Can anyone name a single legitimate reason why polygamy is illegal?

You have not shown me any anctual statistic on what combinations polys in general form up as. My own unit is two husbands and two wives. I know several units where it is one wife to multiple husbands (polyandry), as well as the multiple of both spouses. And of course there are the polygyny units. The problem with most opponents of poly and polygamy, is that they are basing their perception of poly on what the FLDS are doing and not seeing the rest of the community. Most of us polys do not like what the FLDS are doing, but it is not because of the poly, as stated earlier. Abuse is abuse whether it is in a poly unit or a monogamous couple. Any attempt to tie abuse to poly is a correlation/causation fallacy.

But here is the key question. How is a man's love diluted by having more than one wife, but it is not diluted by having more than one child?

 

And the problem is.....?

 

When you stop giggling, ask yourself why we should assume that an anonymous account on the internet, by an embittered litigant, of an event that occurred years ago, without seeing a complete record of what actually happened, or even hearing from the other side, should conclude that it is both accurate and representative of typical cases.

"Duh, I got me a cousin what sed that he heard in a bar that one of his neighbors, no ... I think it was maybe his brother in law got ripped off by a [whatever]. That tells me all I need to know!"

Stay off the internet. You're just too gullible.

 

There's nothing more you need to know if you know anything about marital law. It's no-fault in this state, so no matter how badly a spouse behaves, they can take half the assets no matter what. In this case a judge took it upon himself to force an abrupt sale of a highly profitable and viable business 2 years before it would have been worth mega millions. The spouse petitioned for this out of pure spite, and a judge ordered it so.

 

Polygamy is having more than one wife at the same time. Divorcing a wife and marrying another is quite common, not polygamy.

 

Georgia is a 50/50 state. The reason for the divorce doesn't matter. Assets, property, money... each spouse gets 50%.

 

I think one of the main concerns regarding polygamy is the tendency for minors to be taken as wives and for wives and children to become reliant on government aide to get by. But it isn't like babies are being born tons every day out of wedlock to mothers by fathers who cannot support them.

 

Polagomy isn't illegal go ahead and do it. It just isn't endorsed or recognized by the government because it isn't beneficial to society.

 

Exactly. You only get one legally recognized marriage at a time.

 

Polygamy is having more than one spouse at the same time. Polygyny is having more than one wife, while polyandry is having more than one wife. Polygamy in and of itself has no gender indications. For example with my unit we have two husbands and two wives. We are neither a polygyny nor a polyandry, just simply a polygamy.

 

Except that the whole minor thing is isolated to the FLDS and certain Islamic sects. Most polys in the US right now do not believe in "child brides" yet alone "child grooms" any more than monogamous people do. I understand at here in the US the FLDS's are the most visible of those who practice polygamy, specifically polygyny. But they are but a small portion.

 

It's a crime in Texas.

 

Read a little closer. What he is saying is that polygamy, as a social institution, is not illegal. As long as any one individual within a poly unit does not have their name on multiple license at the same time, there is no crime committed. The crime of bigamy is that of an individual having more than one legal license at the same time. No court should ever try people simply because they declare a social marriage, but have no legal standing as such.

 

The Texas law criminalizes more than that:

CHAPTER 25. OFFENSES AGAINST THE FAMILY



Sec. 25.01. BIGAMY. (a) An individual commits an offense if:

(1) he is legally married and he:

(A) purports to marry or does marry a person other than his spouse in this state, or any other state or foreign country, under circumstances that would, but for the actor's prior marriage, constitute a marriage; or

(B) lives with a person other than his spouse in state under the appearance of being married; or

(2) he knows that a married person other than his spouse is married and he:

(A) purports to marry or does marry that person in this state, or any other state or foreign country, under circumstances that would, but for the person's prior marriage, constitute a marriage; or

(B) lives with that person in this state under the appearance of being married.

(b) For purposes of this section, "under the appearance of being married" means holding out that the parties are married with cohabitation and an intent to be married by either party.

All of this is irrespective of licensure.

 

#2 is actually a big one since polygamists in other cultures tend to collect wives like cars and get new ones like new toys and sister wives have to fight for their man's attention. There are of course exceptions but there is a very clear chauvinistic trend we see in all cultures with polygamy like radical mormons, Islam, and Africa. Sister wives in these cultures are not treated the same as men and we should never adopt this kind of society.

We have to ask, what is the motivation for a man to try to get extra wives and what would be a woman's motivation for being in a polygamist marriage. The man's motivation is more women to have sex with, and the woman's is probably just financial. These are just not healthy marriages. In addition to the chauvinistic elements of polygamy mentioned above they don't create healthy marriages as these often turn into wives fighting with each other to be the favorite or their children to be favorites. Humans are by nature jealous in relationships and that just doesn't create good marriages.

Lastly, widespread polygamy creates a gender imbalance with a bunch of young unmarried men who can't find wives and start causing trouble. In African societies they are kicked out and have to fend on their own while the extra women have to fight for their husband's attention. Polygamy is just a dysfunctional way of doing things.

One counter-argument is that why not let people just choose their marriages for themselves. And I personally am fine with people having polygamous relationships in their private lives but that doesn't mean the state and taxpayers must sponsor it with rights and tax breaks and with mandatory official recognition. We shouldn't be rewarding failed old societal structures like polygamy with official recognition and encouraging them.

Lastly, do you believe in polygamy? Why or why not? Do these reasons hold up logically?

 

Marriage is now free for everyone.
Polygamy is illegal to everyone.

There's no need to legalize it when no one group is permitted it.

 

Polygamy is illegal because it completely infringes of the rights of the woman, who is brainwashed from birth that she has no rights. Since no brainwashed person is of sound mind to enter into a legal contract, polygamy is illegal.

Next

 

Show me the law. Sounds unconstitutional.

 

I promote pulling out of institutionalized marriage altogether. Be wed to whomever and leave the govt out of your love life.

 

Well I don't claim to be up on all the laws. However, that law, like the Utah one, would find itself quickly struck down as unconstitutional should they try to apply it to a unit not attempting to get a license. So here's the big question. 4 individuals who purport to be married yet no legal license month them. Since the whole law starts with, "is legally married". Additionally there is that section of "...are married...and an intent to be married..." with wording like that is certainly sounds like they are looking for legal marriages as the basis. But I am across the country so I am not sure how they would think over there.

 

See above. Of course you responded before you came across the post with the law.

 

Speaking of brainwashed......

First off, polygamy has no indication of what gender combinations are within the marriage unit. You are confusing polygamy with polygyny. Polyandry, BTW, is one wife and multiple husbands, and occurs in the US today (not as a legal entity), much as polygyny and polygamy does, and outside of the FLDS. As I have noted before I am in a polygamist marriage with a husband and two wives. Just to make that clear, there are two of each gender. So the question is are both us husbands brainwashed also? Additionally, neither of the women were raised among those who practiced polygamy, and for that matter preached against it. So they certainly were not "brainwashed" since birth. Our wives certainly know they have rights and we, as a unit, make sure that others that are looking at poly, know what right people have and how much work they need to be doing on all sides. Pretty much all you think you know about poly, you are interpreting from a single sub group that is using religious cult values that would be having women as property with no rights even if they preached monogamy. In other words, you are actually ignorant. Luckily, that simply means lack of knowledge, which is correctable.

 

It is a trend where strictly polygyny is preacticed as opposed to polygamy. And while all polygyny is polygamy not all polygamy is polygyny. Additionally, the implication of the term "sisters wives" is one of the wives are not married to each other. And while in some unit that might be true, in many others the women, or the men as the case may be, are very much married to each other as well.

Those potential motivations can exist within a monogamous marriage as well, with the male's being slightly reworded to be guaranteed sex, as opposed to more sex. And while I might be able to accept those motivations within the overall of strictly polygyny groupings, it is certainly not the case for the poly community at large.

I will correct you to polygyny again, just to reinforce the difference. Jealousy is an issue even among the monogamous. Women, or men, can easily be made jealous just by their spouse looking at a member of the preferred gender. And I worded it that way because gay couples, male or female, are not immune to this jealousy either. In other words, it has nothing to do with the type of marriage, but with the individuals involved.

Ah yes the gender imbalance argument. An imbalance that is already in place with the gays and the asexuals. If two women are gay that is two less women for the men to have. Or even if they are bisexual, and get married, it is still two less for men, if you want to try the gays are unavailable anyway argument. And then there are the asexuals or even people who simply don't want to marry at all, a growing trend. On the one hand they are now unavailable, but also, any possible spouse they might have had is now available. So if a woman is taking more than one husband (polyandry), is that being unfair to other women? Especially if polygyny is also occurring? And what about the polygamist marriages, such as mine, which has both multiple husbands as well as multiple wives? Finally, you can have an imbalance of genders to begin with in a strictly monogamous setting, leaving extra males, as per your argument. Look at the problem China is having where there are more men than women.

It can easily be argued that marriage itself is a failed old societal structure, given how much divorce and cheating occur in today's monogamous relationships. And why should any relationship be sponsored by the state? I do agree that we should not be encouraging the abusive relationships that we see within the FLDS and certain Islamic sects, but that is not a result of the polygyny directly, but of the teaching/upbringing. There have been plenty of monogamous marriages where abusive practices and treating women as property have occurred. The poly community at large does not support these abusive practices.

Believe in how? As a viable relationship structure? Yes, being in a polygamist marriage myself, and knowing those who have been in one for decades longer than us. Naturally, poly marriages can fail just as much as monogamous one. Do I believe it should be legal? Yes, eventually. Right now there would be a massive law revision needed to allow polygamy legally. It is actually way easier to make incest marriage legal than polygamy, since the law is already structured to a two person legal marriage. As to how they hold up logically, that will depend upon what premise one starts from. You are starting from a premise that most polygamist are like the polygynists of the FLDS and the others mentions, where as I am starting from a premise of most polygamist marriage being like my own and the many other that I know and know of. We can both draw logical conclusions that are in opposition of each other.

 

Oh, I don't disagree with you at all. And it's kind of funny that you can be married and sleep around, and this is dishonest but not criminalized, whereas openly marrying two people is criminal (in Texas) even if you don't have sex with either one, LOL!

Anyway, no D.A. in Texas would try to enforce that law unless there were someone really raising hell (like one of the wives who didn't know), or it involved minors, or there was someone calling media attention to it. It's just not very interesting.

Here is an exception, but again, minors were involved so he brought attention to himself. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/30/nation/la-na-nn-texas-bigamist-sentenced-20120330

 

See post #564.

Oh, there are always constitutional arguments for or against such things, but the U.S. S.Ct. -- just this year -- let stand a polygamy conviction that had been affirmed by the Utah Supreme court. I can't see where a single one of the justices indicated an interest in hearing the case