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What's wrong with polygamy?
Love-N-Peace
Veteran
It's always considered wrong with almost everybody, but if more than two people honestly love each other, what's wrong with it?
0
Comments
Its very outside the mainstream and longterm most parents won't understand your choice.
But hey that way you can one girl Mon-Wed another Th-Sat with Sunday for Bible studies :eek:
I've got nothing against it. Not my cup of tea though. One girlfriend is expensive enough!
My tastes in sex and love have always been pretty vanilla, but for some reason I am attracted to and attract lovers and friends who are rather different. I've come to realize that, to paraphrase Haldane, not only is eros queerer than I imagine, but it is likely to be queerer than I can imagine. Sitting here in my little apartment in the wee hours of the morning, looking out the window at the moon and the stars and contemplating the enormity of the universe, I take comfort in knowing that perverts everywhere are getting their (consensual) freak on.
At the end of the day, if no parties are jealous and you are all making each other happy, go for it. It was the Christian faith I believe which introduce the idea of marriage and monogamy anyway...
Love & Peace
Jellybean
I hear the complexity makes it difficult more often than not. It's not without it's own unique set of problems. Anyway, I'll let you know when I get there... ahaha, (joke) I'm programmed to stick with serial monogamy, or a variant thereof.
Is polygamy right for you? I don't know, it's like asking would you like to live on ayres rock? The answer is probably no, but there's always a small chance you might like it. No harm in trying everything out though, huh?
What was that which killed the cat again?
Anyway, it's not about if it's right for you, it's where life takes you...
Love & Peace
Jellybean
Not to mention favouritism etc...
Love & Peace
Jellybean
Sounds like a few 'monogamous' relationships I've had. :-/
There isn't enough of it.
It is my theory considering social dynamics, psychology, political stratagems, diseases control, and the needs of harmony toward survival, that if every male to be married was required to marry an already couple (only 2) of best friend females, all of society, on every level, would be far more advanced, sane, and harmonious (not to mention the added economics).
But how would we ever know?
The sexual lusts in people adapt in accord to dhamma.
Love & Peace
Jellybean
I don't see a lot of joy and tranquility coming out of it (although the 1960's were headed in the right direction).
It's a 'what's in it for me?' society we live in, as opposed to a 'what can I do for you?' society.
And that's the problem.
When we speak about polygamy, we really must be careful not to confuse it with promiscuity. We are discussing an institution sanctioned by law and regulated by state, religion or custom. And, anthropologically and sociologically, it involves property.
Just look at Jane Austen for examples in satirical novel form.
Feminist writers and thinkers have shown us this very clearly. History demonstrates it too. Whether property passes through male or female line, the original (and relatively modern rediscovery) of dividing someone's property, after death, means the dilution of wealth in the family. Thus, 'legitimacy' is conferred on one branch of a family by 'lawful marriage', which has the added benefit of applying a somewhat shaky brake on sexual activity too.
It wasn't until 1882 that the UK Parliament passed the Married Women's Property Act. Until then, a husband became, upon marriage, the owner of his wife's possessions. That is precisely why Elizabeth I refused to marry: her husband would become king. This is precisely how William of Orange became King of England: by marrying Princess Mary. Somehow, Victoria managed to solve the problem - I don't remember how but I imagine it required an Act of Parliament.
It is surely significant that, as more women in the West become 'owners' in their own right, marriage is so much under threat that governments have to bribe us (with our own money) to get married? This does not mean that there are fewer committed relationships - just that more and more people are coming to understand that marriage is yet another instrument of state/church/temple control.
And I speak as one who has been married (twice: once unhappily, once happily), divorced, widowed and now married again. Just because I understand that I am chained by the state doesn't mean that I have to pretend that the chains don't exist or that I am exempt from them.
Where marriages are arranged with little/no say of the woman i can understand it being more like the woman being property of the man, but that is more a function of the cultures those things happen in rather than 'marriage' itself. Luckily in my country it's a free choice and, i believe, something of benefit rather than an issue of state control.
Namaste
Not cynical, I hope, but I would accept a charge of 'revolutionary'. Of course marriage is a cultural construct and has been 'spun' as the OK way of declaring commitment. I shall, however, believe that it is not about property when
(a) women stop changing their "maiden" name - and we stop using the word "maiden" like that;
(b) divorce does not include any legal shenanigans about property.
The morality of an act can be debated, but when there is no actual "victimization" then the criminal courts should not involve themselves, and they certainly should not be used as "hired guns" by the various religions. In my opinion, marriage or consenting relationships of any sort should be a non-legal issue. Unfortunately the majority of my fellow Americans seem very willing to politicize their own moral opinions and demonize and criminalize all others, or at the least they are largely unwilling to speak against such puritan attitudes. Perhaps the harsh lessons of Salem, Massachusetts need to be relearned before the current "morality" crusades will lose support, but i'd prefer we Americans come to our senses before it gets to that point.
All the best,
Jellybean
Still don't understand your objections when 2 people freely enter a loving committment.
1. Firstly, many women don't change their name anymore - does that make it OK for you? For those who do, it is not about being their man's property, because the name-change part is irrelevant to any legal property stuff. In my experience the woman changes her name because she wants to symbolically say to the world "we are connected, we are family", NOT "he owns me".
2. Divorce property settlement (again, i'm speaking about western countries here) is equal, or in many cases favours the women when children are involved.
Daozen,
You misunderstand me. I have nothing against and a lot for two (or more) people in loving, committed relationships. I believe these relationships to be vital to emotional well-being both of the partners and of the children. What I am addressing is the institution of marriage. That it should, in the past 100 years or so, have moved more towards and equal sharing of resources does not obscure the fact that, in the past, such an equalisation is followed by a backlash. Institutions, by their very nature, being cultural constructs, exist to maintain the cultural status quo with little or no regard to the particular needs of the individual. Marriage, in the culture-sanctioned sense of institutional marriage, is one of the pillars of the status quo and, as I find the status quo (samsara if you will) to be worth escaping from, I question its value.
Most murders are committed within marriage; most child abuse, too. Marriage, generation after generation, has produced what? Us! Is that truly an argument in its favour?
Do you really believe that divorce 'settlements' are equal other than in theory? Apart from anything else, you haven't factored in lawyers and courts. If you want a cynical view, marriage may be seen as an invention by lawyers and the courts to get money out of us when we (as is more than likely) divorce.
Why should a woman want to 'belong' to her husband's family rather than her own? Blending may be good.
I would love to see a reference for such a claim... it is certainly an interesting idea, but I could not find any proof that marriage is a causal factor in murder. A link maybe?
I don't feel a woman should or should not want to belong. I know that in terms of making a family, my friends who have married have used the male's last name, not to transplant, but to create a new family with a unified suffix.
With warmth,
Matt
All the best,
Jellybean
seriously though...what two consenting adults do with each other should not be regulated by the government or anyone else...I mean as long as they are not hurting other people in the process of doing their thing.
I read an interesting article about marriage a while back and i think it had good ideas. What it said was that there are three sides to marriage. The actual personal relationship of two (maybe more) people to each other, which is at the heart of it all. Then there is the recognition of the state. This basically concerns the property sharing aspects, custody of children and so on. Finally there is the 'institution of marriage' bit, which historically is the domain of the church. The problem is that the church/state roles have been blended over the years, ie the state has absorbed the 'moral' role of the (mainstream, ie Catholic/Anglican) church and hence is generally very conservative about recognising gay/poly marriage.
Ideally, keep the church and state roles completely seperate. The state should drop all pretexts of moral guardianship and allow 'legal unions' of any numbers of any genders of people, basically it's just a legal agreement about sharing of wealth and related rights. And then the 'marriage' bit should be completely privatised, which would leave individual institutions, churches etc to decide for themselves which forms of marriage they recognise. If a church is conservative, it can stick to strictly 1 man + 1 woman. If not, it can bless gay and poly marriages.
That way, all forms of marriage could be legally sanctioned, but individual institutions can also get to keep their own moral perspective. A free market of marriages, the users chooses what suits them.
That's my view anyway. Cheers.
Personally I never want to get married but if I did I wouldn't mind being the second or third wife.
All the best
Jellybean
I like a nice full household LOL but I never considered it would be several adults LOL. I'd probably find it hard enough keeping one person anyway LOL
All the best
Jellybean
All the best,
Jellybean
All the best
NickiD
.
All the best
Nothing wrong with it at all. But I am told it's a lot of work for very little increase in benefit (having two women over just having one).
The person who tells me this is my second husband. He and his first wife had a second woman in the house and in the bed for a few years.
He said it was psychologically exhausting. As he put it, with two people there are 3 entities to please: A, B, and A+B. But add only one more person, and the number jumps to 7 entities: A, B, C, A+B, A+C, B+C, and A+B+C.
He also said it was sexually tiring trying to please two women. And even when he was trying to sleep, the bed was crowded and he kept losing his covers (well, they lived in a cabin in the Yukon with a wood stove for heat so ... yeah!)
And then there were the times when the women both sided against him on issues or decisions. In the early 1970's, women and men tended to hold different attitudes, so the "man-attitude" in the house usually lost out.
He said all the men he knew envied him. But he didn't envy his situation at all, and he breathed a sigh of relief when the other woman decided to leave the Yukon and go live in sunny southern California.
All the best
Actually, it gets a whole lot more complicated when you've been together a long time, baggage starts to accumulate, and neither you or your partner have ever been willing to stand up before a bunch of friends and family and declare your commitment to each other.
Funny that the lack of such a "little" thing should tear such a big hole in a relationship ... but I've seen it happen soooo many times. And the only long-term relationships I've known (20+ years) that remain warm and vital are those where they are legally married.
All the best and kind regards
Nickidoodle Jellybean
Married or not, someone gets hurt when the relationship ends.
Married or not, if there is anger and there are children and/or common property, then legal recourse must be taken to settle joint matters, and it gets "complicated".
And no couple stays together "forever" ... it only SEEMS like forever.
Sweetie, I came of age in the hippie-60's. We were convinced that Marriage was NOT the answer, having seen our parents in their loveless, endless, dead marriages. Guess what ... cohabing, hand-fasting, and "open" marriages ... none of them worked, either.
Was there ANY chance that marriage could be what it was supposed to be? Actually, there WAS. There IS. I've known some of these couples, as best friends, as family ... and whether they've been together over 60 years or only over 30, they all hold this in common: the love is still there, they are each other's best friends, they have common interests, but they also have individual interests (which the other helps facilitate). Couples like this DO exist (they are all legally married, by the way). But it takes two very emotionally mature, very aware, very trusting individuals who are willing to put the other's well-being on par with their own.
Unfortunately, according to statistics, only about 12% of the population seems to have what it takes to make a long-term relationship like this. By virtue of results, I have to say that I do not appear to be one of them! Maybe handfasting is a better option for me!
isn't that like cheating your wife?
why don't you think people should be together?? It is only in the west the divorcing thing is popular... in many countries people stay together till the end.
I personally thing its sick and really cheap/wrong. how can his wife agree to that?
It's not I think people shouldn't be together for ever, it's just that I think the majority of human being are not meant to pair for life. Like swans, alomost all of them stay together for eva, but in countries where divorce isn't frowned upon few people pair for life.
All the best
All the best