Polygamy

What are your thoughts on polygamy? By polygamy, I mean one man having multiple wives. Is it wrong? Does it have advantages?
In my opinion, polygamy is fine and can be allowed. Does it really matter if a man has three rather than one wife? Share your thoughts, please.

In most cases, I believe polygamy devalues the love of marriage.

I personally am of the belief that I will marry because of love. I find it hard to believe that a man can love more than one woman, equally.

He will pick and favour, his favourites. This means the marriage will be less based on love as it may be for other reasons.

But thats just my opinion. I see nothing inherently wrong with polygamy.

Actually, human beings in the past were never exclusive with one another. Most relationships were polygamist ones. Over the years, things changed, and values changed. People would want one person all to themselves and that's how the idea of monogamy got started. What we really do though, is serial monogamy: we have many partners throughout life but only go through them one at a time. Humans weren't meant to be with one person for ever and ever. They date multiple people over their life time. They choose to marry one.

I think that monogamous marriage isn't for everyone, and that if you want to date multiple people fine, but you shouldn't marry all of them. As long as all of your partners know about it and are okay with it, I don't see the problem. Marriage is generally between two people. While in some cases, polygamist marriages can actually be more successful than monogamous ones, it all depends on the people involved. You should only marry someone if you're truly serious about them, and it's really hard for someone to be truly serious about multiple people at once. One is always liked more than the other and favorites are picked.

To each his own, I suppose.

As long as a wife can have multiple husbands as well, or if multiple husbands can have multiple wives in some big, weird family, I don't see much of a problem with it.

However, I don't see why a lasting relationship such as "marriage" should be some sort of "official" legal or religious affair in the first place. As long as all of the people in the relationship consent to it, they should be able to do as they please.

I don't believe that a husband and a wife who truly have the deepest of relationships could comfortably extend those interactions to others. (This ties in well with my ideas on chastity, fidelity, and privacy within a marriage partnership).

Originally Posted by Big Bro Davidia

I don't believe that a husband and a wife who truly have the deepest of relationships could comfortably extend those interactions to others. (This ties in well with my ideas on chastity, fidelity, and privacy within a marriage partnership).

I tend to agree with this. It might be a bit of a cliche to talk of "true love" and the like, but I think that if you do wind up with the right person, thoughts of others should rarely if ever enter into your mind. I get the impression that most people who have multiple partners at once and/or commit infidelity do so because they aren't being fully satisfied by their relationship.

Originally Posted by sea

I tend to agree with this. It might be a bit of a cliche to talk of "true love" and the like, but I think that if you do wind up with the right person, thoughts of others should rarely if ever enter into your mind. I get the impression that most people who have multiple partners at once and/or commit infidelity do so because they aren't being fully satisfied by their relationship.

But why should it be limited to just one other person? That just seems like far too conservative/old-fashioned of a view to hold of "love."

I see no reason why someone couldn't perfectly "love" two other individuals equally; being willing to sacrifice his or her own life to save them or other romantic stuff.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing something the old-fashioned way - the fact that people do it means it's not old fashioned at all.

Originally Posted by Avalanchemike

There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing something the old-fashioned way - the fact that people do it means it's not old fashioned at all.

Well, true; I'm not arguing that holding an old-fashioned "man and woman" relationship is wrong, but rather, I'm arguing that it is wrong to feel that it is always the best way to do it (Even though I'd assume, if I ever did become involved in a relationship, that doing it the usual way would probably be best for me). It's just that it isn't the only way to do it, and it isn't always the correct way to do it.

It all depends on what the individual desires.

Well it might not be the best way, but I wouldn't say it's broke. And if it ain't broke ...

I'm not saying I don't understand what you're saying and I especially support the idea that women should be held equally in the regard that they may want multiple husbands if we were going to be instating (or perhaps I should be saying legalizing?) polygamy. But the idea of multiple wives having multiple husbands I can see causing a lot of problems, particularly in the law section. The bureaucratic messes ... *shudder*

They're bad now. Think about how bad they'd be with half an excuse.

Originally Posted by Avalanchemike

Well it might not be the best way, but I wouldn't say it's broke. And if it ain't broke ...

I'm not saying I don't understand what you're saying and I especially support the idea that women should be held equally in the regard that they may want multiple husbands if we were going to be instating (or perhaps I should be saying legalizing?) polygamy. But the idea of multiple wives having multiple husbands I can see causing a lot of problems, particularly in the law section. The bureaucratic messes ... *shudder*

They're bad now. Think about how bad they'd be with half an excuse.

That's why I sorta think the "free love" philosophy of marriage becoming a thing of the past is the best bet. I don't see much of a reason for the government to recognize a partnership of any kind.

Well, for the reasons of inheritances, healthcare, pensions and in the States the big thing would be, presumably, insurance. When you're married to someone if you die, you can know with a degree of certainty they can be provided for in some way. A common-law relationship doesn't provide that, at least not the extent of my knowledge.

I'd support legalized polygamy and polyandry. There are plenty of couples out there now who have "open" relationships who are polygamysts/polyandrysts in all but name.

Polygamy and Polyandry are not innately harmful, and so I see no reason to not legalize them.

Originally Posted by Andross

But why should it be limited to just one other person? That just seems like far too conservative/old-fashioned of a view to hold of "love."

I see no reason why someone couldn't perfectly "love" two other individuals equally; being willing to sacrifice his or her own life to save them or other romantic stuff.

Get into a relationship and you'll find out the value of sharing TIME equally, as well. 50% is a far cry from 100%. And the square-root of 2 over 2 is still only 87% at best ;0)

Originally Posted by Big Bro Davidia

Get into a relationship and you'll find out the value of sharing TIME equally, as well. 50% is a far cry from 100%. And the square-root of 2 over 2 is still only 87% at best ;0)

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The same can apply to child-rearing - the parents shouldn't ever have any more than one child, because their resources will be spread too thinly, which will diminish the quality of parent-child relationships.

Do you think it's possible to love and support multiple children?

EDIT:

Personally, I generally don't approve of polygamous relationships, although it has nothing to do with being only capable of loving one person at a time, the rhetoric that surrounds 'the one' or any other such romantic nonsense.

When you compare marital satisfaction on multiple versus single-wife arrangements - which are far more common than the reverse, in both reality and the literature - the well-being and happiness of the women involved typically favours the latter.

Obviously there are other factors to consider. Even though most research is conducted within rather than between cultures, multiple-wives is a phenomenon that we usually see in countries where women possess less clout than their husbands.

In a big-brain species, passing the watermelons that sit on top of babies' necks is a pretty tiring affair. Whereas a cat can squeeze out a litter like it was nothing, child birth posses significantly more challenges to female humans than it does to many other species. Long periods of pregnancy, the intrinsic dangers of childbirth and the recovery process are obvious, although then there's the task of nurturing your little learning machine for the next few years.

Monogamy provides more rewards to women, and children, than it does to men so the presence of other women within a marriage might account for the increased rates of somatic and adjustment symptoms that these wives present. Especially when there are so many wives that a hierarchy emerges, and divisions between 'senior' and 'junior' wives emerge.

It would be interesting to see if the same effects are present in polygamous relationships occurring in cultures where men and women are on equal footing, although I don't think that such a culture exists, and there will probably be inevitable imbalances depending on which gender is most prominent.

In the very least, I think these marriages are only satisfying for a minority of the participants.

I think I'm okay with polygamy...as long as polyandry is also allowed.

I don't get polyandry's advantages, but, it should be allowed, too.

Originally Posted by AzraelBlack

In most cases, I believe polygamy devalues the love of marriage.

I personally am of the belief that I will marry because of love. I find it hard to believe that a man can love more than one woman, equally.

He will pick and favour, his favourites. This means the marriage will be less based on love as it may be for other reasons.

But thats just my opinion. I see nothing inherently wrong with polygamy.

Yes, that's my view. I don't know if Polygamy is evil, I just think it's not a very good situation.

Originally Posted by Valhelm

I don't get polyandry's advantages, but, it should be allowed, too.

The same advantages as polygamy. Especially in a biological/darwinism sense.

Originally Posted by AzraelBlack

The same advantages as polygamy. Especially in a biological/darwinism sense.

Not really.

Polygamy allows multiple females to be impregnated at once, increasing the number of offspring carrying the father's genes.

Polyandry does not change the number of pregnancies or offspring in any way and, as such, is pretty rare (possibly non-existent) in nature.