1. If the guy wanted to, he had have lots of children either way. He can simply not legally marry them or in Utah live together or ‘purport’ to marry them. He can have various separate marriages. Justice Scalia has nine children. So, it’s possible to have lots of children with one wife. And, we are taking a small group of people among 300M. How weak does the gene pool get if even 100K (a fraction of a percent) live a polygamous life?

2. “Everyone” wouldn’t do it. This is underlined by the nations where it was allowed (down to ancient Israel — Jacob with Leah and Rachel etc.) where only a small number do it, in part since only a few are able or willing to. Either way, again, certain guys have more than one girl or are best able to get the elite mate (& vice versa) now.

3. They don’t have to be married legally to have the children. If they are married, it brings forth more moral obligation for each side to care for the family. And, often the women do work — in “Love Times Three,” we are told that on average two wives worked while one staid home. As to food stamps, that amounts to a trivial amount of money as compared to various other things we allow that results in government payments in various respects.

4. That doesn’t actually happen. We know this again since countries do allow polygamy & it doesn’t happen.

Religious freedom does make it reasonable to put the government to a higher test. Religion doesn’t override all law, but it does make it reasonable to make the interest stronger. For instance, blue laws that deprive Jews of two days of work are seen as unfair to most people, or not forcing someone to work on their Sabbath. But, in extreme cases, like in emergencies, they might have to. Are such religious exemptions “crazy” or force allowing stealing?

And, incidentally, older religions also support polygamy. Not that there is some age test here and there are more recent religions than one almost two hundred years old.

1. the gene pool is weakened by not enough random variability (he has more than 5-times the average number of children)
2. if everyone did it there simply is not enough females (even if it was only two females per male, that would not leave enough as there ratio of male to female per 100 is male 48 female 52 birthrate) so it is extremely greedy (a sin)

Furthermore:
3. the families are more likely to rely on government welfare (food-stamps) as the women don’t generally work and the man’s income is not large enough to satisfy the family’s requirements
4. Immigration to another country could theoretically mean a whole country of women could be married to one man and move with all his wives to another country that recognizes polygamous marriages.

Their claims of this being their religion and so it is allowable (that incidentally was created in more recent times – Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints – than the long-standing religions such as Catholic or Islam) is not acceptable when the law overrides it. I could start a religion today that requires me to steal a car everyday of the year. If I was arrested could I claim religious persecution? No, why? – because it’s crazy.

The argument that polygamy should be illegal to ensure that there are enough partners to go around is completely rediculous. Since when are citizens responsible for making sure that all others have enough people of their own? There are plenty of men who are searching for male partners and have no problem with the fact that another man has four wives. There are plenty of men who are not searching for any partner whatsoever, and are and shall be perfectly content as single men for the rest of their lives. The same goes for women.

It is proposterous to automatically assume that all women in plural marriages are being sexually abused. This vicious stereotype is offensive and indubitably false. Government and law are no place for generalities with their roots in fear, intolerance, and closed-mindedness. Considering most of these men are legally married to only one of their wives, in compliance with the laws, why are these men threatened with punishment, even imprisonment?

But I am confident that these prejudiced restrictions will be overturned. It is high time all humans are granted the human rights they deserve. We did it with the abolishment of racist segregation. We did it with women’s rights. This is the era of many revolutions, and they’re not stopping any time soon. Same-sex marriage is now legal in seven of these “united” states. We’ll keep going until all are treated equally.

Simply because some people find certain relationships immoral is no reason to restrict the relationships of others. It is not up to others to determine whether another’s relationship is morally acceptable.

Polygamists in Bountiful Canada can argue Charter protected rights re: discrimination based upon their sex and also marital status. Since one province (below) already “recognizes and sanctions” multiple marital relationships and obligations at the same time, but only if civilly married persons cohabitate as spouses with other(s) in common law marriage, then it is discrimination to not allow married persons to be also recognized as civilly or religiously married to more than one person at a time.

“In Saskatchewan it is possible to enter into a spousal relationship without that relationship being solemnized under The Marriage Act, 1995. The Family Property Act provides framework to deal with situations where spousal relationships overlap in time. This most commonly occurs when two people married under The Marriage Act, 1997 separate without going through the formal divorce procedures for a number of years. The separated spouses may enter into new common law spousal relationships prior to the finalization of the divorce of the previous marriage” (Don Morgan, Saskatchewan Justice Minister and Attorney General)

It must surely be discrimination to allow undivorced persons to enter into new “common law marriage” relationship(s) but not Bountiful residents? Since divorce is no longer a requirement to become eligible to have another legal spouse, why prosecute only Bountiful residents? Is it because of their religion? Why can’t a “bishop” sanction multiple spouses too?
This is Canadian polygamy:
Every one who:
(ii) any kind of conjugal union with more than one person at the same time, whether or not it is by law recognized as a binding form of marriage, or

(b) celebrates, assists or is a party to a rite, ceremony, contract or consent that purports to sanction a relationship mentioned in subparagraph (i) or (ii), is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.

For the record, I am excluding men who marry underage girls, or lie to the various women in their lives, or who defraud or lie to the government or companies. There are couples who have open marriages — theoretically, that isn’t really all that different from plural marriage.

“Polygamy is legal and widely practiced in many countries in Africa and the Middle East and Islamic law . . . “

The US has seen a huge move towards de facto polygamy with a growing population of men that are never married-and a few men that have multiple marriages with children in each one.

Societies that have concentration of wealth can become unstable overtime. I would suggest the same thing happens if polygamy becomes too widespread. Men that have children have a stake in the future-and something to live for. If too many men don’t have children, that creates a fertile ground for movements that might opt to restructure society.

It’s extremely difficult for anyone to even imagine the emotional, psychological, physical pain and suffering the first wives experience and endure, resulting from living polygamy. I know the agony it causes firsthand, as I live polygamy today in America.

It’s painful for a woman to know her husband is routinely, on a schedule, having sex with another woman, giving her his money and declaring his love for her-especially when she has grown up in a monogamous society in America where she been taught that there is a “Prince Charming” out there somewhere for her.

Many women are traumatized by the practice of polygamy. It causes irreparable damage. It changes a woman forever. It scars her.

The more I think about it, the more I believe many men enter polygamous relationships to dominate and control women-perhaps to even hurt them intentionally.

as you may know, my co-authors and I call for decriminalization of bigamy laws (ie., laws prohibiting polygamy) in our recent article, Punishing Family Status, available at:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1120877

That discussion also appears in the forthcoming book I’ve linked to as well. We’d love your thoughts!

I do not understand polyamory as equivalent to polygamy. While some might use it to describe “group marriage,” it has a more generic meaning for “open relationship” or “loving many.” Many polyamorous people will consider themselves only married to one person.

Polygyny means specifically multiple wives.

Polyadry means specifically multiple husbands.

BTW, let us never forget that Biblical marriage means one husband, one or more wives, zero or more concubines, zero or more sex slaves which can be male or female and with little restriction as to age. We probably don’t want that!

But if everyone is of age, understands what they are doing and is fully willing I say live and let live. However I remember the Muslim man who, when asked about multiple wives, explained the Islamic rules and then, when asked if he planned to add a second wife, responded, “Heck no. My wife would kill me!”

The renowned Pakistani Islamic scholar Fazlur Rahman “argued that polygamy, like slavery, was an entrenched practice when Islam arrived, and could not have been immediately eradicated. However, according to him, the ultimate intent of the divine revelation [as a minority of scholars today also argue] was to abolish these institutions and polygamy should therefore be prohibited today.” The Egyptian modernist reformer Mudhammad ‘Abduh similarly argued that while polygamy may have had an earlier historically derived rationale, in modern Egypt at least, its practice led to discord and violence within the family. He thus argued, “in keeping with longstanding legal principle, that something otherwise [technically] lawful could be forbidden if it led to social ills; this was the case for polygamy.” Perhaps needless to say, contemporary Muslim feminists focus on the limited and exceptional nature of Quranic polygamy and highlight the sacred text’s invocation of monogamous exemplars.