On Multiples and Additions
Mar. 26th, 2006 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaSo there's this new show on HBO that I can't watch, on account of not having cable, and which I probably wouldn't be interested in even if I could, but which has provoked a few public comments:
FindLaw: The Reality of Polygamy, by Marci Hamilton
Newsweek: After Gay Marriage, Polygamy Activism Rises
I ran into both of these on Friday afternoon (when I wasgoofing off taking a break from rating scholarship applications), and I found the juxtaposition interesting, if jarring.
I find the first article a little bit disturbing, in that, while it is concerned about mistreatment of women and children under what the author carefully notes is "patriarchal polygamy," it seems to assume that all polygamy would of necessity be patriarchal. Yes, you do need a shortage of available men in order to have multiple wives for each husband. Historically, this has usually been managed by having a higher death rate due to war for young men than due to childbed deaths for young women. Our near relatives, the gorillas, manage it by keeping the younger males around, but never letting them get any until the lead male dies or is driven off by these frustrated youths; with rigid hierarchies, this has been known to work in human societies, too. And this typically reduces women to the status of property.
However, I take issue with the unstated assumption that polygamy has to work this way. If unions of one woman and multiple males are also permitted, or unions of multiple men and women both, then there's no inherent reason why anyone has to get left out, at least no more so than in forced monogamy. I suspect that the author, being monogamous herself, naturally assumes that no woman would ever want to be anything other than monogamous. For the polyfidelitous, I suspect legal multiple marriage would be a godsend, for women and men alike. I can also think of practical reasons why having a multiple-marriage arrangement might work quite nicely; for example, a single large household of three working adults and one stay-at-home parent might well be economically workable where two single-earner households would not. And I think the author simply never considers that such options might exist.
Unfortunately, it appears in the second article that the actual polygamists aren't thinking in those directions for the most part, either. I'm sort of amused that some non-Mormon fundamentalists appear to be giving Biblical polygamy a second look, although honestly, I think the New Testament clearly speaks only of single monogamous marriage. But for the most part, these aren't the people I want speaking for the idea; I empathize with the gay activists who are annoyed that these people are hitching up to their wagon.
I also think the argument from Lawrence is a non-starter; it didn't legalize gay marriage, it just decriminalized sodomy. One might be able to argue that it means polygamy should be decriminalized, but it certainly doesn't suggest that the states should recognize it. At the most, it could be used to argue that multiple-partner relationships of all sorts - traditional patriarchal polygamy, polyfidelitous groupings and households, etc. - should not be criminalized or penalized by law, any more than monogamous gay partnerships should be. I seriously doubt that most of the people making the argument really want to see that, though.
Neither article brings up what, for me, is the obvious "other" situation that might lead to a multiple-partner relationship and obviously relates to the gay-rights argument: bisexuality. Now, many - probably most - bisexuals aren't poly and don't need or want multiple partners; they're just open to their one true love being of either gender. But there are a sizable number of bisexuals who really do want at least one relationship of each gender. And a triad of one straight woman and two bi men, or the reverse, isn't inherently patriarchal; it has none of that baggage. (The one man-two women one has the patriarchal cultural baggage of too many bad male-focused porn videos, but we'll ignore that for the moment.) Maybe the idea that's missing in the second article is that, in the kind of union I have in mind, everyone in the marriage is married to everyone else, instead of it being one focal person married to multiple people, who are not considered married to each other? Anyone know if the wives in a Mormon polygamous marriage consider themselves married to each other? Do they get to have sex with each other, if they want, or are they only allowed to to have sex with the husband, or would lesbianism be too frowned upon for them to try it even if they wanted?
Personally, I don't think the government should have any truck with the religious and cultural institutions of marriages; what it needs to know about, for tax purposes, is householdership-in-common. (For the libertarians out there, it doesn't even need to know that.) Whether those people who share a household have had a ceremony that links them in the eyes of their culture or religion, what gender they are, and how many of them there are, isn't any of the government's business. But that idea isn't terribly viable in a cultural atmosphere ruled so strongly by Biblicists. I wonder what would happen if one of the more ornery states (say, Vermont or New Hampshire) decided to do away with "marriages" as a separate category and only did civil unions?
FindLaw: The Reality of Polygamy, by Marci Hamilton
Newsweek: After Gay Marriage, Polygamy Activism Rises
I ran into both of these on Friday afternoon (when I was
I find the first article a little bit disturbing, in that, while it is concerned about mistreatment of women and children under what the author carefully notes is "patriarchal polygamy," it seems to assume that all polygamy would of necessity be patriarchal. Yes, you do need a shortage of available men in order to have multiple wives for each husband. Historically, this has usually been managed by having a higher death rate due to war for young men than due to childbed deaths for young women. Our near relatives, the gorillas, manage it by keeping the younger males around, but never letting them get any until the lead male dies or is driven off by these frustrated youths; with rigid hierarchies, this has been known to work in human societies, too. And this typically reduces women to the status of property.
However, I take issue with the unstated assumption that polygamy has to work this way. If unions of one woman and multiple males are also permitted, or unions of multiple men and women both, then there's no inherent reason why anyone has to get left out, at least no more so than in forced monogamy. I suspect that the author, being monogamous herself, naturally assumes that no woman would ever want to be anything other than monogamous. For the polyfidelitous, I suspect legal multiple marriage would be a godsend, for women and men alike. I can also think of practical reasons why having a multiple-marriage arrangement might work quite nicely; for example, a single large household of three working adults and one stay-at-home parent might well be economically workable where two single-earner households would not. And I think the author simply never considers that such options might exist.
Unfortunately, it appears in the second article that the actual polygamists aren't thinking in those directions for the most part, either. I'm sort of amused that some non-Mormon fundamentalists appear to be giving Biblical polygamy a second look, although honestly, I think the New Testament clearly speaks only of single monogamous marriage. But for the most part, these aren't the people I want speaking for the idea; I empathize with the gay activists who are annoyed that these people are hitching up to their wagon.
I also think the argument from Lawrence is a non-starter; it didn't legalize gay marriage, it just decriminalized sodomy. One might be able to argue that it means polygamy should be decriminalized, but it certainly doesn't suggest that the states should recognize it. At the most, it could be used to argue that multiple-partner relationships of all sorts - traditional patriarchal polygamy, polyfidelitous groupings and households, etc. - should not be criminalized or penalized by law, any more than monogamous gay partnerships should be. I seriously doubt that most of the people making the argument really want to see that, though.
Neither article brings up what, for me, is the obvious "other" situation that might lead to a multiple-partner relationship and obviously relates to the gay-rights argument: bisexuality. Now, many - probably most - bisexuals aren't poly and don't need or want multiple partners; they're just open to their one true love being of either gender. But there are a sizable number of bisexuals who really do want at least one relationship of each gender. And a triad of one straight woman and two bi men, or the reverse, isn't inherently patriarchal; it has none of that baggage. (The one man-two women one has the patriarchal cultural baggage of too many bad male-focused porn videos, but we'll ignore that for the moment.) Maybe the idea that's missing in the second article is that, in the kind of union I have in mind, everyone in the marriage is married to everyone else, instead of it being one focal person married to multiple people, who are not considered married to each other? Anyone know if the wives in a Mormon polygamous marriage consider themselves married to each other? Do they get to have sex with each other, if they want, or are they only allowed to to have sex with the husband, or would lesbianism be too frowned upon for them to try it even if they wanted?
Personally, I don't think the government should have any truck with the religious and cultural institutions of marriages; what it needs to know about, for tax purposes, is householdership-in-common. (For the libertarians out there, it doesn't even need to know that.) Whether those people who share a household have had a ceremony that links them in the eyes of their culture or religion, what gender they are, and how many of them there are, isn't any of the government's business. But that idea isn't terribly viable in a cultural atmosphere ruled so strongly by Biblicists. I wonder what would happen if one of the more ornery states (say, Vermont or New Hampshire) decided to do away with "marriages" as a separate category and only did civil unions?
