Modern Polygamy

[Christianna]

Polygamy and incest have nothing to do with each other.

Ah but they actually do, the fundies within the Mormon church intermarry constantly, because there are fewer of them than the normal Mormons. So you have cousins marrying cousins, uncles marrying their nieces, then they lose track of who married who, etc. That's why there are so many tiny graves in the fundamentalist cemeteries. Then you have Warren Jeffs taking wives away from one man, giving her to another man, he ends up marrying her daughter, the next thing you know they have half siblings marrying each other. The worst part is that since they are all related in one way or another any genetic problems show up often.

Within the regular Mormon church there are problems as well again because the early church practiced polygamy, to today people who are not closely related still often have the same genetic problems.

 

[Zipperfish]

Given how high the divorce rates are and how casual sexual relationships are becoming its hold may be weakening.

It is weakening. As also evidenced by gay marriage and other "alternative" family arrangements. Don't get me wrong--I fully supoport the right of consenting adults to do as they please. However, I also suspect that the fraying of moral standards will likely spell the end of the American empire. A demoralized civilization is incapable of making a decision no matter how much information they have.

The new hegemony will go the culture with the more rigidly enforced moral structure.

 

[hunboldt]

Sorry but I am against polygamy, there's the incest problem, why do you think the Mormons are so keen to do the genealogy work? Once the women in my family went to Salt Lake City to do some family history in their huge genealogical library, we were told by a Mormon woman that they have many handicapped people, and maybe plural marriage wasn't such a great idea. Then I have read that Bountiful BC has an over abundance of tiny graves in the cemetery there. Consider why.

"Loonies" tend to marry young, and, if they don't die of accident or violence (both common), to live very long and healthy lives.

Lunar marriage styles include "polyandries, clans, groups, lines, and less common patterns considered vulgar by conservative people" (p 199) (The narrator mentions that his own mother lived in one one of these "less common" patterns "after she ticked off my old man", but does not go into detail.) The commonest style of marriage on the Moon is a "troika" -- two husbands married to one wife (p 100). Unsurprisingly, there is also overt prostitution as well as, apparently, a good deal of informal "bundling".
Line Marriage

Can't imqagine anything bewtter than hubby impregnating both Momma & teenie whaile keeping Granny satisfied...

woof woof woof......

 

[WLDB]

Ah but they actually do, the fundies within the Mormon church intermarry constantly, because there are fewer of them than the normal Mormons. So you have cousins marrying cousins, uncles marrying their nieces, then they lose track of who married who, etc.

So do the Royals.



Also its legal for first cousins to marry here.

However, I also suspect that the fraying of moral standards will likely spell the end of the American empire.

Nothing wrong with that. Morals change as does society. If anything Id consider it immoral for monogamous heterosexuals to tell others how to live their lives as they have been doing for generations. Live and let live. If that leads to "fraying moral standards" thats fine. Those moral standards arent mine anyway.

 

[Cliffy]

Morals, shmorals. The nuclear family is dysfunctional and that is the main reason for the failure of the institution of marriage. The nuclear family and monogamy are both unnatural to the human species. Our civilization is not based on the nuclear family or monogamy. It is based on control through hierarchy. Control through fear.

 

[L Gilbert]

Probably better suited to our nature anyway. We arent naturally monogamous.

Actually humans are not built to be generally monogamous, just generally monogamish. Sexually, we are compatible with anyone. Socially, some are monogamous and some aren't.
At any rate, marriage has a lot less to do with biology than it does with sociology, hence the different views of different cultures all through history.

 

[Christianna]

So do the Royals

And that is why the males within the royal family have suffered from hemophilia so often. More recently they are actually marrying outside of the family ans that is helping bring better health to the royal families of Europe.

 

[L Gilbert]

Incest is perfectly natural in some instances, though. As Nathaniel Wheelwright put it, "Asexual reproduction is the ultimate in incest because you're breeding with yourself." Plants do it, microbes do it, etc.
It's a bit different in animals, though.
Humans typically have 46 chromosomes each - 23 from mum and 23 from dad. Suppose one has a deleterious gene, normally it's effects should be countered by the good gene from the other parent so everything may be quite normal. And each kid has one overriding good gene and one bad gene that's dormant. If however, two if these kids from the same parents produce offspring, the chances that the one bad gene becomes active is doubled. It doesn't mean that the kid will be freakish in some way, but the chances are 50% higher that there will be some aberration.

 

[petros]

I don't have that much laundry so one is enough.

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Morals, shmorals. The nuclear family is dysfunctional and that is the main reason for the failure of the institution of marriage. The nuclear family and monogamy are both unnatural to the human species. Our civilization is not based on the nuclear family or monogamy. It is based on control through hierarchy. Control through fear.

Beyond that, the nuclear family is new, and its chief advantage is that it's marginally better than single parenthood. For the vast majority of human history, people lived in tribes, clans, extended families, derbhfine, what have you. It meant that if an adult died untimely, it was a tragedy, but the family would carry on. Contrast the nuclear family, where the untimely death of an adult is an economic, psychological, and social disaster.

Good for Big Government, Big Banking, Big Business, Big Education, and all the other Bigs, though. Keeps the adults in line and docile.

That's why power families, like the Bushes and Kennedys, still live in clans.

Ah but they actually do, the fundies within the Mormon church intermarry constantly, because there are fewer of them than the normal Mormons. So you have cousins marrying cousins, uncles marrying their nieces, then they lose track of who married who, etc. That's why there are so many tiny graves in the fundamentalist cemeteries. Then you have Warren Jeffs taking wives away from one man, giving her to another man, he ends up marrying her daughter, the next thing you know they have half siblings marrying each other. The worst part is that since they are all related in one way or another any genetic problems show up often.

Within the regular Mormon church there are problems as well again because the early church practiced polygamy, to today people who are not closely related still often have the same genetic problems.

Ah, but they actually don't. Polygamy is marriage between more than two people. Incest is marriage between persons too closely related to be allowed to marry (the exact degree of consanguinity varies).

They are two different things. Just because the Mormons practice(d) both does not make them related to each other. You might just as well say that abstinence from caffeine and incest are related because Mormons did both.

 

[SLM]

I wouldnt be in that group. I think people should be able to chose and live however they want in any relationship that they want provided they are all consenting adults. I dont care if its a man with multiple partners, or a woman with multiple partners - or both.

Generally speaking, I don't care either. How people want to live their lives is entirely up to them and them alone. Where my 'however' comes into play though is the, I guess one could say, "typical" western scenario in which one would find polygamy tends to be in situations like Bounty, which is more about domination and control, IMHO. The practical and realistic way in which many, not all but many, practice polygamy has nothing to do with 'partnering'.

Actually humans are not built to be generally monogamous, just generally monogamish. Sexually, we are compatible with anyone. Socially, some are monogamous and some aren't.
At any rate, marriage has a lot less to do with biology than it does with sociology, hence the different views of different cultures all through history.

This may be a fine line, but I think the idea of monogamy is getting used in place of partnering for life, at least how I'm seeing it. Because I do think it is very much in the nature of the human animal to bond strongly to individuals and thus be monogamous. I don't think we're, by nature, necessarily built to only have one partner throughout life. Some can and do, certainly, but it's not naturally that way for all of us. So I would say that we are indeed built to be monogamous, we just aren't necessarily built to have one life partner.

 

[Zipperfish]

Morals, shmorals. The nuclear family is dysfunctional and that is the main reason for the failure of the institution of marriage. The nuclear family and monogamy are both unnatural to the human species. Our civilization is not based on the nuclear family or monogamy. It is based on control through hierarchy. Control through fear.

Why is what is natural superior? Rape is natural. Violence is natural. You see it all the time in the natural world. Is that a better way for us to live, because it's "natural"?

I'm kind of with you though--morals, shmorals. It's not really the actual morals that count, but the degree to which they are accepted as true. It's morals, ultimately, that bind a culture. When morals become a matter of individual choice, then communities can no longer make decisions because it is morals, not facts, that are required to decide the right thing to do. In the same way a well-disciplined army will defeat a poorly-dsisciplined one, so a well-disciplined mind will defeat a poorly disciplined one. perhaps that's why demoralization of the west was a primary effort of teh KGB for many years.

I'm not sure if I actually believe that or not yet, being a liberal myself, but it makes sense to me. I'll have to examine it further. Still working it out in my head.

 

[L Gilbert]

Generally speaking, I don't care either. How people want to live their lives is entirely up to them and them alone. Where my 'however' comes into play though is the, I guess one could say, "typical" western scenario in which one would find polygamy tends to be in situations like Bounty, which is more about domination and control, IMHO. The practical and realistic way in which many, not all but many, practice polygamy has nothing to do with 'partnering'.



This may be a fine line, but I think the idea of monogamy is getting used in place of partnering for life, at least how I'm seeing it. Because I do think it is very much in the nature of the human animal to bond strongly to individuals and thus be monogamous. I don't think we're, by nature, necessarily built to only have one partner throughout life. Some can and do, certainly, but it's not naturally that way for all of us. So I would say that we are indeed built to be monogamous, we just aren't necessarily built to have one life partner.

Some are, some aren't. But, like I said monogamy is more of a social thing than a biological thing. We're monogamously inclined these days and I think that has more to do with cultural conditioning than anything these days. Prehistorically, it was better for the species for everyone to bang everyone they could so it was of biological importance. I think the impulses were different for everyone, too. It would be biologically practical for men to have the urges to spread as much seed around in order to carry on lineage, whereas women would want the strongest dude around to stick around and help have and raise strong kids, evolution being what it is and all that.
Now, short of a planetary catastrophe large enough, humans are a species that's not likely to collapse so social aspects are stronger.
As far as partnership goes, I think it depends on a large amount of factors and each of us should decide for ourselves exactly what our nature is and to follow it. A lot of people are too lazy, or haven't the determination, or whatever to self-analyze, though, so just follow what other people say we should be like.

Why is what is natural superior? Rape is natural. Violence is natural. You see it all the time in the natural world. Is that a better way for us to live, because it's "natural"?

It's also natural to have a little self-control, too. And it's quite along the lines of self-preservation to be able to control ourselves.

I'm kind of with you though--morals, shmorals. It's not really the actual morals that count, but the degree to which they are accepted as true. It's morals, ultimately, that bind a culture. When morals become a matter of individual choice, then communities can no longer make decisions because it is morals, not facts, that are required to decide the right thing to do. In the same way a well-disciplined army will defeat a poorly-dsisciplined one, so a well-disciplined mind will defeat a poorly disciplined one. perhaps that's why demoralization of the west was a primary effort of teh KGB for many years.

I'm not sure if I actually believe that or not yet, being a liberal myself, but it makes sense to me. I'll have to examine it further. Still working it out in my head.

 

[gopher]

SLM,

Cool. So you'd have no issue being husband number 9 out of 10 then? That would not cause any consternation at all? Answer honestly.

Polyandry is not mentioned in the Bible or Koran.

However it is practiced in a small handful of pagan societies. Who the hell am I or anyone else to judge them?

 

[karrie]

I'm not saying they don't. I'm saying that there's really no reason to have any arrangement of adults and not call it a marriage.

This is the main thing that stands in the way of the Mormon church legitimizing polygamous marriages. They need to stop including children in the mix.

 

[hunboldt]

This is the main thing that stands in the way of the Mormon church legitimizing polygamous marriages. They need to stop including children in the mix.

OR take it to the limits....

Seriously,Ms K., doesn't your heart just flutter wildy at the very thought of seven longing lil gaffers at the foot of your bed inthe morning?
talk about 'living the dream..."

 

[SLM]

Polyandry is not mentioned in the Bible or Koran.

However it is practiced in a small handful of pagan societies. Who the hell am I or anyone else to judge them?

Judge? Who said anything about judging anyone? Aside from what I acknowledge as the idea that any adult or group of adults should always be free to choose their own lifestyle, the practice of polygamy has been as much about subjugation of one group over another in many of the cultures that it has been practiced. Unless there is true equality then there is no real freedom to choose, is there? My main point being, and remains, that the practice has been used in many of the cultures that it was practiced as a means to subjugate the female gender.

So this concept of 'modern polygamy' doesn't work in an era where there is, at least to some degree, equality between the genders.

This is the main thing that stands in the way of the Mormon church legitimizing polygamous marriages. They need to stop including children in the mix.

That's probably not going to happen.

My view on polygamy, the real practice of it as we most often see it, is rather conflicted. Similar to women that wear a burka, I'm torn between the notion that I cannot be the judge of what a woman decides, even if her choice is to subjugate herself, and the notion that, due to that subjugation, choice is a rather loose word to use to describe what she's doing with her life.

It is not the idea that people have multiple partners that causes me concern but the cultural/societal influences that define the parameters of such unions. And as much as we can wax philosophic on the nature of human unions, we need to also be aware of the realities of how these unions are manifested and the reasons behind it both in the modern world and in historical context.

 

[PoliticalNick]

I'm in favor of a Heinlen style line marriage. It allows a man to literally get between his sweetie AND his mother in law.....

Ewwww!

 

[hunboldt]

This is the main thing that stands in the way of the Mormon church legitimizing polygamous marriages. They need to stop including children in the mix.

But Dwarves are still ok??

How Disney got away with distributing Snow White & the seven horny lil muffins is still beyond me...,

 

[gopher]

SLM,

he practice of polygamy has been as much about subjugation of one group over another in many of the cultures that it has been practiced. Unless there is true equality then there is no real freedom to choose, is there?

Subjugation?

So why are some women in Israel DEMANDING the return of polygyny?


New Jewish group wants to restore polygamy | JPost | Israel News



I have seen some web forums where Muslim women and some Christian women say the same. I realize this is not a majority view. But many do want it and no matter what you say, they do not believe it is subjugation.

As far as I'm concerned, I refuse to judge these people and say that government has no business interfering in their marital arrangements.