The Slope Slips

I suppose we were warned:

Amber Clark, 28, an Army veteran who moved here from California about two months ago and who described herself as an active Mormon, said she thought polygamists should be left alone, so long as no one was under age or coerced into marriage.

“I’m liberal in that respect,” Ms. Clark said. “If it’s legal in some states for people of the same sex to get married, why is it not legal to marry more than one wife?”

As it happens, I agree, but I know many gay rights groups seem very concerned about the need to deny the existence of any slippage. And, in fact, I think it would be pretty easy to draw a logical or legal distinction if you felt it necessary, since a difference between "one" and "more than one" can be drawn in a principled way in a whole variety of contexts. To me, though, the main issue here is that polygamist communities in practice seem to be sustained through dubious practices that are wrong (and often illegal) on their own terms. That, however, is different from saying that a genuinely consensual plural marriage is something we need to prohibit.

Comments

Hok-ay, Ward.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | September 9, 2007 9:33 PM

Or maybe civil marriage should simply be abolished altogether, and family-based tax credits should simply be determined on the number of dependent children. Do away with marriage incentives, I say. Of course, there are a million problems with this abolition approach (hospital visitation rights, estates, etc.)

But as long as there is marriage, I tend to agree that a genuinely consensual plural marriage in principle is something that ought to be legal, but the slippery slope in my mind is how to handle the various legal rights afforded to marriages when it comes to plural marriages, and if that will lead to a bunch of people getting married on paper simply for the benefits (which isn't the worst thing in the world, admittedly, but I don't like it when people get out of paying their fair share).

Posted by Matthew Struhar | September 9, 2007 9:43 PM

I agree the big problem with polygamy as actually practiced is lack of consent. But isn't that enough on its own to justify regulation, similar to the reason why we place age limitations on marriage?

Further, to say that the main problem with polygamy is consent doesn't mean it is the only problem. Gender equality is a problem too-- because the usual practice is going to be polygyny, not polyandry. There are issues of STD's and whether it is a governmental interest in promoting monogamy. Some would argue (not me, but some) that there's an interest in 2 parent families rather than communal raising of children as well.

Finally, there's just the administrative burden. 2 person civil partnerships are much easier to administer with respect to all the legal benefits that go under the rubric of marriage. When someone dies, there's one suriving spouse. There's one person who can be brought into the country and awarded residence. There's a standard formula for each tax preference.

You'd simply have to set up new rules for thousands of different government benefits if you went past 2.

I think that your real point is that it wouldn't threaten civilization to have legalized polygamy, which is probably true (though it's probably a small threat because of the relationships between polygamy and religious fundamentalism and gender inequality, whereas same-sex marriage is no threat at all). But there's plent of good reasons why we wouldn't want to go there nonetheless.

Posted by Dilan Esper | September 9, 2007 9:44 PM

Even more significantly, why in the world isn't it legal to marry a sidewalk?

The sidewalk certainly wouldn't object, and it's hard to see how the sidewalk might harmed by the process.

Meanwhile, the human bride (or groom) gains the pleasure of a blessed and much desired matrimonial union, and perhaps even personally devotes some free time and effort to cleaning and repairing the sidewalk, thereby saving the municipality some important tax dollars.

Given all these positives and no apparent negatives, I can't see why anyone---except perhaps a few anti-sidewalkist bigots---would object...

Posted by RKU | September 9, 2007 9:53 PM

Polygamy sounds great: one guy has five wives, four guys have no wives. What could go wrong with having a bunch of frustrated young men with no marriage prospects?

Posted by Fred | September 9, 2007 9:58 PM

"But isn't that enough on its own to justify regulation..."

Absolutely yes; and no one is arguing (I certainly don't think Yglesias is) that agreements which have significant legal impacts on people beyond the principals shouldn't require social oversight. Even private contracts -- which don't have to be "registered" in any way -- are surrounded by rules of who can make them and under what circumstance. For example, marrying a sidewalk would not meet the test of "competence." because no sidewalks have the ability to, say, sign their names.

As the baby-boomers age, especially considering the historically low number of children in that cohort, look for plural marriage to become a practical reality.

Posted by David Sicher | September 9, 2007 10:04 PM

I think there are many excellent arguments against polygamy. (Chiefly, perhaps, that polygamists frequently get their politics from Robert Heinlein, Joseph Smith, or Mohammed, all of whom are bad sources to look for in terms of political inspiration. Another issue is that poly-types are often a bit vague on what they want legally (line marriage? Marriage of all spouses in a given relationship to each other (e.g., I'm married to Bob, Jane, and Linda, Bob is married to Jane, Linda, and me, Jane is married to Bob, Linda, and me, and Linda is married to Bob, Jane, and me)? Independent, parallel two-person marriages that could be maintained simultaneously? (e.g., I marry Jane, and I marry Linda, and maybe Linda marries Bob, but each marriage individually only involves two people))

One argument I don't consider legitimate is the idea that each a man is entitled to a woman, so monogamy should be enforced as a system for rationing women for men. I just can't accept that. If no women want to be with some guy, it's not society's role to try to induce women to provide him with companionship.

Posted by Julian Elson | September 9, 2007 10:32 PM

"I think there are many excellent arguments against polygamy. (Chiefly, perhaps, that polygamists frequently get their politics from Robert Heinlein, Joseph Smith, or Mohammed, all of whom are bad sources to look for in terms of political inspiration."

This is, in fact, an extremely unexcellent argument against polygamy.

IMO, conservatives have mostly been right about the slippery slope when it comes to social issues. It's advantageous for liberals to argue that whatever liberalization they happen to be pushing for at the time won't result in various other related things happening, which can be justifed by similiar moral logic, but in fact that's really the way it works out in practice. The Domino Effect if you will.

However, I do agree polygamy presents a whole host of thorny legal issues and is also very problematic in terms of a stable society. The institution of monogamy is far more important than the institution of marriage between a man and a woman; gay marriage threatens the latter but not the former. I am on record as predicting that polygamy will be legal in a western country within 50 years, but I believe I pulled that predication out of my ass, so we'll see what happens.

Posted by Korha | September 9, 2007 11:25 PM

One argument I don't consider legitimate is the idea that each a man is entitled to a woman, so monogamy should be enforced as a system for rationing women for men.

I don't think this really is a fair description. Forgoing a system that creates a large class of unmarriageable men isn't the same thing as guaranteeing some individual that he will get to marry. In any case I think there are inherent problems with any system that results in multiple partners for only one gender. If we aren't going to see wives with multiple husbands then I don't think we should be allowing husbands with multiple wives.

Posted by jimBOB | September 9, 2007 11:28 PM

Of course, there's a lot more to it than just saying "Well, if you can marry one, you can marry two." As others have pointed out, there are huge areas of law that depend on coupled relationships. Tax law, inheritance law, property ownership, and health care benefits (to name a few) are not structured in such a way that you can easily shoehorn in the plural marriages the way you can with same sex partnerships. Other difficult questions: if Bob is married to Helen and Michelle, and has a child with Michelle, what does that make Helen in relation to said kid?

Not that bureaucratic nightmares are necessarily a philosophical objection, but they're certainly pragmatic.

Posted by evil_fizz | September 9, 2007 11:32 PM

IMO, conservatives have mostly been right about the slippery slope when it comes to social issues. It's advantageous for liberals to argue that whatever liberalization they happen to be pushing for at the time won't result in various other related things happening

No they are wrong. One could just as well argue we have become more conservative in our attitude toward marriage. For example, nowadays we believe people should be 18 or above before they get married. This is reflected in laws which raise the marriage age even if parents agree to it. More generally, we think people should be older when they get married eg even college aged individuals who marry are considered young when they marry.

Posted by Dan the Man | September 9, 2007 11:41 PM

One argument I don't consider legitimate is the idea that each a man is entitled to a woman, so monogamy should be enforced as a system for rationing women for men.

Indeed, such arguments could applied to same-sex marriage--two lesbians marrying decreases the pool of women by two. Or even against refusing to marry at all.

On the other hand, there's a difference between "each man is entitled to a woman", and "no man is entitled to two spouses". The latter, though still at odds with purist classical liberalism, seems slightly more reasonable--not sufficient to ban one man from having more than one relationship, but sufficient to refuse recognition of such relationships as marriage.

Posted by Consumatopia | September 9, 2007 11:59 PM

One could just as well argue we have become more conservative in our attitude toward marriage.

That's a good point. I've kind of suspected that conservatives are more willing to see a slippery slope from gay marriage to polygamy because conservatives aren't as bothered by the inherent inequality of polygamy.

It seems more likely that liberalized values drive liberalized laws, not the other way around. The sexual revolution was going to happen no matter what the government said. OTOH, other social issue slippery slopes conservatives warned us about--drugs leading to anarchy, gun control leading to fascism, abortion leading to concentration camps--never quite materialized.

Posted by Consumatopia | September 10, 2007 12:08 AM

Indeed, such arguments could applied to same-sex marriage--two lesbians marrying decreases the pool of women by two. Or even against refusing to marry at all.

Not really. Same-sex marriage doesn't generally affect the pool of likely heterosexual marriage prospects, first because the two-women marriages are balanced by two-man marriages, and second because many gays aren't likely to ever marry someone of the opposite gender, so they were never prospects to begin with. Similarly, non-marrieds come in both genders, so they don't affect the pool much either.

Posted by jimBOB | September 10, 2007 12:19 AM

For example, nowadays we believe people should be 18 or above before they get married. This is reflected in laws which raise the marriage age even if parents agree to it.

Actually, the marriageable age in the US appears to be 16, with parental consent, in just about every state.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra | September 10, 2007 12:48 AM

There are numerous reasons why polygamy is not, and should not be, acceptable in our society.

First, there is the bureaucratic objection, as specified above by several posters.

You can't simply graft polygamy onto our existing marriage laws, like you can with monogamous gay civil unions. You'd have to write a whole new set of laws to deal with the complexity of having three (or more!) partners rather than two. And this brings up a countless number of fairness ands equity issues: does bringing in a new spouse to the relationship require that all existing partners consent, or only one? How are inheritances handled? Child raising - what happens if there are sharp disagreements on how children should be raised? Do other spouses get the same say as the natural mother? How do you stop people from having dozens of sham marriages to bring in immigrants? These are only a handful of the problems I can think of off of the top of my head.

Then there are the arguments from equity, both in terms of gender and socioeconomics.

While there may be a few trendy "polyamorous" groups in the big city, the vast majority of polygamous relationships throughout history involve one man owning numerous women and controlling their sexual and reproductive lives. Furthermore, this often involves teenage girls being pressured into marriage with old men. This is still true of most polygamous communities today, such as the Mormon splinter groups and various Islamic nations.

As for socioeconomic equity, we already have a situation in the United States where a small minority of people control the vast majority of wealth. Do we really want a situation where they also control the vast majority of romantic partners? If Bill Gates decides to have a harem of 100 women, then that means 99 other men never get to marry as a result. Having a bunch of young, unmarried men around is bad news; it often leads to war and bloodshed. And, no, this doesn't mean that we are "rationing women for men" as one poster claimed above. Under our current system of monogamy, no one is forced into any kind of marriage at all (coercion has specifically been enumerated as a ground for annulment for centuries). However, it tends to steer people towards more equitable relationships than generally exist under a polygamous system. No one has to marry anyone they don't want to, but we also don't accept a "winner take all" system in which the vast majority of people are losers.

Posted by Josh G. | September 10, 2007 12:55 AM

How do we treat men with multiple families through divorce? Society expects them to continue supporting the first family with child support and alimony and does not prevent them from legally starting new families. How do hospital visitation rights work for an ex-spouse? I think this is the slippery slope towards polygamy. I think the state should ban divorce.

Posted by Just Karl | September 10, 2007 1:09 AM

What could go wrong with having a bunch of frustrated young men with no marriage prospects?

China will soon find out.

Posted by Just Karl | September 10, 2007 1:12 AM

Scalia warned that once the ditsy idiot Sandra Day O'Connor decided to protect gay anal sex as a Constitutional matter invoking 14th Amendment equal protection for consenting adults- rather than leaving it to elected legislators to set societal boundaries of acceptable behavior, it was just a matter of time....

Before O'Connor's 5-4 notions were used to justify ending gay marriage laws, polygamy, polyandry, adult incest marriages or relationships, and bestiality.

O'Connor and Breyer denied that anything like that would happen, that any of the other stuff would be shoved down people's throats without a chance to vote on it.

O'Connor was semi-senile enough to believe it, but I'm sure Breyer knew what was coming and approved..

At least O'Connor was right on the consenting adult incest marriage, and beastiality predictions of Scalia - so far.

But besides gay marriage, the Mormons and Muslims here demanding polygamous marriage have started lawsuits, and there are polyandry lawsuits including some interesting ones of widows marrying in a group for benefits and tax advantage, and one family business that sees no estate problems if they can do polyandrous chain marriage to keep the assets "between spouses with spousal succession in perpetuity.

Posted by Chris Ford | September 10, 2007 1:34 AM

Chris:

Scalia also worried in that same dissent that we wouldn't be able to pass laws against-- horror of horrors-- masturbation!

I realize a lot of conservatives hold that dissent up as a great work of jurisprudence, but it isn't-- it's a homophobic rant, even though there are perfectly plausible arguments that Lawrence was wrongly decided. (Note, by the way, that Thomas points this out in an unhomophobic dissent in the same case.)

But I would say this to conservatives more generally. Lawrence v. Texas happened because you guys failed to clean your own cupboard. You kept laws on the books prohibiting sodomy, and carrying years-long jail sentences, despite the fact that these laws were cruel and unjust. Not only that, but even plenty of politicians who were NOT homophobes did nothing to repeal these statutes, because they feared losing the votes of bigots.

Even if the Court was wrong to strike the laws down, the reason the Court even GOT INVOLVED is because conservatives didn't do squat to repeal a lot of bad laws that many conservtives themselves claimed to oppose, and certainly did nothing to condemn the type of people who supported throwing gays in the slammer with felony convictions for sleeping with each other.

So conservatives who don't like Lawrence have only themselves to blame.

Posted by Dilan Esper | September 10, 2007 1:47 AM

There is absolutely no reason to not allow polygamy. A man or two servicing 4-6 women each, especially those with the best traits a woman would want, is not that different than what thousands of others in this world (mainly the middle east and asia) do every day. Why would we want to trample on the rights those who would like to do it this way?

Besides, what's the big deal about outlawing masturbation? As a card carrying Independent, that is absolutely none of their business! Dildos have a long (pun intended), ancient and honourable use. Drugs, sex and rock and roll!! Matt's got it all on this one!! (adding a little drugs to be able to read so much drivel on here, is my contribution).

Posted by beneficial | September 10, 2007 2:14 AM

I realize a lot of conservatives hold that dissent up as a great work of jurisprudence, but it isn't-- it's a homophobic rant, even though there are perfectly plausible arguments that Lawrence was wrongly decided.

Absolutely correct; that opinion was considerably weaker, in terms of craft, than Kennedy's majority. (Also, Chris doesn't seem to understand that O'Connor's equal protection analysis received all of one vote.)

Posted by Scott Lemieux | September 10, 2007 2:20 AM

The idiotic thing about the slippery slope argument -- and most slippery slope arguments -- is that they miss the point. Gay marriage isn't about freedom; it's about equality. Sexual orientation is an inherent aspect of a person's identity. Polygamy is not. I don't think it's contradictory to feel bad for homosexuals who can't marry members of the same sex and to not feel bad for selfish men who want to bone more than one woman (and vice-versa -- but let's face it, if polygamy were legalized the vast majority of cases would involve men marrying multiple women). If people want multiple partners, they're perfectly free to have multiple partners. They just shouldn't expect multiple marriages to carry the weight of law.

Also, there's a utiliarian factor to be considered. Is a polygamous setting -- any polygamous setting -- healthy for children? The implicitly anti-gay utilitarian argument about homosexual couples not making good parents is bunk, obviously. But kids raised by polygamous parents? Is that a wise thing to tolerate? I honestly don't know the answers to that question, and it's a crucial consideration when assessing the implications of legal polygamy.

Posted by Matthew Struhar | September 10, 2007 2:23 AM

As someone long interested in the polyamory movement, I have to say the obvious answer is to do away with state-sanctioned marriage entirely.

As for the "legal rights" of the parties, well, contracts have been working for hundreds, if not thousands, of years - and the rich seem pretty damn sure that "pre-nups" are the way to go - since each party in THOSE unions can afford lawyers!

So who needs marriage laws? Do it all by contract!

Get the state out of the bedroom!

Yet another example of: Let's make a mistake, then make more mistakes to correct the first mistake, then argue over the later mistakes while we plan to make more mistakes...

Nitwits.

The other stupidity is to imagine that the pathetic Western European mode of relationships that has only existed for a few centuries has any positive relation to the entire realm of variations tried over the whole course of human history.

It's all been tried before, folks - and it never made any difference. So why get hot and bothered over somebody not quite behaving as expected by your pathetic Judeo-Christian mentalities?

A little education is just how variant human sexuality has been for the last several thousand years would do most of you some serious good.

You fools think the human race landed on the ground from the trees last year...and need guidance...

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 10, 2007 2:24 AM

"s a polygamous setting -- any polygamous setting -- healthy for children?"

Well, I don't know about polygamy. But the version of group marriage I advocate is built around what's best for children. I don't think that either the traditional nuclear family nor the modern version of it is particularly good for children. Human communities traditionally raised children communally, chiefly via extended families that live together or very close to each other. I think that a good modern reinterpretation of this would be group marriages with contractually agreed (or better, built into the legal framework) stuff that sees to the details of how to enter and exit the marriage, care for the childrens' futures, and all the rest.

Personally, I'm astounded at how complacent, and culturally conservative, most people are, including liberals and progressives, about the ways in which consenting adults can arrange their personal affairs.

Posted by Keith M Ellis | September 10, 2007 2:54 AM

You know, Matt, you don't actually know much about marriage, childrearing, the difference between boys and girls, etc., so you might want to wait a decade or so until you do actually know what you are talking about on these topics.

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 10, 2007 2:55 AM

Matthew Struhar - Gay marriage isn't about freedom; it's about equality.

No it isn't, if gays wanted civil equality they would push for comprehensive civil unions and a civil rights act stating for purposes of law, civil unions are equal in legal standing to any law or precedent using the term "married".

But gays don't want that. It's not about civil equality. They want the Jewish-Gentile activist legal elite to sanction gay marriage as morally equal to traditional marriage and bypass democracy and shove their court rulings down the masses throats.

Dilan Esper - I realize a lot of conservatives hold that dissent up as a great work of jurisprudence, but it isn't-- it's a homophobic rant, even though there are perfectly plausible arguments that Lawrence was wrongly decided

I didn't read it that way. Scalia just listed a half dozen matters he considered should be up to elected legislatures to rule on in setting societal norms - that would be soon arriving in court under "anything consenting adults want to do is legitimate in private". Starting with gay marriage.
Scalia didn't say "Once you say gay ass fucking is a Constitutional freedom, the next thing you know the AIDs-spreading ass fuckers will want society to be forced to say gay ass fuckers are acceptable for marriage and the next thing you know a whole bathhouse full of ass fuckers will want a polygamous mass marriage..
But if he had, he still would have been basically right.

Dilan Esper - But I would say this to conservatives more generally. Lawrence v. Texas happened because you guys failed to clean your own cupboard. You kept laws on the books prohibiting sodomy, and carrying years-long jail sentences, despite the fact that these laws were cruel and unjust.

There are lots of unenforced blue laws that should be removed by state legislatures. Obsolete laws tend to hang around like obsolete sections of the Constitution superceded by treaties. No one is in a rush to clean the documents up, revise them to a more modern era. That was no excuse for SCOTUS to once again find non-existent, unwritten rights in the Constitution and create them out of thin air.

As for cruel and unusual and unjust, no doubt a woman considers it equally terrible that she could be sent to prison for private acts between her and her willing...no..eager... German Shepard. Or an adult daughter risking years in prison for private things she does to show she really is Daddy's Girl. The only difference between those and gay ass fuckers is SCOTUS just lacked the balls, and O'Connor the brains, to understand their Lawrence v. Texas reasoning opened the gates..

Posted by Chris Ford | September 10, 2007 6:45 AM

"The Slope Slips" Huh? Should have been:

"Post wherein Yglesias reveals his secret multi-partner agenda."

For shame, Matt. For shame.

Posted by Quixote | September 10, 2007 7:21 AM

Via Megan McCardle comes this case study in the NYTimes on how a polygamous colony imposes a burden on its non-polygamous surroundings.

Over the last six years, hundreds of teenage boys have been expelled or felt compelled to leave the polygamous settlement that straddles Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah.

Disobedience is usually the reason given for expulsion, but former sect members and state legal officials say the exodus of males — the expulsion of girls is rarer — also remedies a huge imbalance in the marriage market. Members of the sect believe that to reach eternal salvation, men are supposed to have at least three wives.
In economics terms, polygamy externalizes its costs by exporting its surplus unmarried males. And it seems to me these costs are abhorrent enough to suppress polygamy. In the Muslim world, the surplus yields suicide bombers, religious police, and pervasive sexual frustration (as illustrated by Google's stats on where internet porn is most popular). As others have noted, we're about to see results from a large-scale social experiment in China. I expect to see some combination of militarism, a surge in domestic violent crimes, and emigration (ie, externalizing the first two effects).

Posted by db | September 10, 2007 8:17 AM

In my previous comment, the quoted passage includes the paragraph "Disobedience ... three wives." Somehow, I messed up the HTML tags. Sorry.

Posted by db | September 10, 2007 8:21 AM

No it isn't, if gays wanted civil equality they would push for comprehensive civil unions and a civil rights act stating for purposes of law, civil unions are equal in legal standing to any law or precedent using the term "married".

Right, anyone who cares about civil equality is perfectly satisfied with "separate but equal". Struhar was absolutely correct--I support gay and lesbian marriages but oppose polygamy because I love equality.

But gays don't want that. It's not about civil equality. They want the Jewish-Gentile activist legal elite to sanction gay marriage as morally equal to traditional marriage and bypass democracy and shove their court rulings down the masses throats.

Could someone explain what is meant by "Jewish-Gentile"? It's like you wanted to be anti-semetic, then some neurons fired in your head telling you this was wrong (we all thank you for that) and you "fixed" it by including gentiles like myself, without realizing that term becomes utterly useless because it now includes everything.

Anyway, "morally equal" is a pretty bizarre concept. No expects gays to be able to get married in a Catholic church (unless the Church somehow becomes non-homophobic in the future), but since when was it the government's job to make moral claims here? That's what you're asking the government to do--to have a class of "moral" heterosexual marriages and a class of "immoral" civil unions. Exactly how many divorces would people be allowed to get before they are downgraded to civil unions?

Posted by Consumatopia | September 10, 2007 8:33 AM

Reading through the thread, it is clear that the opponents of plural marriage have only one argument: bigotry. All the other arguments are completely lame. The bigots who oppose plural marriage should come right out and say that they are bigots, no different than the bigots who oppose gay marriage.

In particular are the lame arguments that plural marriage would be more diffiuclt administratively than two-person marriage. For example:

You can't simply graft polygamy onto our existing marriage laws, like you can with monogamous gay civil unions. You'd have to write a whole new set of laws to deal with the complexity of having three (or more!) partners rather than two. And this brings up a countless number of fairness ands equity issues: does bringing in a new spouse to the relationship require that all existing partners consent, or only one?

Of course it requires all partners to any particular marriage to consent. Just as two person marriage requires all partners to consent. No different whatsoever.

If three people want to be married, then all three people would need to consent. If a married person wants to marry another person, then only the two entering into the new marriage would need to consent. What's the problem?

How are inheritances handled?

The same as they are handled now.

Child raising - what happens if there are sharp disagreements on how children should be raised?

What happens if there are sharp disagreements among two parents under two person marriage?

Do other spouses get the same say as the natural mother?

They get the same say as spouses under two person marriage.

How do you stop people from having dozens of sham marriages to bring in immigrants?

How do you stop sham two person marriages?

These are only a handful of the problems I can think of off of the top of my head.

And what are the problems again?

As I said, the only argument against plural marriage is bigotry.

Posted by Al | September 10, 2007 9:16 AM

Matt is essentially right on this issue.

The fact that some people are suing for rights to polygamy do not justify the claim of a slippery slope. They must actually win based on the previous decisions. And that seems unlikely given that many of the factors that drive the inequality problem for same sex marraiges (not having decision making power over a sick spouse for example) become worse rather than better with plural marraige.

A couple of posters above have it right, that while the extension of marraige to same-sex marraige requires little more than a change of a word or two on a document, it is not even clear what the natural extension to plural marraige would be. The old model, which Richard Steven Hack chides the rest of us for not seeing the widsom of, largely dealt with this problem by considering marraige to be a matter of a woman becoming a man's property, and so there was no problem of a man simply having multiple wives. But that model hardly works with more modern conceptions of marraiges as between equals.

Which gets to the other point Matt is right about. It is not clear that plural marraige needs to be bad in theory, but we have yet to see the practice in any way that did not depend on an essentially coercive social structure. So perhaps down the line society could develop in a way in which plural marraige would be a desirable option for which there is no reason for the government to get in the way. (Although it still would not follow that government must allow it based on same-sex marragie). But such relationships have not yet been developed (or at least popularized since there may be an individual with such a model, but this is the kind of thing that requires more than one person to make it a reality).

Posted by Lon | September 10, 2007 9:28 AM

Thanks db, I was hoping someone would find that NYT article on the hundreds of young men being expelled from Jeffs' community, since it's something concrete to add to all this windy speculation. Yes, some might consider the practices of that particular cult to be extreme, but look at the social disruption caused by even a relatively small community of people who are practicing polygamy. As other people have pointed out, China will see a comparable situation on a much larger scale, due to gender imbalances.

What the "it's not illegal" viewpoint is ignoring is the big picture. Sure, if a man and 2-3 women decide to cohabit, it doesn't really harm anything. However, if even the relatively small number of people in the Jeffs cult were involved for a long enough period of time, one would get into some societal issues, and we'd start operating more like lions or walruses or something.

Again, variations of this behavior (the powerful man with a wife and 2-3 mistresses?) play out in real life, but where it can get tangled up is when the law is involved, which is the aspect of "marriage" that we are really discussing here. What does happen to inheritances? What about overlapping marriages--is that allowed, and wouldn't that get awfully complicated legally? (ie imagine that man has 2 wives, but each wife has 2 husbands)

So in the end, it is a little arbitrary, but our system is currently set up to handle legal marriage between 2 adults, male and female, and it has worked pretty well (or at least better than some of the alternatives). Given all the potential variations, changing that legal definition to a union between 2 adults, period, is one of the least disruptive, I would think.

Posted by JMS | September 10, 2007 9:48 AM

A wise man once said to me -
"it takes a special kind of stupid to want more than one woman in your life. One is more than enough trouble."

And they are words to live by.

That said, if we make being stupid illegal, there won't be very many of us left.

Posted by fasteddie | September 10, 2007 10:14 AM

A new book out, "Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters," by Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa, takes a look at, among other things, the issue that most suicide bombers are Muslim:

The surprising answer from the evolutionary psychological perspective is that Muslim suicide bombing may have nothing to do with Islam or the Koran (except for two lines in it). It may have nothing to do with the religion, politics, the culture, the race, the ethnicity, the language, or the region. As with everything else from this perspective, it may have a lot to do with sex, or, in this case, the absence of sex.

What distinguishes Islam from other major religions is that it tolerates polygyny. By allowing some men to monopolize all women and altogether excluding many men from reproductive opportunities, polygyny creates shortages of available women. If 50 percent of men have two wives each, then the other 50 percent don't get any wives at all.

So polygyny increases competitive pressure on men, especially young men of low status. It therefore increases the likelihood that young men resort to violent means to gain access to mates.

I don't know how valid their claims are, but for a variety of reasons, I don't think polygyny or polygamy is an appropriate relationship or family model. Human nature is not especially suited for sharing lovers with others, and life can be tough enough for children without the extra drama created by marriage with multiple partners.

Posted by JJF | September 10, 2007 10:24 AM

Said: "...marriage with multiple partners."

Should have said: "...marriage with more than two partners."

Posted by JJF | September 10, 2007 10:47 AM

One thing the conversation hasn't really touched on is that polygamy is already de facto legal in the United States. It's not illegal in the US to have sex with more consenting women than your wife. And how does the government prove that a relationship isn't just "sleeping around," but is, in fact, bigamy?

The anti-bigamy laws our states have are essentially unenforceable. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff admitted as much when he explained that his office doesn't even bother trying to go after people based on Utah's anti-bigamy statutes. If there's welfare fraud, child abuse, or other illegality, they'll go after polygamists, but not on the basis of bigamy.

The Mark Green trial was a case-in-point. They nailed him for welfare fraud and failure to pay taxes, not for having too many wives.

Oddly, I'm kinda with the guy who suggested the whole adult relationship should be based on contract law. I've long held that the government ought to simply quit cold turkey and get out of the business of issuing marriage licenses altogether. Let adults manage their relationships how they want and focus instead on protecting the vulnerable from real abuse.

Where there is rape, coercion, or theft, have at them. But legislating who can and cannot have sex with whom, among consenting adults is quite futile.

I think the writing is on the wall with this one. Polyamory will eventually be legal in the US.

Posted by Rathje | September 10, 2007 12:14 PM

I don't think that consensuality is good enough a reason to legalize polygamist marriages. Indeed, I would object to a recognistion of a polygamist marriage even if I knew that it was completely consensual and no undue pressure was involvedd.

I think that the state should not criminalize polygamous relationships, as long as their is no criminally relevant coercion involved. But decriminalization and recongnition as legal marriages are not the same thing.

If there is one trait that characterizes human beings in the area of love and sexuality, then that's jealousy. Polygamous relationships where all partners truly love each other and are not jealous are be very, very hard to find. Therefore, almost every polygamous relationship has to rest on the partners supressing their jealousy. Plus, most people are not bisexual.

The result is that polygamous relationships consist mostly of on member of one sex and several members of the other sex, mostly one man and several women. He marries several women, while the women marry only a fraction of a man. For this to work, there must be the underlining assumption that the women have the duty to surpress their jealousy and to accept that they have to share the man with the others, while the man does not have the same duty. No women in a polygamous relationship can tell me that they would not prefer having the man for herself and that they do not accept the sharing of the man because that's what is expected from her in her culture.

Thus, almost all polygamous relationships are founded on the cultural/religious principle of the superiority of men over women and the duty of women to subjugate there interests and emotions in the service of the man.

Again, this is not enough reason for criminalization. But given that the principle of equality of the sexes is enshrined in every modern western constitution, it is a compelling public policy case for not putting a government seal of approval on such a kind of intrinsically unequal arrangement.

Posted by Patrick | September 10, 2007 12:18 PM

JJF,

I don't think you need to blame suicide bombing on the harem system.

Poverty works just fine and still has a sex tie-in.

A young Muslim male can't get steady employment and therefore can't provide for a wife and therefore becomes increasingly frustrated and angry.

The explanation works just as well. And I think that poor people are a little more prevalent in the Middle East than harems today.

Posted by Rathje | September 10, 2007 12:20 PM

Too much is made of the word "marriage."

Does anyone object to an agreement between two men and a woman -- all in their sixties, let's say -- to leave their property to one another and to have critical medical decisions made in some agreed-upon & otherwise legal fashion by two out of the three? (That's in case of incapacity by one of the three.)

I hope no one would object.

Posted by David Sucher | September 10, 2007 12:50 PM

Btw, anyone who raises the sex and jealousy issue as a reason to object to multi-party living arrangements is
1. getting into issues in which the state has no interest;
2. doesn't understand how little (or much) sex there may be in couples who have been married 50 years.

•••

The arrangement I describe above -- some sort of contractual agreement between several people as to inheritance, medical rights etc etc -- is tantamount to "marriage" and I hope all would agree that such an arrangement might well be a very good thing.

To be direct, from a larger social perspective it spreads responsibility for people when they getting old and closer to death. There is no way to stop it, nor should there be. In fact it should be encouraged, if anything.

Posted by David Sucher | September 10, 2007 1:09 PM

"That was no excuse for SCOTUS to once again find non-existent, unwritten rights in the Constitution and create them out of thin air.

Try reading the ninth amendment, the Federalist papers, or a biography of Hamilton. Maybe that will help you, dear.

"gay ass fucking...full of ass fuckers...German Shepard...gay ass fuckers is SCOTUS just lacked the balls..."

Quit projecting and keep in mind that Scalia was not able to pass laws against-- horror of horrors-- masturbation!

...want the Jewish-Gentile activist legal elite to sanction gay marriage as morally equal to traditional marriage and bypass democracy and shove their court rulings down the masses throats.

Where's Lyndon LaRouche when you need him. Damn those Gay, queen worshipping, Vatican bowing, Jewish, Gentile, Muslim, commie cabana boys and their evil plan to take over the world...

Oh, and Matt, you're right, people who are seeking to guarantee the rights that are afforded to them by the Constitution should not be held responsible for allaying the fears of bigots, hypocrites, and the self-hating.

Posted by Rihilism | September 10, 2007 1:31 PM

Didn't Matt read the whole article? The problem that polygamy results in "excess men" actually comes up within the article itself:

"Disobedience is usually the reason given for expulsion, but former sect members and state legal officials say the exodus of males — the expulsion of girls is rarer — also remedies a huge imbalance in the marriage market. Members of the sect believe that to reach eternal salvation, men are supposed to have at least three wives."

This doesn't sound like just a matter or how polygamy in actual polygamous communities happens to be arranged. It sounds like a consequence of polygamy and the rough equality of male and female birth rates.

Posted by Chris W | September 10, 2007 1:44 PM

David, I think there may be a good public policy case to, in some way or the other, recognize domestic partnerships which are soley defined as people living togehter and, in a limited way, caring for one another more or less as friends do, and that such partnershipls should not be limited to two people. And maybe there is a good case to get rid of marriage as construed today and replace it with such a kind of limited domestic partnership.

But if marriage continues to be construed in the way it is now - people living together (principally) for the rest of their lives, bonded not just by friendship but love (btw, jealousy is not only about sex) and vested with such a hefty chunk of rights and responsibilities (alimony after seperation!) and, accordingly, concluded and dissolved with such an amount of paperwork - then my objection against recognition of polygamous marriages holds.

In that case, it's not about the state getting into issues in which he has no interest, because, as I said, recognition as a contemporary marriage is a public recognition of ones relationship as valuable as the one of ones straight neighbours, which is partly why gays (including me) long for that recognition.

Additionaly, if the state doles out such an amount of rights and money, he can (and must) decide, according to the its values as defined by the constitution, to whom it goes. But saying that you gladly accept the public's money but that the public should keep its damned nose out of your life is a little bit much. If you want your relationship to be kept absolutely private, then keep the state out of it yourself and don't demand to be able to marry.

Posted by Patrick | September 10, 2007 2:08 PM

This is a very interesting issue. In my mind there's no doubt that it's none of the government's business whether a group of consenting adults decides to set themselves up in a mutually agreed group marriage. It happens already - look at Hugh Hefner and his herd of bunnies ;) Trying to prohibit such informal arrangements would involve Uncle Sam poking his long nose WAY further into my bedroom than I'd ever want!! So, the only question is whether it would be a good idea for government to legally recognize such group partnerships with similar benefits accorded to marriage.

I don't think all the arguments of "it would be too complicated" hold much water. Any legal issues related to emotion & romance are necessarily complicated. It's awkward making rules about love for conventional straight couples as well. Society does the best it can, muddles through, and when messy incidents illustrate problems with the rules we've made, we eventually change them. (ie the rise of 'no fault' divorce.)

I think the arguments based on the broad potential social consequences of a gender imbalance are more persuasive. But there are several problems:
1) Don't forget that this already happens. Group marriages exist, rich men often support multiple mistresses, etc. Nothing a non-totalitarian state can do would change this. The only question is whether to legally recognize it. Would more people do it if it was legally recognized? I don't know...
2) I believe there are other forces working to create a gender imbalance in the other direction. More men than women identify as gay; young men have a higher mortality rate than young women (violence, car crashes, etc.); more men are in prison than women. I know that in US urban centers, the stereotype is certainly that there are more eligible single women than men floating around.
3) Regarding extreme religious sects and their disturbing practices (kicking out teenage boys) it's worth considering that legal acceptance might actually moderate this behaviour. Right now, people living in those communities feel like outlaws, not accepted by wider society - a siege mentality that gives weirdo leaders a lot more power. If people had more options to maintain their polygamous lifestyles outside these sects, they wouldn't be under as much pressure to accept psycho leadership.
4) I'm surprised by how little consideration people give to the idea that marriages might form between women and multiple men. It might not be our societal norm now, but societal norms change. I have personally known several charismatic women with multiple men happy to share space in their orbit. My historical understanding is this was actually quite common in frontier societies where there were vastly more men than women.

Posted by ZK | September 10, 2007 8:34 PM

Re: I'm surprised by how little consideration people give to the idea that marriages might form between women and multiple men.

Historically this pattern is almost unheard of. I see no reason to expect it would be any more common in the present.
I really see no injustice and no problem in sticking to the "one to a customer" rule on marriages, just like we have "one citizen, one vote". It's not like that leaves anyone out the way miscegenation or anti-gay laws do. And if married people want to keep a mistress or a gigolo on the side, that's their business not mine, but I also see no need to formlaize such arrangements either.

Posted by Jonf | September 10, 2007 9:02 PM

I agree with you in having nothing against polygamy, but I found the following comment indefensible.

The idea that polygamist communities in practice are "sustained through dubious practices that are wrong (and often illegal) on their own terms" is absurd if one take a cross-cultural perspective. The vast majority of the world's societies condone polygyny, which is a man having multiple wives. Open up any introductory textbook on cultural anthropology and you'll probably find this in there. Try Haviland's _Cultural Anthropology_ (2002, for example (pp. 220ff).

While monogamy may be the commonest form of marriage in the world, likely for simple mathematical reasons, i.e. the sex ratio, and not every man can be rich enough to have multiple wives, the most preferred form of marriage in the world is polygyny, favored by 80-85% of the world's societies (Haviland, p. 226).

Posted by Matt | September 10, 2007 11:17 PM

Matt, what does the fact that polygynie is condoned in most of the word's society mean for the question if it should be allowed in the U.S.? I mean, I assume that most of the world's societies condone that husbands beat their wifes. Does that mean that beating one's wife should be decriminalized in the U.S.?

I predict that a poll among Americans would show that an overwhelming majority is opposed to the recognition of polygamous marriages (that's a given). More interestingly, I predict that among those who are in favour of it, the overwhelming majority will be men. And I don't think that that's is a coincidence. Not just because most women would not take part in such a marriage. Women know that polygamy is inherently unequal and discriminatory towards women regardless of consensuality.

Posted by Patrick | September 11, 2007 11:32 AM

RE: Patrick

the point is that the statement that most polygamy is "sustained through dubious practices that are wrong (and often illegal) on their own terms" is absurd given its prevalence throughout the world. No evidence is provided to support the assertion of dubious practices or illegality. It's just a bold and erroneous assertion. Of course I am not saying that we should do it because they do it. Beat down some other straw man.

I'd guess you're correct on your polling guesses. Regarding whether or not "it's inherently unequal and discriminatory towards women regardless of consensuality," that's rather ethnocentric of you.

Now, I'm not a complete cultural relativist. I'm not going to say Nazi culture is just as good as any other culture, or whatever other practice that one can think of that you or I find revolting. But for you to basically speak on behalf of all women is absurd. Additionally, I hardly think monogamy is inherently equal.

Posted by Matt | September 11, 2007 5:19 PM

>>Re: I'm surprised by how little consideration people give to the idea that marriages might form between women and multiple men.

>>Historically this pattern is almost unheard of. I see no reason to expect it would be any more common in the present.

Just because you haven't heard of something doesn't mean it's historically unheard of.

For example, polyandry was common in traditional Tibetan culture - usually one woman married to several brothers:
http://www.case.edu/affil/tibet/booksAndPapers/childs.polyandry.and.population.growth.pdf

From Encyclopedia Britannica:
"POLYANDRY (Gr. iroXis, many, and av p, man), the system of marriage between one woman and several men, who are her husbands exclusively (see Family). The custom locally legalizing the marriage of one woman to more than one husband at a time has been variously accounted for as the result of poverty and of life in unfertile lands, where it was essential to check population as the consequence of female infanticide, or, in the opinion of J. F. McLennan and L. H. Morgan, as a natural phase through which human progress has necessarily passed. Polyandry is to be carefully differentiated from communal marriage, where the woman is the property of any and every member of the tribe. Two distinct kinds of polyandry are practised: one, often called Nair, in which, as among the Nairs of India, the husbands are not related to each other; and the second, the Tibetan or fraternal polyandry, in which the woman is married to all the brothers of one family. Polyandry is practised by the tribes of Tibet, Kashmir and the Himalayan regions, by the Todas, Koorgs, Nairs and other peoples of India, in Ceylon, New Zealand, by some of the Australian aborigines, in parts of Africa, in the Aleutian archipelago, among the Koryaks and on the Orinoco.

See McLennan's Primitive Marriage (London, 1885); Studies in Ancient History (London, 1886); "The Levirate and Polyandry," in The Fortnightly Review, new series, vol. xxi. (London, 18 77); L. H. Moigan, System of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (Washington, 1869); Lord Avebury, Origin of Civilization; E. Westermarck, History of Human Marriage."

And, as I said before, I personally know several charismatic women with multiple male partners. Polyandry is undeniably part of the scope of human behaviour. As women become more empowered and economically independent, I see no reason why it shouldn't increase.

Any discussion of polyamory needs to acknowledge that it's a historical fact - both polygyny and polyandry. It has been a sustainable part of many traditional cultures. And it continues in Western society today, albeit informally.
Should it be *formally* recognized by government with legal benefits? That's a question on which I'm agnostic. Practically, it's not going to happen in the U.S. for several decades at least, although places like the Netherlands or New Zealand (which elected the world's first transsexual member of Parliament), maybe...

Posted by ZK | September 11, 2007 6:55 PM

Oh yes, and de facto polyandry was quite common among aristocrats in France, pre-Revolution. For example, Voltaire, the rationalist philosopher, had a 16-year affair with the Marquise du Chatelet ("the divine Emilie"); during part of it, he, Emilie, and Emilie's husband lived together. Lady Montagu noted in 1716 in Vienna that many women of the nobility there had two "husbands" - one for the name, the other for the "game." It was considered gauche not to invite all three to dinner.

Posted by ZK | September 11, 2007 6:59 PM