Andrea has an op-ed on polygamy in the Sun today. Read it here. My favourite part:
From prehistoric times until the late 20th century, marriage was understood as a child-centred institution between one man and one woman, for life.
Though you’d be hard pressed to find this view on any university campus, marriage served to protect women and children, chiefly by obliging men to stick around to help raise them. (Sex was confined to marriage so any resulting children were identifiably linked to both parents–finally both men and women were held responsible.)
Today, marriage is chiefly based on love and weddings are an opportunity to have a party. We (well, the Supreme Court) already agreed marriage should not be limited by sexual orientation.
What justification is there now to limit the number of partners?
We already collectively accepted it needn’t be for life and it needn’t be between members of the opposite sex. If you are against polygamy, but in favour of same sex marriage, you’re between a rock and a hard place.
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Rebecca adds: As to whether or not the care, legitimization and support of children is the prime role of marriage, nobody has explained it better than David Blankenhorn in his magisterial book The Future of Marriage. Yes, the details have varied, and yes, virtually all societies have recognized marriages that did not, or could not, involve procreation, but the essence of marriage is to create a functional context in which to produce the next generation.
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Andrea adds: Blankenhorn makes this comparison to highlight his point–he says that not everyone buys a car to drive it, but that doesn’t mean cars aren’t primarily meant for driving. Some people, it’s true, they only collect cars. But because that is true, we’d never say that there’s no connection between cars and driving. (I’m paraphrasing.)
I also just read this in Marriage and Caste in America: “…no culture has ever designed a model of fatherhood without matrimony.” When we separate child bearing from marriage (and this is not to say that every married couple absolutely must have kids–just that kids ought to have married parents) it is an unprecedented experiment.








Great piece by Andrea. Although, I have to say that I am still addicted to and in love with the show “Big Love”!
“If you are against polygamy, but in favour of same sex marriage, you’re between a rock and a hard place.”
Not necessarily. You could believe that monogamy contributes to the stability of society and that polygamy is inherently unequal because it’s pretty much impossible to romantically love two people the exact same amount. (Polygamy is also a logistical nightmare when it comes to stuff like insurance and inheritance.)
The problem with defining marriage as something for the production of children and a stable environment for those children is that people who can’t have kids or have no intention to have kids and never do have kids get married all the time. Then there are the gay people who have kids, et cetera…
I agree, though, that gay marriage can easily lead to polygamous groups arguing that polygamy should be legal as well.
In other times, people with no intention of having children just shacked up, because they understood the link between marriage and children (they weren’t under any illusions about the difference between a selfish and a selfless relationship). Marriage is primarily about children and their greatest needs. As for couples who cannot have children, they usually discovered this after getting married – and sought solace for the fact by adopting kids that others weren’t able/interested in caring for.
Look on the bright side of polygamy: you can marry all of the great Jane Austen heroes — Mr. Darcy, Mr. Knightley, Captain Wentworth, &c. . . . with the doors wide open you’ll also be able to marry fictional people, of course. Actually, I think you could marry the books themselves as well.
Wait a sec, Shane O.: I don’t believe marriage has to be solely about having/raising children in order to have value. My mother remarried at the age of 62. She and my stepfather are under no illusions that their marriage will result in children and they have no intentions of adopting any (between them, they have already raised five). I don’t see how that makes their relationship “selfish.” They could have simply “shacked up,” but they apparently enjoy having their relationship sanctified by their church, legalized by their state, and recognized and respected by their friends and family. I can fully sympathize with other couples, including the gay, the infertile, the elderly, and those who simply don’t want to have children who might feel the same way.
Also, it’s a little dicey to claim historical precedent for marriage being “a child-centered institution between one man and one woman, for life.” Historically, polygamy has been widely practiced and in some places it still is. Historically, husbands could put aside “barren” wives and replace them with ones who would provide heirs (or in some cases, better dowries). Historically, legitimate heirs have been produced not only by wives, but also by concubines and consorts (sex has hardly been confined to marriage). And although producing children has been an important goal of marriage throughout history, marriage has also centered around diverse economic, political, and social interests. Simply producing and caring for children has not always been the goal and there is no reason that it should be now.
For what it’s worth, I support gay marriage and while I don’t think polygamy is terribly practical for our society, I don’t see any ethical problems with it, as long as all parties are consenting and adult.
I very much agree with Andrea’s op-ed.
Since Jane Austen was mentioned, in the BBC “Pride and Prejudice”, the minister during a marriage in that movie said that marriage has three purposes: 1) mutual society, 2) a defense against carnal nature, 3) and procreation. If we accepted these as the purposes of marriage, how do the following qualify?
Polygamy, I would argue, falls short of point 2, and arguably on point 1. Marrying multiple people lowers the bar for self-control, and one will inevitably favour some spouses over others. The only thing it really does acheive is point 3.
For same-sex marriage, it clearly fails points 2 and 3. It fails point 2 in that its legitimacy is almost entirely ascribed to feelings superceding purpose in nature (and most religious conventions). It is incapable of satisfying point 3. It at best satisfies point 1.
If our society judges that same-sex unions qualify as marriage, then why shouldn’t consenting polygamous unions also? If the definition or marriage can be changed once to serve a particular group, it can be changed 100 times. This is the slippery slope defenders of traditional marriage warned about.
Monogomy benefits men as well in a society where there are roughly equal numbers of men and women. Polygamous societies lead to a few men monopolising the women, and therefore monopolising their opportunity to reproduce. This leads to murderously violent competition for status at the bottom of society amongst young men. I don’t know of any academic studies into this, but I wonder whether the existence of de facto polygamy in our society is one of the factors that has led to high murder rates in our inner cities. (You would need to demonstrate, amongst other things, that where women have many children with different men, whether in fact it is a small number of men fathering large numbers of children).
Actually, monogamy was a post Primitive Church Roman Innovation, gradually introduced
as a Roman Fad, spreading with the Empire and being yanked into Christianity by the
Roman Emperor Justinian. Although it was implied in the Adam and Eve story–though,
were Adam and Lilith legally divorced? Monogamy was practiced by Jews widely through
the Thirteenth Century, when it was given a major blow by Rabbi Gershom.
Jews may still practice it if the first wife becomes ill or is barren. There is linguistic
evidence for its practice in Gallilee during Jesus’s time and in his family. (The same
word is used for Brother and Cousin.)
In response to Kathleen, I contend that monogamy was a late introduction to the Church. This is refuted by Paul’s advice to other churches as to the type of men who should be entrusted with overseeing the congregations and serving the community. Each description includes a limitation of marriage to a single wife. Most of the New Testament marriage advice assumes that there are only 2 people involved. This argues that the culture at the time was predominantly monogamous, and that the Church emphasized monogamy.
Secondly, Kathleen mentions Lilith being Adam’s first wife. This notion of Lilith being married to Adam seems for all the evidence an 8th century innovation. It is not from the Bible, and it is not from the Talmud, though both mention demons called “Lilith” or “Lilit”. The myths around Lilith became much elaborated in the middle ages.
Lilith is kind of an icon in some feminist circles, which I suppose is ironic since the demon was known to steal new-born babies.