How many $millions have been wasted to determine being married to 25 women is illegal
- Thread starter JLM
- Start date
More than that. I love my wife enough that I could never bring myself to even want to marry someone else. If she herself proposed that I take a second wife, I'd still refuse. I know I'm human and so could never treat my wives equally, so why would I choose to put myself in such a situation?
So how do you propose we keep costs down, JLM?
One option is to simply decriminalize it all.
Another option for those who still want to restrict it at least somewhat would be for Canada to recognize a polygamous marriage that was legally contracted and consummated abroad but to prohibit the contracting of such marriages in Canada.
In other words, if you really want a second, third, or fourth wife, buy a flight ticket for yourself and your future wife to Iran, get married there, then fly back to Canada with your certificate in hand.
Another advantage with that strategy is that then the Canadian government would not need to waste time defining the limitations of polygamy since other jurisdictions would do that for us.
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I'm not sure where everyone else has been but I've known that having more than one wife is illegal in Canada since I was about 6 years old. So obviously these Assholes think there is one law for everyone else and a different law for them. Are we going to enforce the laws or aren't we? If so as soon as the documentation of two marriages to living people could be obtained their Asses should have been in jail. Either that or change the laws. If these guys can get away with this shit, why shouldn't you and I be able to choose a law we don't like and break it with impunity?
One complication with polygamy though is the distinction between contracting such a marriage vs. being in such a state of marriage. For example, if I contract a polygamous marriage in a country where it's perfectly legal to do so, then technically I'd not have violated any law since I'd have contracted it where it was perfectly legal.
Then, when I return to Canada, I'm still in a state of polygamy but the act of contracting it would have been done legally elsewhere.
I'll take an example in my present reality. At present, I'm in a monogamous marriage according to Ontario law under which jurisdiction I married. I now live in Quebec. Am I married only when I'm in Ontario but single everywhere else? Of course not. I'm married wherever I go. In other words, I have no need to remarry in every jurisdiction since every jurisdiction recognizes my marriage as long as I can prove that it did occur. Whether it occurred in Ontario, Quebec, the P.R.C., Hong Kong, or Tunisia is beside the point.
This actually creates immigration challenges since technically a foreign polygamist entering Canada might not have violated any Canadian law if he contracted the marriage abroad. The question then is simply whether Canada will recognize the marriage. If I should marry a second wife in Iran for example (where even if it's discouraged, it is perfectly legal none-the-less), and then return to Canada with my second wife, I would not technically have violated any Canadian law since I would have committed the act where it was legal. That said, the Canadian government, while acknowledging that I did not violate any Canadian law, could still choose to refuse to recognize my second wife, meaning that under Canadian law, she'd just be my lover and not my wife. Only if I try to marry her in Canada would I be violating Canadian law.
However, this raises other moral questions. Inasmuch as we might morally disapprove of polygamy, do we approve of the state forcing a couple to divorce or refusing to recognize a legally contracted and consummated marriage? Tunisia faced a similar problem when it moved to prohibit polygamy. Its solution was to prohibit the contracting of polygamous marriages in Tunisia while still recognizing legally contracted polygamous marriages whether in Tunisia prior to the introduction of the new law or contracted abroad. While this allows a loophole in Tunisian law, at least in theory if all states adopted the same law, then a person would have nowhere else to go to contract a legal polygamous marriage and consequently polygamy would disappear through attrition. It also ensures that while no new polygamous marriage can be contracted in Tunisia, the government will also not rip an already-established polygamous family apart either, essentially on the idea that however harmful polygamy might be, ripping a family apart causes even more harm.
Of course the situation in Bountiful is a little different. Even if Canada did have laws similar to Tunisia's and the men in Bountiful could have flown to Iran to contract their marriages and then return with the marriage certificate, this is not what happened in that case. They contracted the 'celestial' marriages in Canada where it was illegal. So even if Canada had a law like Tunisia's, these men would still have violated Canadian law by doing so in Canada, and so they rightfully should be punished.
Now as for what the punishment should be, I'd say an adequate punishment would be for the government of Canada to simply refuse to recognize the marriages after the first. In effect, that is what Tunisia does. There is no specific punishment for polygamy in Tunisia. However, Tunisia also has fornication laws which means that any sexual relations with anyone other than his legally recognized wife is punished as an act of fornication there.
Then again, if a Tunisian could legally marry his second wife abroad and then have it recognized in Tunisia, he'd be pretty foolish to then contract an illegal marriage in Tunisia. Yet, stupid people exist everywhere and apparently even with that loophole, people still contract illegal polygamous marriages in Tunisia but the government there does enforce its fornication laws.
It's illegal in the US too last I checked.
Strangely enough though, though I agree with the decriminalization of child abuse, I disagree with Canada's laws that apply to a Canadian abroad just as I disagree with US laws preventing a US citizen from entering Cuba from Canada. In short, we should not impose our laws on foreign jurisdictions any more than they should impose theirs on us.
Not that simple as our charter protects religious freedom and justin has insisted charter rights must be protected, that criminal law collides with the charter is a prayer answered for lawyers.
Anyhow let kids be kids and allow them to forge their own path, teach the risk(s) of unprotected sex regardless of accessed orfice but let them decide if they prefer a partner with a responsive orfice or as boomer pointed out a partner with a dud orfice. It's odd our 'leaders' champion the pushing of duds but we hafta understand they are after all pc addicts, in any event it's all a nothing burger as gender will soon be no longer.. M nay F nay U yay.... so sad songs with a gender theme will become dust....'Where women glow and men plunder' things were so sane, simple and uncluttered in 38 I'm told.
Really ?
Would you like to name one please ?
I'm not sure this conviction will stand up in court.
I mentioned earlier marriage has nothing to do with bedrooms, but it in fact has a lot to do with the mechanics of life.
AFAIK, they never tried to register 25 marriage certificates with any government office.
They never tried to claim marriage / tax benefits for the 25 wives.
There was never an issue about inheritance, or any other issue where the government regulates things.
So, the judge said "you practised polygamy", but according to who ?
Not the State.
Also, since it takes two to tango, how come none of the wives are being convicted ?
You hit the nail on the head when you stated ..."if only it stayed there." I, like many people, don't give a rats A## what people do in their bedrooms - it's none of my business. What irks me to no end is having it front and centre; in-your-face.
Whatever happened to decorum and decency - politeness even?
JMHO
You do bring up some valid points there, especially the one about taking two to tango.
Hording of wives is more of a dominant egotistical act whereas sharing a 'husband' is more of a generous unselfish act, courts tend to side with selfless folk far more than shelfish folk. Prosecuting gals solely with generousity as the damning evidence presents a case even perry mason would take a pass on.
True. Courts are notorious for their anti-shellfish bias. Why, I once had a mollusk-American client who was up on charges of disorderly conduct, and the court was BRUTAL to him!
C'mon any legal eagle worth his salt would know full well court would not convict an alias, convicting poor shelfish for the sins of shellfish would constitute a serious breach of public trust.