The more that intelligent persons take to defending group marriages in the public forum, the more likely it is that our marriage laws will not change anytime soon. The latter is what I would prefer.
Why would you prefer this? Do you refer to gay marriage, or 'marriage' of 3+ people?
And, incidentally, why do you conclude that I defend or am for group marriage? I was asked "Why not", it's something I've never given any special thought and although mildly disinclined I can't really say I care...
So I gave an honest answer that I don't see any very convincing reasons against. Had I been asked "Why", I'd have no especial reasons other than the lack of any great negatives.
So I should keep my mouth shut as you all go one with this. However, out of the goodness of my heart, I am posting an article that explains the rational reasons why polygamy is not good for any society.
How very good.
But it's a rather speciously argued article. Pardon me while I pick a few holes - had I as long as the author, no doubt I'd find many more.
So far, libertarians and lifestyle liberals approach polygamy as an individual-choice issue, while cultural conservatives use it as a bloody shirt to wave in the gay-marriage debate. The broad public opposes polygamy but is unsure why. What hardly anyone is doing is thinking about polygamy as social policy.
All generally true comment. Get agreement to invite agreement later, debating 101.
As far as I've been able to determine, no polygamous society has ever been a true liberal democracy, in anything like the modern sense.
Well, until 100 years ago, nor was any other society. Given that 'a true liberal democracy etc etc' is basically only post WW1, and we don't happen to have mostly had polygamy, this argument is as trite as it is closed. But polygamy has at least as long a history as life-long monogamy in cultures throughout the world (as indeed he notes). And the lifespan of a liberal democracy, ultimate destined pinnacle of achievement as it undoubtedly is by universal human acclamation</irony>, is not really proven or sociologically fixed.
OK, so our modern liberal democracies are not polygamous. Yet. OTOH, 100 years ago women didn't have the vote... mostly. And many commentators, from the goodness of their hearts, earnestly explained why this was the right and proper order of things, in a modern liberal (or indeed Liberal) democracy.
So I don't dismiss polygamy on these grounds.
Other things being equal (and, to a good first approximation, they are), when one man marries two women, some other man marries no woman.
And here is the specious part.
Monogamy gives everyone a shot at marriage. Polygyny, by contrast, is a zero-sum game that skews the marriage market so that some men marry at the expense of others.
So, if the polygamous man had not married those women - the men who would otherwise have been left on the heap would have done. That is Krauthammer's core argument. And it's surely, obviously false. Because I do not marry woman A, does not mean that she will dash off and marry man X (whoever and whatever X is).
The point about ancient polygamy - and about nearly all pre-modern societies, polygamous OR NOT - is that women often had little or no choice about who, or if, they married. Hence they could easily be passed on to a rich man as an extra bride. And their destiny was indeed to be married off.
If the woman has the choice of whether to enter polygamy, then there is NO reason to suppose that she would marry single man X if she could not marry multiply-married A. It's not an 'other things being equal' situation.
Scarcity of women leads to a situation in which men with advantages — money, skills, education — will marry, but men without such advantages — poor, unskilled, illiterate — will not
Not really relevant to my main case, but
1) I heartily approve of such social Darwinism in action - that's a good thing in the longer run, and in general for the children, etc.
2) By his argument, if numbers are equal single women will be so desperate they'll willingly marry the poor unskilled illiterates left behind in life? Really?
I shan't ask ele, or Euterpe, to indicate what they'd think of that. And I dare you to suggest that to, say, Lady_Lurksalot. <vbg>
the United States as a whole would reach that ratio if, for example, 5 percent of men took two wives, 3 percent took three wives, and 2 percent took four wives — numbers that are quite imaginable, if polygamy were legal for a while.
Really? Of their own free will, and without cultural push from a patriarchy?
But, leaving aside this unlikely supposition - imaginable does not seem likely...
1) as above, the women who might such want such marriages would not necessarily marry anyone else.
2) what about polyandry? K. conveniently discounts it because Polyandry is vanishingly rare ... but so was liberal democracy. We're talking new world, not old. Who says that there would be none? I can certainly see certain advantages to multiple husbands, from both sides <vbg> More men to take the garbage out, only have to accompany her on every third shopping trip, more free nights with the boys... LOL, all that and a rich high-status wife too?
Maybe, on his level of maths, only 2% of women would want two husband, and only 1% three or more... but it radically changes the numbers even so.
In particular communities — inner cities, for example — polygamy could take a toll much more quickly. Even a handful of "Solomons" (high-status men taking multiple wives) could create brigades of new recruits for street gangs and drug lords, the last thing those communities need.
Yes, I've noticed that inner-city drug lords are particularly keen on official marriage and they'd obviously want large numbers of legal wives. Or is it meaning that these women again would otherwise be so desperate as to marry the potential street gang recruits and the like, as of course they do now?
In time, debating polygamy will remind us why our ancestors were right to abolish it.
And debating 102 to finish, capping his dubious arguments by begging the question.
I'm sure there are good arguments against. He hasn't made them, or at least not well. Scaremongering of this kind is most unconvincing. |
