Posted on 03/31/2006 9:51:05 AM PST by Halfmanhalfamazing
The powerful in life almost always get more than the weak and that is just the way it is. And should be.
Your first statement is true, but you should've stopped there. Your second statement is normative and is subject to debate. It's up to us to decide how our polity ought to be organized. And we have a right to decide whether we want our laws to promote comity or disharmony.
In the first book of Plato's Republic, Thrasymachus tries to force Socrates and the other listeners to accept the proposition that justice is the advantage of the stronger. Socrates wasn't having any of that and ultimately reduced Thrasymachus to frustrated silence by force of argument. An interesting tableaux.
1. Some wives (the youngest and prettiest?) will have higher status than other wives. They will therefore secure a disproportionate amount of their husband's time and money spent on their children instead of the children of the other wives.
Nice assumption, no proof to this point.
2. Children have a right to a traditional marriage (and not to have non-biological parents brought into the marriage for arbitrary reasons)
Guess I missed this class on human rights? When was "traditional" marriage defined as a "right"?
3. For every additional wife one man has, another man has none. These men with no wives and no prospects tend to stir up trouble. You need a steady way to kill off the surpluss men, like constant warfare, or else face internal turmoil. This has historically been a problem with muslim societies.
So a good reason to keep plural marriages illegal is to prevent tribal warefare? Ummmm, I guess you forgot that we live in the US and warfare against another person is usually and already illegal.
4. As wealthy and powerful men accumulate wives, women increasingly become sexual property.
So now you are going to play the class warefare card? So are you saying a poor husband won't look at a single wife as sexual property? Sorry, not a good reason.
5. As wealthy and powerful men can accumulate more wives than they can satisfy sexually (even though they may breed with all of them). So cheating among these wives is rampant. The husband tends not trust the paternity of his children - they are probably his but he can't be sure. So family lines break up. The husband has more loyalty to his mother and his (half) brothers and sisters, because he can be assured that they have at least half his genes. This is what we see with female farming in Africa
Ummm, again, you are assuming a lot with this point, it's rather a weak premise to begin with. Sorry, please provide a good reason against two constenting adults being prevented from becoming married.
You can debate it all you want but you canot change it.
When the powerful have fewer assets than the non powerful, then the powerful are no longer the powerful, the non powerful now have the power.
The only time there will be equilibrium is when the roles of power are changing.
Therefore, since this is the way of nature, it is the way it is supposed to be.
Do you like apples?
A female freeper here argued the same, claiming inside knowledge since she is descended from Utah's polygamists.
I asked her about the Utah wars of the unmarried and never really got an aswer about that.
Therefore, since this is the way of nature, it is the way it is supposed to be.
Confusing 'is' and 'ought' is a rookie mistake, Eagle Eye. Read Book I of Republic and get back to me.
Best regards...
.....Marriage matters. It is better for the kids; it is better for the adults raising those kids; and it is better for the childless people in the communities where those kids and adults live. Marriage reduces poverty, improves kids outcomes in all measurable ways, makes men live longer and both spouses happier. Marriage, it turns out, is an incredibly important institution. It also turns out to be a lot more fragile than we thought back then. It looked, to those extremely smart and well-meaning welfare reformers, practically unshakeable; the idea that it could be undone by something as simple as enabling women to have children without husbands, seemed ludicrous. Its cultural underpinnings were far too firm. Why would a woman choose such a hard road? It seemed self-evident that the only unwed mothers claiming benefits would be the ones pushed there by terrible circumstance.
Maybe you should actually see life instead of reading about other people's ideas.
Stronger mammals have more mates. There is no 'ought to' about it, they do.
When they are no longer the stronger, they don't.
Can you think of examples when the weakest control more assets than others?
I doubt it.
As long as you watch it as purely entertainment I suppose... but if you start thinking that's actually how polygamists live... you are grossly misinformed.
I am that female freeper and I definetly did anwer you.
1. Mountain Meadows Massacre
2. Johnston's Army (US) called to out to "put down" the Mormon rebellion against the United States.
4. Nauvoo Legion - An army created by the Mormons, highly trained and highly staffed.
3. Several recorded incidences of "blood atonement." The actual killing of young men who had the audacity to try and "steal" the polygamous wife of a more wealthy and powerful man.
How long did these incidences take to build after polygamy was openly practiced? Less than ten years.
Counter that if you can.
Oh! I see! You subscibe to utopian polygamy in which peace and harmony reign! Ok, for those of us in the real world, wives will have unequal status.
Guess I missed this class on human rights? When was "traditional" marriage defined as a "right"?
The short answer: both parents have an obligation to provide for their children - they can't abandon or harm them. We recognize that obligation legally with the name "marriage." For a more detailed answer into parental obligation, read this. It is in response to the "violinist defense" of abortion, which denies parental obligation to children.
So a good reason to keep plural marriages illegal is to prevent tribal warefare? Ummmm, I guess you forgot that we live in the US and warfare against another person is usually and already illegal.
Parents are law-abiding. Husbands are law-abiding. Large groups of young men without wives - and no hope of getting one - are not law-abiding. They have no stake in society.
So now you are going to play the class warefare card? So are you saying a poor husband won't look at a single wife as sexual property? Sorry, not a good reason.
"poor husband" is an oxymoron in a society that allows polygamy. The choices are "rich and powerful husband" and "poor lifelong bachelor."
Ummm, again, you are assuming a lot with this point, it's rather a weak premise to begin with.
I assumed nothing, which is why I attached a link to an article about polygamy in africa. Everything that I described is taking place there.
"Second cousins can marry. I don't even know any that do except in West Virgina, Alabama, and Georgia. The rest of the states are safe."
A lot of states allow marriages between first cousins, too. I can't remember the number, but it's around 20 states, I believe.
There are far more cousin marriages than you know about. Stats show that their children are just as healthy as the rest of the population, for the most part.
The Bible says nothing about marrying cousins.
I can see the advantage and clear upside for a man to enjoy shallow sex with a variety of goodlooking young women with very little attention to the emotional aspects of the relationships.
I agree with you, though - I don't see the advantage of setting up several wives (and sets of children) and have to handle and deal with the emotional components of maintaining several married relationships. I'd think one is enough.
except that incest has the procreation problem. that's the only big difference between the others. but just to play devil's advocate, why would you care if a brother and sister got married if they couldn't have kids? i have a hard time seeing the problem there.
What you and your housemates arrange amongst your consenting adult members is of ZERO concern to me. I may never invite you over for a barbeque, or offer you a place on my companies board of directors, but I'm also not going to advocate that hired government guns pull a raid on you either.
chapter and verse please where it states that it is not wrong, not that it happened, or that so-and-so had so many wives, etc. where does it say we are allowed more than one wife?
You haven't read it - what do you know.
It also has little to do with libertarianism.
Or three - one adult and one child.
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."
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