Family Values: Polygamy

[MagnetMan]

I am researching Family Values for a documentary film. I will be posting several threads that explore this subject. It would be helpful if you contribute to this research with your views on polygamy. If you could preface your view with a Y or an N to signify that you have personal experience, that would be even more helpful.

For some 600 generations, throughout the Bronze Age, all cultures engaged in an oral-based agricultural milieu via a universal practice of polygamy. It is now outlawed in western cultures and has fallen into disrepute and seen a primitive, even repulsive life-style. Yet it is not unnatural, and most males today still feel the impulse to cohabit with as many women as possible. Thus infidelity remains the cause for most divorces

The question is: If divorce is seen to be gradually destroying our cultural values, can the revival of polygamy become a viable alternative?
Is there a distinct moral difference between a man or women who has multiple legalized divorces, breaks up the home each tome, and supports multiple children via an alimony payment - and a polygamist who sustains the household and does not abandon the children?

[Rebiu]

Originally Posted by MagnetMan

If you could preface your view with a Y or an N to signify that you have personal experience, that would be even more helpful.

I have no personal experience but feel that it should be an option for willing participants.

Originally Posted by MagnetMan

Yet it is not unnatural, and most males today still feel the impulse to cohabit with as many women as possible. Thus infidelity remains the cause for most divorces

I agree that desire is never exclusive, but reject that infidelity has cause any divorce. My perspective is that the causes of the infidelity caused the divorce.

Originally Posted by MagnetMan

The question is: If divorce is seen to be gradually destroying our cultural values,

Divorce is a symptom. Divorce is also the norm. I suggest these values were never a prevelant as some would believe.

Originally Posted by MagnetMan

can the revival of polygamy become a viable alternative?
Is there a distinct moral difference between a man or women who has multiple legalized divorces, breaks up the home each tome, and supports multiple children via an alimony payment - and a polygamist who sustains the household and does not abandon the children?

Yes as long as all participants are not compelled by others to participate.



I personally believe that polygamy is a natural form of cohabitation and interaction. Its potential success, just like the potential success of marriage depends on the nature of the participant’s social development.

This culture tends to emphasize monogamy as the solution for the myriad of human needs. While it is true that a relationship can provide for several needs it does not satisfy most, yet the relationship is often considered the problem when in fact it is not. I believe this scapegoating is more easily applied to a situation of polygamy and therefore polygamy is more susceptible to its destructive effects.

Relationships are very complex and involve the changes and personal growth of the participants. The complexity is directly correlative to the chances of success in the relationship. The addition of more participants in the relationship multiplies the complexity of the relationship and corresponding lessens it likelihood of being sustainable.

Polygamy offers many advantages if it is workable. More people could mean more resources and more efficient use of resources. One large house is cheaper than several small houses. There are more people to care for children. More people could create more income. There would be a greater variety of interactive behaviors for the children to observe and learn from. The members would bring a larger pool of knowledge and wisdom into the family dynamic.

[MagnetMan]

Originally Posted by Rebiu

IPolygamy offers many advantages if it is workable. More people could mean more resources and more efficient use of resources. One large house is cheaper than several small houses. There are more people to care for children. More people could create more income. There would be a greater variety of interactive behaviors for the children to observe and learn from. The members would bring a larger pool of knowledge and wisdom into the family dynamic.

I share your general opinion. I would say that a perfect monogomous marraige is the ideal. But that would require not even the merest thought of a sexual infidelity outside of the marraige. As mankind in general has not yet evolved to this high state, we can only dream.

[pgrmdave]

I think that polygamy should be a viable choice, but I don't think that it is feasible.

Consider how difficult it is to meet somebody with whom you want to spend the rest of your life, and who also wants to spend their life with you. It is much more difficult to find two people you want to spend your life with, who also want to spend their lives with you and each other. Beyond that, it becomes much, much more difficult.

[MagnetMan]

Originally Posted by pgrmdave

I think that polygamy should be a viable choice, but I don't think that it is feasible.

Consider how difficult it is to meet somebody with whom you want to spend the rest of your life, and who also wants to spend their life with you. It is much more difficult to find two people you want to spend your life with, who also want to spend their lives with you and each other. Beyond that, it becomes much, much more difficult.

Agreed. But let us say that you want to have a family and you find a reasonably compatible mate who shares the same family value and you both have children. Then later on you meet an even more compatible person. Is it better to divorce your first mate and marry the second? Ignore the potential for happiness with the second?. Or be allowed by society to find a middle ground via polygamy wihtout being stigmatized?

Another senario. Your first mate turns out to be barren/sterile. Do you divorce her/him or ask to be allowed to have a second wife/husband?

[pgrmdave]

I believe that marriage is a binding, lifelong contract (for the most part). In the first scenario, there are two acceptable outcomes from my perspective depending on whether or not my mate both accepts polygamy and the other person. If my mate desires being in a polygamous relationship with me and this other person, then it should be acceptable (assuming the other person wants it too). However, should my mate not want such a relationship, then I would stay in my marriage, and be happy and content with my spouse.

If my spouse was unable to produce children, we could adopt.

[MagnetMan]

Originally Posted by pgrmdave

I believe that marriage is a binding, lifelong contract (for the most part). In the first scenario, there are two acceptable outcomes from my perspective depending on whether or not my mate both accepts polygamy and the other person. If my mate desires being in a polygamous relationship with me and this other person, then it should be acceptable (assuming the other person wants it too). However, should my mate not want such a relationship, then I would stay in my marriage, and be happy and content with my spouse.

If my spouse was unable to produce children, we could adopt.

A neat response - but in practice life is a little more complicated. Just how happy would the two of you be if he/she denied you? If the tables were turned, would you allow polygamy as a solution or insist that your mate remains happy with the way things are?
I applaud your response on adoption.