Honestly, I see nothing wrong with polygamy as long as all involved are consenting adults. My only concern would be how freaking complicated that gets legally. I suppose lawyers would figure it all out though eventually.

nekom: Honestly, I see nothing wrong with polygamy as long as all involved are consenting adults.

Requiring sterilization as a precondition for all said adults in the marriage seem the only way to insure the main means non-adults get involved.

abb3w: nekom: Honestly, I see nothing wrong with polygamy as long as all involved are consenting adults.

Requiring sterilization as a precondition for all said adults in the marriage seem the only way to insure the main means non-adults get involved.

This, more or less. The consenting adults often have or eventually produce children that can be affected by their parents choices.

nekom: Honestly, I see nothing wrong with polygamy as long as all involved are consenting adults. My only concern would be how freaking complicated that gets legally. I suppose lawyers would figure it all out though eventually.

done in one.

personally, i don't care what you do sexually or maritally, so long as it is between consenting adults and doesn't contravene other laws (murder, for instance).

FlashHarry: nekom: Honestly, I see nothing wrong with polygamy as long as all involved are consenting adults. My only concern would be how freaking complicated that gets legally. I suppose lawyers would figure it all out though eventually.

done in one.

personally, i don't care what you do sexually or maritally, so long as it is between consenting adults and doesn't contravene other laws (murder, for instance).

A lot of times polygamous families supplement their income through the welfare systems since only one wife is legally married to the husband so the others show up on paper as single moms. What's your take on that?

I don't care what consenting adults do amongst consenting adults.

I do think that if there are legal protections for all parties, then you aren't going to see a lot of wealthy cats going for a lot of brides--equality under the law, and you will see a spike in gals taking a few fellas to the cleaners, and then you are going to see the wealthiest protecting themselves with ironclad pre-nups, and limiting their "exposure" by only taking a bride at a time. Which, to be fair, I think is just fine.

Consenting adults. Equality under the law. The biggest problem with polygamy in the model currently practiced in the US is that not all parties have equal protection under the law. Everyone has equal protection, and I don't care. The complexity of multiple partner contracts isn't that hard, as we already have multiple partner contracts for property law as it is. Consider each marriage a buy in, and call it good. Let folks make their damn mistakes, and protect children, and be done with it.

He concluded that while the law does infringe freedom of religion, the infringement is justified

Meh.

SundaesChild: Requiring sterilization as a precondition for all said adults in the marriage seem the only way to insure the main means non-adults get involved.

This, more or less. The consenting adults often have or eventually produce children that can be affected by their parents choices.

True, that's a concern. But that's where child abuse laws kick in. All I'm saying is that polygamy in and of itself is just fine by me. I'm not really offended by it. Start taking child brides though, well yeah now we've got a problem here.

pornmonger: Canada is pretty awesome, though.

I've only seen parts of Ontario and Quebec, but I'm inclined to agree. If they could just do something about that winter weather there though. I've been to Niagara Falls in February, and keep in mind that's SOUTHERN Canada. Not pleasant.

pornmonger: Canada is pretty awesome, though.

Until Harper turns it into a Republican version of Canada.

jaymanchu: Who the hell wants more than one person biatching at them and blaming them for everything non-stop for the rest of their lives?

THIS (he said after checking to be sure the missus was at yoga class).

Elephantman: Health Care is free in Canada? So, not a single person pays higher taxes to pay for it? Hmmmm....wonder how that works?

Oh that's easy. See they don't have 2 simultaneous large scale military invasions underway. The money that would have gone to killing brown people instead goes to health care. Interesting concept, no?

Nem Wan: Polygamy, at least in the usual patriarchal form, is inherently inequitable. He's everything to you, you're just another to him. In the more equitable sci-fi, BSG/Caprica form, polygamy leads to religious extremism with killer robots.

Well that sort of religious polygamy is the same situation that leads to child brides, which I think we can all agree is absolutely unacceptable. But it doesn't have to be that way. What if a man loves two women, they love each other (maybe? i don't know how that's supposed to work to be honest) and they're perfectly happy? What if a woman wants 3 husbands? I really fail to see any problem with it.

Hell sometimes I think I'd like an extra wife. Chop chop, dig dig.

I'm pro gay marriage (yay Canada) but I justify my opposition to polygamy based on a slippery slope argument. We know that marriage between two people provides them with many social and economic benefits and if we were to allow these benefits to be transferred across multiple partners, at what point does it stop? How many marriages are too many? What's to stop me from marrying all of my friends (besides having to consummate all the unions), or from an entire town from marrying each other to gain access to those types of benefits? How can the government say "Ok, polygamy is ok now...but no more than four people can marry each other, kthx" and not be discriminating against those groups who want to marry six people and so forth?

There's also the fact that most polygamous relationships consist of one man and multiple women which, besides the subservient roles many women play in these marriages, could cause a very disproportionate ratio of single men to single women in the future. But that's assuming polygamy becomes popular over an extended period of time.

Pretty weak arguments, feel free to demolish them, but they're good enough for me to not consider myself a hypocrite on the whole gay marriage/polygamy debate.

CruJones: So i can live with, and have children with multiple women, I just can't marry them.

Ok.

Good luck with that. In my experience, living with two women got sketchy because they fought on occasion - and when they did - things were said that neither of them could get over. No amount of intervention, or mediation on my part could save it.

Lesson from that is to maintain separate domiciles. Everybody seems happier that way. The moral seems to be that cohabitation is a real buzz-kill.... or as it's best said here on Fark, don't stick your dick in crazy.

What's next?

GAY POLYGAMY?!

TheOther: but it's all fun and games until there is a 14-year old 'bride'?

Old enough to bleed? Old enough to breed.

That menstrual period and those perky little mounds are nature's way of telling you that for shiat's sake you had goddamn well better ignore them.

Smidge204: nekom: My only concern would be how freaking complicated that gets legally. I suppose lawyers would figure it all out though eventually.

Perhaps they could form a corporation and divide up their collective assets like you would stock options.

Whatever floats your boat, though, as long as you're properly responsible for it.
=Smidge=

Well sure if they have the presence of mind to enter into a full out contract with everything spelled out, that can be managed. But what's the `default' situation in polygamy? Let's say you marry two women. Are those women married to each other as well? What if you get divorced from one, is she still married to the other? I can foresee a clusterfark in situations like that. That's my only concern.