over the coming years and decades. Western civilization is in its death spiral.

[Nedibes]

There are two different parts of marriage, the private (spiritual/emotional/sexual) component and the public or civil component. The first entails things like love and blessings, the second things like tax breaks and insurance.

Civilly, marriage confers a lot of benefits, like easing property transfers and giving spouses the right to make decisions for one another. The trade-off is that everyone has to pick JUST ONE person to share those benefits, until death (or divorce) does them part.

It's pretty easy to see why we should stick with marriage between just two individuals when we think about these kinds of civil benefits. Asking employers to include an infinite number of adult dependents on insurance policies, giving rights of survivorship to multiple individuals, letting more than one person have automatic medical proxy when their spouse is incapacitated, etc. would all be unnecessarily burdensome.

On the other hand, criminalizing sexual relationships between more than two consenting adults seems to be a thing of the past. Folks are free to live and have sex with whoever and however many they choose, if all are consenting adults, without fear of criminal penalties. Churches are free to bless those unions if they wish. And children born "out of wedlock" are no longer legally stigmatized (though there are still many practical advantages to having married parents).

It may also be that we are moving towards a time when civil marriage benefits might be extended to individuals who are not in a traditional "marriage" relationship--think Kate and Allie (two divorced women who shared a household to care for their collective children and share expenses, but were not romantically involved, in an old sitcom) or Matthew and Mariah Cuthbert (elderly brother and sister who lived together non-incestuously and adopted orphan Anne Shirley in the Anne of Green Gables books). Perhaps it would make sense to extend some of the civil benefits of marriage to these duos, such as being one another's next-of-kin and sharing insurance, with a single, marriage-like arrangement rather than multiple separate contracts and documents. (Hawaii's "reciprocal partnership" law, an early response to gay marriage, allowed for these kinds of situations. It was intended to give same-sex couples some marriage rights, but was pitched to the more conservative element as a way of allowing a grown son to care for his elderly mother.)

TL;DR: There's no reason why a religious marriage couldn't happen between multiple partners, if the church is OK with it. Government-granted marriage benefits will likely be confined to couples for the foreseeable future.

[NickB1967]

Originally Posted by Nepenthe

I have thought about. And the math I believe is much more complex than you're making it out to be. Show me the math that illustrates "if even a small number of predominant males are allowed to accumulate more than one wife, as happens in polygamy, there is now a 'female shortage.' "

OK, I will type very slowly for you.... Or more accurately I will try to knock away some of that "multicultural and politically correct" (but factually and intellectually dishonest) "education" you received.

Assuming 50/50 sex ratios at birth, and infant mortality conquered for both sexes, you have as many men coming of age as you do women.

And likewise, you have as many heterosexual men coming of age as you have heterosexual women, if people are really "born that way" (cue Lady Gaga music)

If even a few men can start having harems of women in such a society, there will be a disproportionate number of men adversely affected. Math is a stubborn thing, indeed.

Lacking helpmate spouses and a focus upon the future that having children gives to normal people, these affected men will fall behind societally and economically, or they just won't care about the future as much, since they won't be thinking of their family futures. They will be less likely to build, to vote to fund a school, to establish endowments for children and future generations since no lady ever took care of their personal physical endowment. They will also be more crime and violence prone.

The future of such a society, compared to a monogamous one? Bleak. There is a reason the West powered ahead of Islam, and the more traditional family Far East is now powering ahead of an increasingly family unstable West for the same reason.

Originally Posted by Nepenthe

And, I'm still not sure it would be very widespread. Yah, that's easy. Women have not enjoyed the standing and agency that they have only very recently begun to enjoy. An appeal to history here holds little water.

As I said earlier, I think eventually a "marriage" will be, for example, defined as a 10 year contract between 8 people to raise x number of children sharing genetic material from 6 of them. You and I will both be dead.

And as I posted earlier: 9 Different Visions Of What Families Will Look Like 50 Years From Now

Which are not happy futures. "Brave New World", "A.I.", and "THX 1138" were dystopias, remember?

More biological realities: One man *can* impregnate and father children of many different women at the same time. One woman can only have one man's baby one at a time, or maybe twins, etc.

And men are not keen on paying for another man's children. Maury Povich (DNA says "YOU ARE (NOT) THE FATHER!") and others have made lurid daytime TV show careers around this fact.

But let us look at the Nine Alternatives this article describes:

1. First, this assumes Great Depression poverty. Hardly a happy situation. Second, communes didn't work--those of us who lived even as kids in the 1970's know this. No one is going to look out for a kid as strongly as his/her own mom and dad.

2. Not really radical at all--A longer living extended family is STILL a monogamous extended family of the same blood relatives. Daddy is still NOT going to tolerate (Great) Grandpa diddling Mommy.

But a whole mess of people all under the same roof, again, assumes a more impoverished Great Depression future. Situations like this were more common in the 1930's--ask your still living grandparents if you have them.

3. This assumes affluence enough to indulge in gender mutiliation. Decadent Prosperity might beat a Great Depression Future, but the Kardashians-Jenners are there to be laughed at, not emulated. And please don't tell me you buy the Big Lie that gender mutilated people are actually "changing".

4. Dolly the Sheep didn't live very long did she? Clones start out older. Not a happy future either.

5. "A.I." was, again, a dystopia, remember?

6. Meanwhile, here on Earth....

7. As the experience with #4 Dolly showed, people still have a life span.

8. Such mind connections are much more likely among blood relatives.

9. If we ever achieve this kind of immortality, well, that's a whole different ballgame.

[snj90]

I'm not really for legalized polygamy. But since gay marriage is legal, regarding the "fairness" argument, I don't really agree. Polygamy can be exploitative, so it's not really completely analogous to gay marriage.