General Discussion
Showing Original Post only (View all)The gay marriage decision has put us in uncharted waters with regard to polygamy [View all]
Legally, I don't see anything to prevent it. If marriage is a civil right, any government infringement on that right (outside of the basic notion of consent) is discriminatory. Limitations on race are long gone; limitations on gender have just gone by the board as well; limitations on number of spouses seems to be next.
Marriage was its most powerful when its purpose was for societal--not personal--fulfillment. The original purpose of marriage was to provide a place for the offspring of a sexual union to be protected, nurtured, and connected to its family and culture. It was also to secure property rights, and, in the aristocracy, rights of succession to titled positions. Marriage created social and material stability. The personal fulfillment of the spouses involved was secondary, if it was considered at all. This is why divorce was often illegal, forbidden or, at very least, frowned upon.
Marriage was not always happy for its participants--especially women--but all was done for the good of the children, the survival of the offspring.
Now, marriage is about personal fulfillment, a love relationship. This change was long in coming--it can be traced to the 19th century (and even the Enlightenment)--but the focus has steadily shifted to happiness of the marital relationship. It is this shift that also accompanied a change in legal thinking of marriage as a civil right (and not a social obligation).
Once marriage becomes about individual happiness both culturally and legally, laws can and do change since the legal theories have changed.
--If marriage is about the happiness of the people getting married, then divorce laws must be liberalized. People must be allowed to leave a marriage for both grave and trivial reasons, regardless of its effects on the children.
--If the happiness of the relationship is the focus, then the marriage becomes about the relationship itself, and there is no need to have children, since one can have a successful and happy relationship without them. Contraception has made the child-free marriage a reality.
--If marriage is about the happiness of the people involved (and not about the naturally occurring offspring and their rights and protections), then limiting marriage to heterosexuals only seems terribly cruel. If marriage is a civil right, then such a limitation is also discriminatory.
--If marriage is about the happiness of the people involved, limiting marriage to only two people also seems cruel if you have three people in love with each other. Why should they not have the protections of legal marriage that two-person marriages have?
I am of the opinion that the train has long ago left the station. No advocacy group is to blame: feminists were right that women got abused in marriages and lost autonomy (and property rights historically); gays were right that it was cruel to leave them out and deny them legal sanction for their relationships. The polygamists can also argue along the same lines and there's nothing, legally, that will stand up to it if the right arguments are made. Polygamists can argue that their civil rights to marry are being violated by restricting the number of spouses.
In the end, we are witnessing the end of marriage as a social institution with its focus on social stability. Marriage is now a legal way to protect individuals who have chosen, for reasons of love and companionship, to combine their lives and incomes, with or without children. Polygamists certainly fit this definition.