- “Good law follows reality rather than precedes it,” he wrote. “Fifty years from now when poly households are commonplace and their issues are well understood, I’m sure an appropriate body of law will have grown up to handle the issues that arise. At least that’s how it works when civil society is allowed to go about its business, free of religious or ideological compulsion.”
Misses the big point: Marriage in the United States is a powerful legal instrument for managing and coordinating civil, financial and legal contracts. The standards for "partnership" between two people have been well-defined and well-explored by 200 years of history. Extending those standards to people regardless of their gender is actually easier than discriminating based on gender. Polygamy adds a layer of magnitude to the issue. Whereas before you've got two people and if they agree they're good, they don't they're divorced, adding one or more partners to the mix complicates the fuck out of things: A) Jack and Jill are married. Jack is in an accident that puts him in a coma from which he may not recover. It is Jill's choice whether to sign the DNR papers and determine how to handle their estate ("the Hill"). B) Jack and Bill are married. Jack is in an accident that puts him in a coma from which he may not recover. Under 1man1woman, Bill is fucked. He may not even be able to visit Jack at the hospital. He has no legal right to settle Jack's affairs and is likely ineligible to remain on the Hill unless careful paperwork has been notarized ahead of time. THIS is the argument for marriage equality - Jack and Bill are a family and its discriminatory to rule Bill a second-class citizen simply for having a dick. C) Jack and Jill and Bill are married. Jack is in an accident that puts him in a coma from which he may not recover. Jill and Bill get to fight about the DNR. Any decisions that get made have to be made by both of them. Unless one of them is "first wife." But that's not equal! What if we add Will to the mix? Now we've got a 2:1 voting bloc on all decisions. How do we separate property? Assuming durable power of attorney has not been assigned, how do we assign it? Longevity of bond? But what if Jack married Will because his relationship with Bill was loveless due to irreconcilable differences? Who the fuck wants to deal with that shit? Add in the hierarchy inherent in many polygamous relationships and the whole thing starts looking entirely too complicated for words. There's a reason polygamy died off in Europe but remained in Islam - title and land needs to be simple to follow and Europe was all about title and land. Islam, on the other hand, cared more about clan than geography and as a result, the social hierarchy was simpler. The more complex the holdings, the simpler the civil union. The simpler the holdings, the more complex the civil union. Ask a divorce attorney how much fun he'd have dealing with a polygamous divorce. Watch his eyes light up. And then know, in your heart of hearts, "Why not polygamy."
Yeah, we would have to completely rethink so much that I don't think it's worth it. I mean think about any legal difficulty or ambiguity you can, now add complications like paternity rights for children. Since me and my wife got married a decade ago, we've had 5 girlfriends and a boyfriend between the two of us. Two of the girlfriends ended up being serious longer relationships... and I still don't think the effort that would go into setting up the legal architecture is worth it. Frankly long term relationships with more then 2 people rarely happen of their own volition. When they do it can be super intense and really beautiful, but I think most people who are actually in those relationships are willing to accept the reality that legal recognition in the form of marriage isn't likely to happen. We certainly where/are. Although it would be nice to be able to have more flexibility when immigrating. Marriage gives you tons of added status there, and having a relationship with more then 2 people when your trying to move to another country becomes a big issue. Usually relationships like this are well worth any trouble we've personally encountered or can envision though. No one says you have to get married to do so. Nothing requires marriage be a part of your romantic relationships in the first place, and in many countries a good lawyer can help making sure non-married partners have most if not all of the rights afforded by the law to married couples.
| ‘Hey, guess what, the law forces the women to settle for you.’| Lol wat. Damn this oppressive regime of marriage which forces women to settle for jerks! If only they had free will to choose whom they married, but alas 'the law forces' them to make decisions that are bad for them.
Isn't a woman 'settling' more if she is with a man who is married to others? He speaks as if women are commodities to be traded between men, and the reward for being a better man is a woman. Woman are not rewards, they are people. And of course he describes himself as being very happily married, he's in charge. I'd be interested to learn more about his wives' perspectives. With this Mark guy's mentality, it's almost like interviewing a tyrant on the feelings of the people he rules over. I don't know, maybe I'm looking to far into this.“If you have ten men and ten women, and nine of those men are jerks,” Mark told me, “what antipolygamy does is it removes these women’s choice of the good man and forces them to settle for the nine jerks, and actually, the message of that to the jerks is, ‘Hey, guess what, the law forces the women to settle for you.’ But if you remove marriage control and allow women a choice to have laissez-faire free-market marriage economics… then women will choose the better man, and the message to jerks is, ‘Hey, we better grow up and become better men.’”
But women aren't required to get married. I think the institute of marriage as we know it is going to die out well before any of this comes to the forefront of modern politics. I really hope for the sake of people who enjoy having a single partner that polyamory doesn't become something super fashionable. There'll be a great deal of fights about it, and it'll always play out like "You cheated on me!" "No I didn't I'm just polyamorous!" If I don't have to pay a significant increase in taxes though, I really don't care. There were groups of kids back when I was in high school who sort of had a weird hybrid polyamorous relationship circle going on where the same like....3 guys dated the same 3 girls. It was weird, but if I don't have to pay for their shit I don't care if they shit on each other in unison.
The idea that it will always play out like that is ridiculous, and has little to do with polyamorous relationships. In order to be in a polyamorous relationship all parties have to know, thus what your talking about is actually just someone using a poor excuse for cheating on what was supposedly a monogamous relationship. As someone who twice now has thought he had a second wife (relationships my wife and I had with women that each lasted about a year each) I just don't think this is really a huge issue. Mostly because relationships with more then 2 people living together is incredibly hard to maintain, and most people have little interest in doing so. It takes some severely non-jealous people, and most people just don't have the emotional architecture to do it.... as it isn't exactly like there is a guide book for atypical relationships of the sort... far from it. When me and my wife had our last girlfriend, the one really big issue was immigration. Immigrating together as a married couple would have been easy, but our girlfriend would have had a much more difficult time. It turns out her alcoholism wreaked the relationship (she was not a happy drunk... far from it) before any of that mattered. We're still looking for another partner... and if we find one I have no problems with getting a lawyer and making sure he/she has as many legal rights that marriage would grant drawn up as possible. I just don't know if society is set up for the logistics of this, and it seems like something that would have more interest from companies/organizations to exploit... then actual romantic relationships. I feel for people who would like to have their decades long committed relationships involving more then 2 people legally recognized... I REALLY seriously do... but I just think the tiny fraction of humanity that would benefit isn't worth the complete rethinking of legal and judicial presidents that would have to happen first. Otherwise it would just be too easily exploited by people, likely more commonly then anything else. Anyway. I hate the negativity associated with bigamy in general though. My wife is bisexual and would never feel a relationship with just a guy would satisfy her completely. Tons of modern liberal people think I'm really cool for accepting that, and not being jealous of her having a girlfriend. But be awesome enough to her girlfriends that they want to have a committed long term relationship with me as well... Instantly I'm a bad guy and objectify women or I'm just using them or something of the sort.... it's insanity. Maybe the guy that has a few girls following him around got in that position precisely because he DOESN'T objectify them.... doesn't that make more sense?
Great deal and always are two very different words with very different meanings and implications. Also remember I am not talking about bigamy in general, but what would be a semi-logical conclusion to a world where it becomes fashionable. People have the capacity to do shit just to be viewed as hip, and they've done it for anything considered a fringe group since fringe groups have existed. Briefly wrapping things up before work, but I'd not be comfortable with my girlfriend or wife being with anyone else, regardless of gender. That's a personal choice on my end, and if other people are okay with it that's fine, but I don't aspire to any other types of relationships. Its still cheating, guy or girl, and it still breaks trust. Neither option in this world is right or wrong on a moral scale, just a personal one.