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.
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.
.....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.
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.