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Responding to my own post , polygamy NOT being legal isn't protecting them either, obviously. Perhaps the process of legalizing it would provide opportunities to address the problem in some way. I don't know.
Funny that. I was going to mention the sex slave trade in relation to your last post in the same light you now mention it.
There is scant all protection already in many places in the world. It is a huge industry by all accounts, so in a way marriage might help protect a decent society from an indecent thing?
However, marriage in the traditional sense and in the Western world has proved to bring its own problems with it.
Perhaps the answer is to allow people to choose who they will partner up with and produce children with and have it so that they are not obligated to remain together as partners until 'death they do part'. It might solve some of those social problems - problems which the Family have created. Possessiveness, ownership, competition involving underhandedness, 'us and them' mentalities, blue-bloods etc etc...
If/when the legal issues pertaining to marriage are worked out, then why not? Currently the legal framework applies to two people. Social security benefits, immigration laws, medical decision making, ect give those rights and responsibilities to the other spouse unless there is a directive to do otherwise. In the cast of 4 people married who makes those decisions? Can someone marry 20 people and get spousal immigration for all of them? If one dies do all of the spouses get full SSI, or is the amount split among them all? Is one married to the others, but the others are not married to each other? Can I be married to 5 people, then one of those marry 5 others, and one of them be married to 5 others and how does that all work within the laws?
There are valid reasons to want the legal structure fixed before legalizing polygamous marriage.
When these issues are settled then go for it as long as all are consenting adults.
You underline some of the reasons why our present social structures and accompanying beliefs are designed primarily for the pairing off of couples.
Breeding is important because it adds to the collective collateral of a society. That is why opposite sex marriage has been the moral preference.
Now same sex marriage is able to contribute through adopting children without parents, this has no doubt helped the cause to legalize their unions.
the problem you present above are problems created by the way in which society arranges itself, and thus money becomes a big issue in relation to ownership and how things are divide up when the husband or wife of many spouses dies.
It is somewhat similar to the euthanasia question. We all know that someone with terminal illness should have the right to choose to die with dignity and not have to suffer, just the same as we all know it is not right to keep a pet animal in a state of suffering.
The complications derive from the way the systems and the laws governing those systems operate, thus a human being is lawfully required to suffer and die painfully (and with far less dignity than they could have) whereas a dog which is treated the same way brings the risk of penalty of the law to the one responsible for its suffering.
Laws change as humans do (or in the wake of human change) so the laws often reflect the way humans behave and accommodate that behavior and then there is the inevitable resistance to change where there is a risk that human societies become slaves to the law because laws are written which prevent them from changing laws to suit changes in human behavior and perceptions.
Societies should always be on guard to make sure that this never happens. that the law remains the servant of humanity rather than the master.
Actually, I think that legal multiple simultaneous marriages will undermine the legal protections marriage offers, and which now we ALL can enjoy. So no, I don't want to mess with that.
However, if consenting adults want to consider themselves married to more than one person, I have no problem with that. Live and let live.
So really when all is said and done, marriage is about legal protection. So why then would that protection be undermined by legalizing multiple partners.
Or from another angle, why can't those who "consider themselves married to more than one person" be protected by the same law which protects couples?
I mean, if you were in support of same sex marriage, was it just because it did not threaten the law which protects couples? And thus, you see no reason to support the idea of multiple partners being protected (against discrimination etc) by the law?
Is it about the law and protecting the law more than about human beings and their choices?
I mean, you made the statement that multiple partner choices would undermine what we 'ALL' enjoy - but are you forgetting that being protected by the law by being recognized as legitimate helps curb discrimination?
Do you think those who want to be in multiple partnerships enjoy not being recognized as legal?
Because if you do, then why do you thin homosexuals and lesbians seemed less than joyful before their unions were recognized legal? Why do you think the rainbow flags are all flying as if joyfully?
Or is it simply that our present social structures and systems are geared to a certain agenda, and the only reason same sex couples got a foot in the door was because they are couples and thus essentially wont undermine that agenda?
There must be an agenda otherwise there would be nothing to 'mess' with right?
If/when the legal issues pertaining to marriage are worked out, then why not? Currently the legal framework applies to two people. Social security benefits, immigration laws, medical decision making, ect give those rights and responsibilities to the other spouse unless there is a directive to do otherwise. In the cast of 4 people married who makes those decisions? Can someone marry 20 people and get spousal immigration for all of them? If one dies do all of the spouses get full SSI, or is the amount split among them all? Is one married to the others, but the others are not married to each other? Can I be married to 5 people, then one of those marry 5 others, and one of them be married to 5 others and how does that all work within the laws?
There are valid reasons to want the legal structure fixed before legalizing polygamous marriage.
When these issues are settled then go for it as long as all are consenting adults.
If, in theory, the law could be adjusted to make poly-whatever workable, I agree. I'm just very skeptical that it can be done without, at the very least, introducing inherent complexity in social structures that will cost society way more than is worth it given that near as i can tell hardly any of its members really want such arrangements.
And I strongly intuit that there are inherent problems with such arrangements, not just challenging legal complexities. Jealousy, complexity, undertows and cross currents of all kinds. Frankly in my view being in an intimate relationship with just one other human being is plenty challenging enough. I don't know why otherwise sane people would want even more baroque arrangements. But yes ... if the legal environment can be reworked in ways that won't make 2-person marriages less viable, and that won't make society itself less viable ... in theory ... sure. But put me down as an extreme skeptic about such an enterprise.
Which is why god GAVE David multiple wives. Right?
Are you sure that it wasn't in fact The Law that gave David multiple wives? Not to forget his position in the events... Giant slayers get preferential treatment from those whom are delivered from the bullies.
The word is polygamy, which includes both polyandry and polygyny.
I was wanting to include polyamory in there too. Whatever poly wants, other than a cracker.
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, polygamy NOT being legal isn't protecting them either, obviously. Perhaps the process of legalizing it would provide opportunities to address the problem in some way. I don't know.
Law
