POLYGAMY POLL

like most of these kids look p well adjusted and everyone seems p chill about it, but I can't help but thi u get all the benefits of this by having your extended family live near you and none of the dick sharing downsides

The fuck uppedness is entirely inherent in the power dynamic of polygamous households, like in the case of the FLDS church specifically it was a pretty abusive situation. In concept I am in favor of two girls marrying three guys as much as I am of one girl marrying one guy or one guy marrying one guy or everybody having safe consensual sex with everybody else.

So I guess smash the patriarchy is what I'm saying?

pfu but should be legal

I voted "other illegal option" and then immediately regretted it. Basically, I think that people should be able to do whatever they want w/r/t marriage, and that includes polygamy if that's what they're into. While I'm personally a very happy monogamist, I get the appeal of communal living situations. BUT obviously, oppressive, religious, patriarchal polygamous marriages, ie Warren Jeffs, where women get trapped in abusive situations are bad. So I guess in a perfect world, polygamy would be legal and therefore polygamists are not isolated and hidden, which allows women in these marriages to feel comfortable going for help if they need it.

So maybe legalize it, remove the stigma, and make it easier for women to access help and services as needed.

And on xpost - silby OTM.

Also I hate religious fundamentalism (and don't love non-fundamentalist religion tbrr) and part of me is just straight up vindictive and wants to make polygamy illegal because fuck you, fundies.

Here is a limerick I read when I was very young. It periodically came to mind and confused me.

There once was an old man of Lyme
Who married three wives at a time,
When asked, "Why a third?"
He replied, "One's absurd!
And bigamy, sir, is a crime."

I grew up regular LD5 (as you know) and they are very defensive about their polygamist past. "The pioneers just had to do it! There weren't enough men around! God knew it was the only practical solution!" (NB in their doctrine you have to be married in the temple to get to the highest & coolest tier of heaven, so the ladies needed a wedding ring/ticket to heaven even if a man already had given another lady one.)

OTOH in semin4ry they told us the commandment to marry multiple wives was never really taken off the record –––– after the apocalypse happen, most of the valiant men will have died in a lengthy and gruesome war. So then we'll have to be polygamist again for the same practical reason. "There will be seven women for every man," our seminary teacher said, making Surf City look pathetic. A lot of girls cried in class that day.

Ecology informs us that sperm is cheap, but applying that logic to humans still gives me sad & creepy feelings. Also, what happens to all the cannon fodder that never got to marry? (This is a sacrilegious question probably and I am sure that seminary teacher would've had an answer (p sure the answer is MEN R #1)).

There are non-theological polygamists but I find them kind of creepy, too. Guess I'm just a greedy prude!

i said 'please don't think i'm being snide
When i question the need for three brides'
He said 'no, not at all
It's that sex is a ball
When you know there's a spare either side'

i thought sister wives was fascinating, and i think jenny is completely OTM. the women on that show definitely chose that lifestyle bc they wanted it, and as one of them points out, their marriage isn't perfect but neither are any monogamous ones. and yeah the kids - they all seem like REALLY well-adjusted, happy, responsible, caring little people, so that family is obviously doing something right. and while i am uncomfortable about fundies, it was interesting/good when they moved to las vegas and robyn commented on how scary and different it was there bc they were so used to the conservative/churchy life in utah, but she felt she was in no position to judge bc she wouldn't want others judging her lifestyle choice.

there has been/is the opportunity to abuse vulnerable women, but i think that is the case with or without the legalization of polygamy, and like jenny says, legalizing it would make women in those types of marriages who need to seek help less ashamed about doing so.

p.s. i really couldn't stand meri, she seemed like such a brat

In Mark Twain's "Letter's from the Earth" an angel comments on how ludicrous it is that polygamy was more common than polyandry:

During twenty-three days in every month (in absence of pregnancy) from the time a woman is seven years old till she dies of old age, she is ready for action, and competent. As competent as the candlestick is to receive the candle. Competent every day, competent every night. Also she wants that candle -- yearns for it, longs for it, hankers after it, as commanded by the law of God in her heart.

But man is only briefly competent; and only then in the moderate measure applicable to the word in his sex's case. He is competent from the age of sixteen or seventeen thence-forward for thirty-five years. After fifty his performance is of poor quality, the intervals between are wide, and its satisfactions of no great value to either party; whereas his great-grandmother is as good as new. There is nothing the matter with her plant. Her candlestick is as firm as ever, whereas his candle is increasingly softened and weakened by the weather of age, as the years go by, until at last it can no longer stand, and is mournfully laid to rest in the hope of a blessed resurrection which is never to come.

By the woman's make, her plant has to be out of service three days in the month, and during a part of her pregnancy. These are times of discomfort, often of suffering. For fair and just compensation she has the high privilege of unlimited adultery all the other days of her life.

That is the law of God, as revealed in her make. What becomes of this high privilege? Does she live in free enjoyment of it? No. Nowhere in the whole world. She is robbed of it everywhere. Who does this? Man. Man's statutes -- if the Bible is the Word of God.

Now there you have a sample of man's "reasoning powers," as he calls them. He observes certain facts. For instance, that in all his life he never sees the day that he can satisfy one woman; also, that no woman ever sees the day that she can't overwork, and defeat, and put out of commission any ten masculine plants that can be put to bed to her.[**] He puts those strikingly suggestive and luminous facts together, and from them draws this astonishing conclusion: The Creator intended the woman to be restricted to one man.

So he concretes that singular conclusion into law, for good and all.

And he does it without consulting the woman, although she has a thousand times more at stake in the matter than he has. His procreative competency is limited to an average of a hundred exercises per year for fifty years, hers is good for three thousand a year for that whole time -- and as many years longer as she may live. Thus his life interest in the matter is five thousand refreshments, while hers is a hundred and fifty thousand; yet instead of fairly and honorably leaving the making of the law to the person who has an overwhelming interest at stake in it, this immeasurable hog, who has nothing at stake in it worth considering, makes it himself!

on the other hand I don't think I have heard from any ladies who have had sex three thousand times in a year

You mean polygyny, right? Polygamy covers any gender.

that one

i feel like a good ilx clusterfuck could really help me clarify my feelings on this issue. can someone make that happen?

I have 4 wives

my name is bennett

and I don't believe in tipping

...tell me more

Polyandry, in the handful of remote hardscrabble Asian societies where it was traditional, wasn't that good a deal for women, either, because they always practiced infanticide to keep the female population down to a point where polyandry would be practical.

Also, I always got the impression that the real reason for at least some of FLDS style polyandry was welfare fraud.

Er, I mean polygamy, of course.

I know of one IRL polygamous relationship (2 girls, 1 guy, two kids, been together for years) and they seem 100% happy and the kids seem perfectly well adjusted, so I can't see the problem myself.

Sure, there's a problem where one of more of the parties are being coerced or worse into the marriage, but that's as true when there's only two people involved. I don't think you should throw out the polygamous baby with the coerced bathwater.

Polygamy ought to remain illegal, but polyandry seems like an option that should be looked into further.

The Case Against Polygamy
December 5, 2011 9:11 A.M.
By Maggie Gallagher
A British Columbian judge ruled that polygamy harms women and society, thus containing the “right to marry” to just two people.

Polygamy, which has been practiced in many places across time and history, has a track record of being associated with certain other social practices. Gay marriage, which was invented ten years ago, has no comparable track record.

In any case, an array of people with culturally powerful credentials were willing to testify against polygamy and to marshall empirical evidence against it.

The judges’ decision, an excellent cheat sheet into the empirical, historical, and social science debate over polygamy in the academy, is here.

Of course it’s being appealed.

If widely practiced, polygamy leads to greater economic equality for women and fewer children raised in poverty, but the mass of unmarried low-rank males is ripe for violence & unrest.

xp thanks, that looks like just the clusterfuck i need. corner coming thru for me once again

The genetic background of most human populations indicates we all have around twice as many female ancestors as male ones, so some degree of polygamy seems to have been the norm for most of our past as a species.

The genetic background of most human populations indicates we all have around twice as many female ancestors as male ones

How's this work?

that's not an implication of polygamy, that's an implication of fathers impregnating their daughters

^^ this otm

One can compare the genetic diversity of the mitochondria (inherited solely through the female line) and Y chromosomes (passed through the male line) to estimate the number of ancestors.

For any individual, consider your 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents etc as a branching tree. Far enough back, a lot of the male branches join again, so that there are in aggregate around twice as many female as male ancestors.

This is most vivid in places like Central Asia, where 8 percent of Y-chromosomes are nearly identical, due the the high polygamy practiced by Ghenghis Khan and his sons.

Polygamy was only banned by Ashkenazi Jewry ~1000CE by a Rabbinical degree

Lock up your own daughters

I don't know, this seems to me to be an argument in favor of incest rather than polygamy; in order for those trees to loop back on each other, the ancestors sleeping together have to have been related

The genetic evidence seems to imply that men on average had more partners than women, which is I guess polygamy in the biological sense, but not in the social sense of plural marriage. Widespread practice of rape as an act of war could lead to a similar result.

In anthropology, the incest taboo is pretty universal (exceptions like the Egyptian pharoahs prove the rule). Higher rank male marrying two distantly related cousins (10+ times removed) from distant villages accounts for the data as well as incest.

o. nate: that's true. But marriage (in the European context as a binding contract sanctified by religious authority) was primarily for sorting out patrilineal inheritance among elites until fairly recently. More informal arrangements like mistresses and consorts and concubines were very common (and the children financially supported).

strikethrough "and consorts" there

wait is this poll exclusively about v sincere and nice and monstrously uncool ppl and their huge ass families and one dude policy or historical nonmonogamy that favors men or free boning for everyone (so long as no one gets hurt) or what

BTW, I'm not saying I support legalized polygamy - I think if widely practiced the misfortune of low-rank males locked out of family life and greater social violence outweighs the arguments in favor. I'm just saying it was practically a norm in most societies going back past few centuries, whether legally/religiously sanctioned or not.

Won't someone think of the low-rank males?

*thinks about the milhouses of the world, weeps*

Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?Won't someone think of the low-rank males?

Harems work well for elk and walruses. Unless you are a low-status male elk or walrus. ;_;

The genetic background of most human populations indicates we all have around twice as many female ancestors as male ones, so some degree of polygamy seems to have been the norm for most of our past as a species.

― Sanpaku, Monday, December 5, 2011 5:09 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Permalink

and every man on reddit imagines himself one of those progenitors

as long as the mormon church opposes gay marriage they can fuck right off, voted illegal

not all polygamists are mormons btw

I am against polygamy because some douche is gonna marry all the women and then there will be none left for me.

*marries most women*

what a douche

I was gonna lend u 1 but now, pfft

JmC, I'm sorry you're a low-rank male. Thinking of u.

A lot of social scientists are seriously worried about forthcoming unrest in China and particularly India due to a high male-female ratios (in their case, due to prenatal gender-selection).

In societies with greater gender and class inequality than even our own, (and the usual assortative mating pattern) polygamy "works" for high-ranking males, lower-ranking women (better to be second wife to a merchant than only wife of a beggar), and many children, who would otherwise be born in abject poverty. The economic losers are high-ranking females (who have to share resources) and low-ranking males.

In our more equitable society, there are still affluent, educated women who have sought out polygamous relationships due in part to advantages of community and in child-rearing. So who would be losers if polygamy became much more common?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_boys_(Mormon_fundamentalism)

A lot of social scientists are seriously worried about forthcoming unrest in China and particularly India due to a high male-female ratios (in their case, due to prenatal gender-selection).

eh idk if i'd take this as axiomatic. china fr ex is seeing more marriage to non-chinese, a lot from SE asia. which i guess you could say extends the problem geographically, in one sense. but i don't think you can easily draw a line from unmarriage to violence. having a lot of unmarried young men around is seen in some faint spenglerish way as a precursor to war (oh gnoes the yellow hordes) but considering how much violence we export maybe people ought to think that one thru again.

The concern is more domestic unrest and crime. People with nothing to lose etc.

does "domestic unrest" include marrying a cambodian woman? knowing nothing about indian or chinese crime stats i think this worry is basically crap.

Actually, it looks like the poor bachelors are still victimized:

http://www.economist.com/node/18530371

A skewed sex ratio may instead be making the lot of women worse. Sociologists say it encourages abuse, notably in the trafficking of the sort that Sakina first suffered from but is now ready to pay for. Reports circulate of unknown numbers of girls who are drugged, beaten and sometimes killed by traffickers. Others, willingly or not, are brought across India’s borders, notably from Bangladesh and Myanmar. “Put bluntly, it’s a competition over scarce women”, says Ravinder Kaur of the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi.

Men, especially if poor and from a low caste, suffer too. Women in India are sometimes permitted, even encouraged, to “marry up” into a higher income bracket or caste, so richer men find it easier to get a bride. The poor are forced into a long or permanent bachelorhood, a status widely frowned upon in India, where marriage is deemed essential to becoming a full member of society. Poor bachelors are often victims of violent crime.

I'm not saying it's not the case, because I am no more than passingly familiar with p much everything Sanpaku is talking about, but it is hard to imagine that young men who cannot get married have nothing to lose and will resort to violence. Like the base set of assumptions that prediction requires (men get violent when they don't get what they want/don't have access to sex or romantic relationships?) makes no sense to me.

Seems like there should be roving gangs of murderous gay men if that were the case.

well it has to be put in the greater social context. most of the time those men are also going to be poor.

well marriage doesn't = sex in 'the west' anymore...

xp Okay "marriage deemed essential to becoming a full member of society" adds some clarity. Thanks. Although then I would say the solution is not polygamy but smashing the patriarchy so ppl don't devalue women to the point of creating a shortage of them.

there may be roving gangs of murderous gay men in our fascist/mad max future but i doubt it will be a sexless milieu

I realize I just do not have the analytical structures in my brain necessary to think about how we can prove from mitochondrial DNA that we have twice as many female ancestors as male ancestors

file under 'if a train leaves chicago at 4:45 PM heading towards cleveland at 85 mph and another train leaves cleveland heading towards chicago at 90 mph at 6:00 PM...'

this thread went from sex to word problems way too quickly

as sanpaku pointed out upthread: mitochondrial DNA is strictly matrilineal. that is, it has its very own DNA, outside the nucleus, and it only gets passed from mother-to-offspring. similarly, Y-chromosomes only come from dad (whereas X chromosomes can come from either parent).

if you evaluate the genetic variability of Y-chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA, it would seem that mitochondrial DNA exhibits more diversity than Y-chromosomes*. thus, we conclude that more women have been contributing their unique mitochondrial genes to the pool than have men and their unique Y-chromosomes. s

o basically most babies were made by one guy and a lotta chicks

*nb - i am just parroting sanpaku on this. i've never heard this stat, and have neither reason to doubt it, nor to believe it. that being said, it doesn't seem shocking to me at all to learn that back in civilization's small times, ~alpha males~ (or w/e) made more babies (via polygamy, harems, and/or rape). i should also point out that mitochondrial DNA is subject to different selective pressures than Y-chromosomes. that is: if 1000 couples have 1000 babies, 1000 of those babies will inherit their mom's mitochondrial DNA, and only half will inherit their dad's Y-chromosomes. kinda spit-balling here, but one could see how that might result in a diversity of maternal DNA, and a relative narrowing of the uniquely-male contribution. could be rong tho, I Am Not A Geneticist

Still laffing at "OH GNOES" tbh.

eh legalize it, what do I care

otm

for one thing it would piss off the mormons and i am pro anything that does that automatically

idk I think they would find a way to deal with it.

They would probably say "sweeeet this means the second coming is around the corner, now all that has to happen is the prophet gets shot in the middle east and that rock on the conference center breaks open, Jesus #1"

then they would marry one thousand ladies

and eat jello

signs o the times

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mxgq7xEtcTk

Funny, yesterday I googled Polyamory, and every 2guys/1girl scenario starts out a fair description of the pros and cons, personal tales, individual situations, all of them ended up describing "doubel pen", let's call it that...

I kind of think polyandry is cool NOT because I am interested in it, but because it is practiced by magpies. And magpies are probably the best creatures on earth!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.