Do you think we’ll see Polygamy legalized soon?

[Varysblackfyre321]

There doesn’t seem any particularly good reason  to keep such bans up as society progresses.

[Ormond]

Why are you just asking about legalizing polyandry? Polyandry is a woman having more than one husband. Polygyny is a man having more than one wife. The joint term for people being able to have multiple spouses in general is "polygamy". 

And I don't see any form of polygamy being legalized soon, though "soon" is a relative term and I wouldn't be surprised if this happens say 40 years from now, which would be "soon" by some historical standards.

[VigoTheCarpathian]

It’s an interesting question.  No joke, I think that changing the common paperwork and statutes that form the basis of ownership and taxation is going to be the biggest hurdle to overcome, from a practical standpoint.

Any morality arguments that follow are probably going to rehash the same-sex marriage arguments, along with the same tired bullshit (“what, can people marry their dogs next!?”).  
 

Most of the polyamory scenes I have been a part of don’t really give fuck for marriage as an institution, and where the desire for commitment is there, people have gone through the crazy loopholes to try and get the benefit marriage would confer (i.e., four names on a mortgage, powers of attorney all around) - I think with some legal/financial tweaks to the way we privilege spouses in certain areas like healthcare and inheritance, we’d probably be set.

[Heartofice]

Are we talking about multiple marriages at the same time? Why even bother to talk about marriage? Marriage is becoming less and less important to people, divorce rates are so high etc. I don’t know why anyone would really care about polygamy’s legal status in the future.

Having said that, I don’t see it being the social norm any time soon either 

[Xray the Enforcer]

OP can you clarify what you mean with "polyandry"? Are you talking polyandry in particular (as @Ormond explains), or polygamy in general? 

[Xray the Enforcer]

15 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Are we talking about multiple marriages at the same time? Why even bother to talk about marriage? Marriage is becoming less and less important to people, divorce rates are so high etc. I don’t know why anyone would really care about polygamy’s legal status in the future.

I know quite a few people in long-term polyamorous relationships who would definitely all sign up for the legal and economic incentives that the government affords to couples who get married. A polyamorous marriage is not something I'd personally want to do, but that just means I shouldn't get polyamorously married. 

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

I know quite a few people in long-term polyamorous relationships who would definitely all sign up for the legal and economic incentives that the government affords to couples who get married. A polyamorous marriage is not something I'd personally want to do, but that just means I shouldn't get polyamorously married. 

Are there any stats on the longevity of polygamous relationships? Are they statistically as long lasting as monogamous ones? 
 

I don’t know how legal marriage would work in that situation, if one person wishes to get a divorce etc. 
 

And what would be the uptake on marriage if some of these relationships are more like open relationships, or at least for one of the partners?

[HexMachina]

28 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Are we talking about multiple marriages at the same time? Why even bother to talk about marriage? Marriage is becoming less and less important to people, divorce rates are so high etc. I don’t know why anyone would really care about polygamy’s legal status in the future.

Having said that, I don’t see it being the social norm any time soon either 

I thimk the reasons for wanting marriage for all are usually either symbolic/emotional (Broadly speaking, the WHy should my relationship not be worthy of the same recognition as yours?) and/or practical (tax, financial, economic, inheritance reasons or whatever). That’s my understanding anyway, and I would support that. Can’t see a good reason to deny polygamous relationships that right. Its not something i am interested in (or marriage in general) but to each their own

 

1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

Are there any stats on the longevity of polygamous relationships? Are they statistically as long lasting as monogamous ones? 
 

I don’t know how legal marriage would work in that situation, if one person wishes to get a divorce etc. 
 

And what would be the uptake on marriage if some of these relationships are more like open relationships, or at least for one of the partners?

Why does the longevity matter? 

If one person wants a divorce then...they get a divorce? Not seeing the issue, it goes from being a marriage of 3 person (or 4, or 5, etc) to a marriage of 2 (or 3, 4 etc.) Haven’t given a lot of thought on the exact way it would be structured but if you said a, b and c were married, and a wants to divorce only b, the you would have a marriage of a to c, and a marriage of b to c, and then a marriage of c to b and a. I can’t imagine it being too difficult to structure that in a way as to no rights associated with marriage existing between b and a once they divorce. The easiest way is probably to view it as a usual business contract.

I don’t understand your last question can you clarify? People in monogamous marriages (not sure if i’m using that correctly given the rest of this sentence but basically 2 persons in a marriage) have open relationships now. So i’m not too sure what you mean here.

[Xray the Enforcer]

I think one would need to be careful about how compare longevity in polygamous (I'm using this word deliberately here) marriages vs monogamous marriages given the extremely strong religious ties that polygamy has in Western and/or Christian milieu. In the U.S., that practice is limited to a breakaway sect of fundamentalist Mormons who also have a habit of marrying old dudes to teenage girls and for whom divorce is anathema. I'm not even sure you can make a legitimate comparison, to be honest.

And if you're trying to compare polyamorous relationships (which lack the legal, economic, and societal infrastructure to keep them stable over the long term) to monogamous marriages (which do have all of that legal, economic, and societal support), I don't think that's a good comparison either, especially if you are trying to establish that a poly marriage (should it come to pass) would be inherently more or less stable than a monogamous one. There is no common baseline, and so any conclusion would be flawed. 

Basically, I don't think longevity is a valid criterion to evaluate the question at hand.

 

[Heartofice]

My point was that as a society we incentivise people staying together by encouraging marriage ( usually to create a more stable society and protect the upbringing of children).

However the concept of marriage seems rather pointless even these days with so many people divorcing and breaking up, which is one of the reasons so many are opting to not bother.

If polygamous relationships were more likely to have at least one person leave at some point I’m not sure I understand the benefit of putting in all the effort of doing any of it in the first place. Plus all the legal issues of divorce, property rights etc. 

Im coming from the perspective of marriage being something I am not really bothered about, and never understood why so many really wanted to do it. 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

1.  No.

2.  That doesn't mean that it is the correct policy answer (for the reasons Xray mentions - not sure why those protections shouldn't be available) 

3.  Any correct policy answer needs to deal with the points that Xray mentioned to make sure that the construct isn't misused against the vulnerable.

4.  Basically, I agree with Xray, which I suppose I could have just said, but I like to listen to myself type.

[Varysblackfyre321]

2 hours ago, Ormond said:

Why are you just asking about legalizing polyandry? Polyandry is a woman having more than one husband. Polygyny is a man having more than one wife. The joint term for people being able to have multiple spouses in general is "polygamy". 

And I don't see any form of polygamy being legalized soon, though "soon" is a relative term and I wouldn't be surprised if this happens say 40 years from now, which would be "soon" by some historical standards.

Typo when making the thread title. Correcting it now*

Though I was thinking within a decade for many places in the west.

[S John]

5 hours ago, Heartofice said:

My point was that as a society we incentivise people staying together by encouraging marriage ( usually to create a more stable society and protect the upbringing of children).

However the concept of marriage seems rather pointless even these days with so many people divorcing and breaking up, which is one of the reasons so many are opting to not bother.

If polygamous relationships were more likely to have at least one person leave at some point I’m not sure I understand the benefit of putting in all the effort of doing any of it in the first place. Plus all the legal issues of divorce, property rights etc. 

Im coming from the perspective of marriage being something I am not really bothered about, and never understood why so many really wanted to do it. 

Well I think maybe historically, especially in judeo-Christian traditions, marriage is there to put the stamp of the Big Guy on your relationship and make it holy and forever and a permanent stable environment for children and all that. In that sense, sure, I agree that it’s pointless because I don’t personally believe that you need divine blessing of your partnership particularly when people can freely discard the ol God stamp of approval when things aren’t working out. 

However marriage isn’t legally pointless. That alone is why many people do it. My wife and I were living together for four years perfectly happily before we got married. When that switch was flipped absolutely nothing else about our relationship changed. At some point you look around and say, “hey, you heading out any time soon? No? Me neither - let’s share health insurance.” Other reasons too of course, estate purposes, someone to make hard decisions if you are incapacitated, possible tax benefits, etc. Somewhat superficially, for us, the terms ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’ started to feel inadequate for introductions.

 I understand perfectly well why not to get married, but at least in the US, if both people are planning to ride together indefinitely it makes pretty good sense to get married. 

[Fury Resurrected]

7 hours ago, Heartofice said:

My point was that as a society we incentivise people staying together by encouraging marriage ( usually to create a more stable society and protect the upbringing of children).

However the concept of marriage seems rather pointless even these days with so many people divorcing and breaking up, which is one of the reasons so many are opting to not bother.

If polygamous relationships were more likely to have at least one person leave at some point I’m not sure I understand the benefit of putting in all the effort of doing any of it in the first place. Plus all the legal issues of divorce, property rights etc. 

Im coming from the perspective of marriage being something I am not really bothered about, and never understood why so many really wanted to do it. 

Your whole point can be resolved by deciding it is fruitless and stupid to be providing government incentives to marry at all. 
 

There should be no tax break (often there already is not) or otherwise incentive other than next of kin status and co ownership of property. 
 

society has no business incentivizing or disincentivizing different types of personal relationships.

[Varysblackfyre321]

8 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Marriage is becoming less and less important to people, divorce rates are so high etc.

That’s not true;https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/12/united-states-marriage-and-divorce-rates-declined-last-10-years.html

More People are waiting longer before delving into marriage, and being more selective into they’d spend their life with.

The divorce rate exploded in the 80s because many people—especially women—had divorce be something more accessible. No-fault divorce took a burden from having to prove, or demonstrate a legal or social wrongdoing. Which could be really hard

Many people—particularly women—were not content to stay in their once they were given the option to leave.

Which of course is a good thing.

[DMC]

7 hours ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

I know quite a few people in long-term polyamorous relationships who would definitely all sign up for the legal and economic incentives that the government affords to couples who get married. A polyamorous marriage is not something I'd personally want to do, but that just means I shouldn't get polyamorously married. 

This.  At least in the US, the benefits and privileges of marriage are a very obvious reason why any and everyone involved would undoubtedly care about the legal status.  Unless that's somehow miraculously abolished, I don't see any good reason why such relationships shouldn't be afforded the same equal treatment of two people.  It's a clear EPC violation to me.  This is coming from the perspective of someone who has never "bothered about" marriage and does not expect to ever get married.

Practically, this would be a greater hurdle than SSM, and not just because of current/shifting social attitudes.  The case law against polygamy, starting in the second half of the 19th century, but continuing up to very recently, is quite extensive.

[Kalbear]

So first - will it be legalized any time soon? No. There's very little public support or desire for it overall and there aren't many polygamous relationships out there that would also want to be married to everyone else in the relationship. 

Now, should it be legal? Probably! Marriage unfortunately is this giant legal bundle of crap that has rights which are either annoying, difficult, or impossible to get in any other way. Until that is solved (presumably by either being able to contract for those rights specifically or by getting the government entirely out of the way) it certainly should be the case that marriage is desired by people who want things like legal visitation rights to their children or sick visitation or benefits after death or any number of stupid little things that married people take for granted. 

The idea of people leaving the marriage and dissolving that contract making the value of it null and void is really stupid as an argument. At the very least, getting annulments or divorces is not particularly easy legally or otherwise. Why that would change with even MORE people in the mix seems obviously wrong. 

The biggest challenge in the US, IMO, is so much of healthcare is tied up in spousal employment - IE, often one person in the marriage has the health benefits which are transferred to the whole family. I can see employers not being super happy with the notion of providing healthcare to you and your 15 significant others (even though that really doesn't matter). The solution is, of course, to stop having healthcare be dependent on your job, but that's another thing entirely.

[Gorn]

Ban on polygamy is very much based in Christianity and its definition of what family is, and I'm not sure how long it would survive in a genuinely secular/multicultural/multiconfessional society. If, say, a religious Muslim with multiple wives from a country where polygamy is legal wants to move to a Western country, the current laws discriminate against any wives other than the first one.

Making the practice criminalized and punishing it by up to five years in prison is ridiculous and a leftover of sodomy laws. While I have no strong opinions on legalizing it one way or the other, I'm definitely for decriminalizing it.

[john]

The beauty of polygamy (uh, well one of the beauties) is that one person getting a divorce doesn’t terminate the marriage, leaving those supposed societal benefits intact.

[MercenaryChef]

for me marriage is a joke. basic society tells us it is the logical evolution of a relationship so we do it. and the much more practical application is to help provide healthcare protections, have someone to make decisions if one is medically incapacitated and have a clear person to take care of financial affairs if it is otherwise unstated, immigration avenues, etc.

the legal aspects of a larger marital collective beyond the standard two would be daunting but not impossible. there would need to be very clear contracts on who inherits from who, how to handle a member of the collective leaving,  etc. this could be a boon for attorneys! there would be an entirely new avenue to ply their trade.

the opportunity for corruption in it would be immense. i would personally marry as many people as possible to get them healthcare and immigration status.

oh, and i like the term Marital Collective.