Polygamy, Too

[Articulate_Ape]

I would submit that, given the fact that one out of every two marriages now ends in divorce and many divorcees remarry, even repeatedly (see Hollywood), that polygamy is widely practiced here already. It is simply done in a consecutive manner rather than a concurrent manner. It makes people feel better about themselves to separate the two approaches I guess.

[JB]

It's just my opinion, but why the hell not? It's a victimless crime. Marriage has already been ruined by pop and celebrity culture, so I don't see the harm in polygamy.

But then again, that's just me

Did you read the article? Allow me to quote:

...these polygamous men are eligible to receive extra welfare benefits...and a Scottish court once permitted a Muslim who had been cited for speeding to retain his driver’s license because he had to commute between his wives.

I am the victim.

[Odysseus]

America has gone several rounds with polygamy before Mohammedans (quaint, isn't it?) ever were taken into account. Gay marriage did not open up the door to polygamy, polygamy is traditional marriage in Asia and Africa, you can't get much more traditional than polygamy. The reason that polygamy is forbidden in European countries (including the US) has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity or the other Asian religions. Roman law only permitted one wife. Of course, Roman aristocrats kept concubines and recognized the children of those relationships, as did European nobility for centuries thereafter. This is further proof that marriage laws are about property and inheritance, not gods.

Polygamy is traditional marriage in non-western cultures. It hasn't been traditional in western cultures since the rise of Christianity. And today, gay marriage is opening the door to polygamy.

AS much as I welcome your thoughtful position on gay marriage, I have to disagree with you on plural marriage. Child brides are not the essence of plural marriage, they are a cultural artifact which the law already addresses. Plural marriage, in and of itself is harmless. It would be better if we had law which define it in terms of property and position. Obviously where there are four wives only one can make medical decisions in the absence of a directive. I'd say that honor goes to the first wife.

Plural marriage is not harmless. As I said a while back when arguing this with the late, unlamented Wilbur:

First, marriage is a zero-sum game. If one man can marry one woman, and the ratio of men to women is roughly equal, then there's no problem. If, OTOH, one man can marry multiple women, then other men cannot marry at all. Surplus single males with no prospects for family are socially disruptive. Many of the suicide bombers and radicals in the Islamic world are educated young men from affluent backgrounds who tend to be second or third sons, and whose marriage prospects are therefore not a priority for their families. Remember that in polygamous cultures, the proof that a man can support a wife is the "bride price" which his family pays to hers. That leads to the next issue.

Second, polygamy is exploitive of women, who become a commodity. In every polygamous culture, the status of women is lower than that of men. And far more men will seek multiple wives than women will seek multiple husbands. Affluent men will prove that they can support a wife by paying her family, while men of fewer means will not be able to do so. Thus, financial incentives will drive families to guard their daughters and keep them under close watch (virginity becomes a critical factor in polygamous cultures).

Third, marital property becomes hopelessly convoluted in polygamous marriages. If a man with multiple wives divorces one of them, how much of the marital property is hers, as opposed to the other wives'? Inheritance becomes equally convoluted, with estates getting divided among far more children, with eventual dissolution of large holdings. There's a reason that polygamous cultures tend towards poverty.

Fourth, polygamy provides and unstable home environment for raising children. Wives in polygamous relationships cannot count on the stability of their marriages and tend to see their future security through their children, rather than through their own or their husband's efforts. This leads to constant intrigue. Multiple women, competing for their children's status within the household, create a culture of conflict and mistrust which is common in tribal cultures. Harems are notorious for their political machinations. This creates a culture of conspiracy and manipulation, rather than a culture of trust.

Polygamy devalues women, makes relationships less stable and undermines the home environment.

Females outnumber males.

Not by a 4:1 ratio, they don't. Most cultures have a slightly uneven birth rate, roughly 1:1.02, male to female. In order to satisfy a polygamous culture, the birth rate would have to be an order of magnitude greater.

Males are much more likely to die young in accidents, crime, and war.

Not enough to make polygamy viable. Men would have to be dying like flies in order to fill the ratios.

More males are gay than females are gay.

2.5% vs. 1.25% isn't enough to make a difference.

Most societies which permit polygamy have rules about the ability to support said wives.

Yes, but they also result in greater poverty. Four wives living off of the earnings of one husband end up living fairly poorly.

In the US where polygamy is practiced against the law, we have polygamists with wives and children on welfare.

This is not an argument for polygamy. It's an argument against welfare.

Not everybody wants four wives.

Doesn't matter. Even if you allow two wives, it's still a zero-sum game. If I marry two hot babes (I can dream), then somebody else doesn't get to marry any. If I marry three, then two other guys don't get to marry anyone, and if I marry four, then three other guys will end up without prospects. If Hugh Hefner shacks up with seven Playmates, six guys are going without. Even with the minuscule variations in male to female ratios that result from your floundering citations above, the numbers don't add up to enough women to go around. Two girls for every guy may have been the ratio in Surf City, but nowhere else on Earth will you find it.

[Articulate_Ape]

Have any divorced and remarried friends, Ody? I'm not saying it's all good, but I'm saying that western culture simply adopted a different version of polygamy a long, long time ago. I know you know that.

[Zeus]

I would submit that, given the fact that one out of every two marriages now ends in divorce and many divorcees remarry, even repeatedly (see Hollywood), that polygamy is widely practiced here already. It is simply done in a consecutive manner rather than a concurrent manner. It makes people feel better about themselves to separate the two approaches I guess.

That's a misnomer

Divorce Rate: It's Not as High as You Think
By DAN HURLEY
The New York Times
April 19, 2005

How many American marriages end in divorce? One in two, if you believe the
statistic endlessly repeated in news media reports, academic papers and
campaign speeches.

The figure is based on a simple - and flawed - calculation: the annual
marriage rate per 1,000 people compared with the annual divorce rate. In
2003, for example, the most recent year for which data is available, there
were 7.5 marriages per 1,000 people and 3.8 divorces, according to the
National Center for Health Statistics.

But researchers say that this is misleading because the people who are
divorcing in any given year are not the same as those who are marrying, and
that the statistic is virtually useless in understanding divorce rates. In
fact, they say, studies find that the divorce rate in the United States has
never reached one in every two marriages, and new research suggests that,
with rates now declining, it probably never will.

The method preferred by social scientists in determining the divorce rate is
to calculate how many people who have ever married subsequently divorced.
Counted that way, the rate has never exceeded about 41 percent, researchers
say. Although sharply rising rates in the 1970's led some to project that
the number would keep increasing, the rate has instead begun to inch
downward.

"At this point, unless there's some kind of turnaround, I wouldn't expect
any cohort to reach 50 percent, since none already has," said Dr. Rose M.
Kreider, a demographer in the Fertility and Family Statistics Branch of the
Census Bureau.

Two years ago, based on a 1996 survey, she and another demographer at the
bureau predicted that if trends then in place held steady, the divorce rate
for some age groups might eventually hit the 50 percent mark. But in
February, the bureau issued a new report, based on 2001 data and written by
Dr. Kreider.

According to the report, for people born in 1955 or later, "the proportion
ever divorced had actually declined," compared with those among people born
earlier. And, compared with women married before 1975, those married since
1975 had slightly better odds of reaching their 10th and 15th wedding
anniversaries with their marriages still intact.

[Zeus]

The highest rate of divorce in the 2001 survey was 41 percent for men who
were then between the ages of 50 to 59, and 39 percent for women in the same
age group.

Researchers say that the small drop in the overall divorce rate is caused by
a steep decline in the rate among college graduates. As a result, a "divorce
divide" has opened up between those with and without college degrees, said
Dr. Steven P. Martin, an assistant professor of sociology at the University
of Maryland.

"Families with highly educated mothers and families with less educated
mothers are clearly moving in opposite directions," Dr. Martin wrote in a
paper that has not yet been published but has been presented and widely
discussed at scientific meetings.

As the overall divorce rates shot up from the early 1960's through the late
1970's, Dr. Martin found, the divorce rate for women with college degrees
and those without moved in lockstep, with graduates consistently having
about one-third to one-fourth the divorce rate of nongraduates.

But since 1980, the two groups have taken diverging paths. Women without
undergraduate degrees have remained at about the same rate, their risk of
divorce or separation within the first 10 years of marriage hovering at
around 35 percent. But for college graduates, the divorce rate in the first
10 years of marriage has plummeted to just over 16 percent of those married
between 1990 and 1994 from 27 percent of those married between 1975 and
1979.

About 60 percent of all marriages that eventually end in divorce do so
within the first 10 years, researchers say. If that continues to hold true,
the divorce rate for college graduates who married between 1990 and 1994
would end up at only about 25 percent, compared to well over 50 percent for
those without a four-year college degree.

"It's a big wow sort of story," Dr. Martin said. "I've been looking for two
years at other data sets to see if it's wrong, but it really looks like it's
happening."

Still, some researchers remain skeptical about the significance of the small
drop in overall divorce rates.

"The crude divorce rate has been going down," said Dr. Andrew J. Cherlin,
professor of public policy in the sociology department at Johns Hopkins.
"But whether the rates will ultimately reach 45 percent or 50 percent over
the next few decades are just projections. None of them are ironclad."

Dr. Larry Bumpass, an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of
Wisconsin's Center for Demography and Ecology, has long held that divorce
rates will eventually reach or exceed 50 percent. In an interview, he said
that it was "probably right" that the official divorce statistics might fall
below 50 percent, but that the rate would still be close.

"About half is still a very sensible statement," he said.

What all experts do agree on is that, after more than a century of rising
divorce rates in the United States, the rates abruptly stopped going up
around 1980.

Part of the uncertainty about the most recent trends derives from the fact
that no detailed annual figures have been available since 1996, when the
National Center for Health Statistics stopped collecting detailed data from
states on the age, income, education and race of people who divorced.

As a result, estimates from surveys have had to fill in the gaps.

"The government has dropped the ball on data collection," said Dr. David
Popenoe, professor of sociology and co-director of the National Marriage
Project at Rutgers University.

Joshua R. Goldstein, associate professor of sociology and public affairs at
Princeton's Office of Population Research, said the loss of detailed
government data, coming at a time when divorce rates were at their highest,
might have distorted not only public perception, but people's behavior.

"Expectations of high divorce are in some ways self-fulfilling," he said.
"That's a partial explanation for why rates went up in the 1970's."

As word gets out that rates have tempered or actually begun to fall, Dr.
Goldstein added, "It could lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy in the other
direction."

.

[m00]

It's just my opinion, but why the hell not? It's a victimless crime. Marriage has already been ruined by pop and celebrity culture, so I don't see the harm in polygamy.

But then again, that's just me

I was actually thinking the same thing.

[Articulate_Ape]

That's a misnomer it's like 1 in 8

With all due respect, Zeus, it is a statistical fact, that your can find here, even adjusted for future projections. What I stated is also not a misnomer, even if it was incorrect. It would have been a perhaps a misconception on my part if the known data didn't support my position.

It happens, Zeus. A lot. Trust me.

PS> I can't read your last post. The font is black against dark gray.

[Zeus]

With all due respect, Zeus, it is a statistical fact, that your can find here, even adjusted for future projections. What I stated is also not a misnomer, even if it was incorrect. It would have been a perhaps a misconception on my part if the known data didn't support my position.

It happens, Zeus. A lot. Trust me.

PS> I can't read your last post. The font is black against dark gray.

You Caught me between edits. Check the article I posted. Then tell me why I should trust you over it ?

[Articulate_Ape]

You Caught me between edits. Check the article I posted. Then tell me why I should trust you over it ?

Still black on dark gray to me, but I highlighted it and it looks like an outdated article, but I don't know because you linked to no citation. I'm not asking you to trust me. Why would you? I did, however, at least cite the statistical claims I was making. It's up to you whether you believe them or not. Not my problem.