<p>Assuming all the women in the marriage are of age, and there is consent, why isn’t polygamy legal? Judaism, Islam and, apparently, some sects of Christianity consider it to not be contrary to their beliefs. If two men consent to marry each other and everyone cries that they should be allowed to, then certainly two or more consenting women and one male should be allowed to aswell. It seems to me that this maybe a) a restriction on religious rights and b) the imposement of one group’s religious beliefs on others. </p>
<p>(Please, keep recent current events out of this discussion, as they involved serious abuse of minors, hypocrocy, etc and are not relevant here.)</p>
<p>I must say I am glad there is someone else in this World who can apply logical analysis to varying circumstances. If States are going to limit marriage to between two people, then surely States can say marriage can be only between one man and one woman. Thus, gays are out of luck. </p>
<p>The problem arises when gays say they are entitled (they have a right) to marry. Under the gay view of marriage, it should be between two men or two women as well as one man and one woman. Gay supporters still want to limit marriage to two people. There is no logic to support limiting marriage to two people (if you are willing to expand marriage to two men or two women).</p>
<p>Why do I say this? Because the argument in favor of expanding marriage to two men is because that is what the two men wish to do. They love each other and wish to spend their lives together as a family unit. If you agree with this argument to expand marriage to include gays, then the same argument applies to polygamy. </p>
<p>A man and his three wives love each other and wish to spend their lives together as a family unit. Thus, they should be permitted to marry using the same logic used by those supporting gay marriage.</p>
<p>It’s not about concubines. It’s about one man loving two or more women and the women loving the same man and are willing to live with each other and to help each other raise children together.</p>
<p>apparently not many of you have ever been married.</p>
<p>one spouse is enough to drive anyone nuts - why double or triple the risk of going crazy? it should be illegal but not because it’s immoral - it should be outlawed because multiple spouses is just cruel and unusual punishment that no person should ever endure.</p>
<p>Why do the women not get multiple husbands? Why not in this multiple spouse arrangement also allow women to marry other women and men to marry other men? </p>
<p>It’s not like people can’t arrange this already. They can’t legally marry, sure, but nothing says they can’t live a polygamist lifestyle on their own. Hm…I wonder why people don’t do that? ::rolls eyes::</p>
<p>Allowing full out polygamy would do nothing more than put even more money in lawyers’ pockets. </p>
<p>Woman tend to nag, A LOT. People think that having seven wives would be like living in the Playboy Mansion or something. People forget that women quit having sex after marriage (or so I am told) so this would be a stupid reason to get married multiple times. Now having seven girlfriends who leave when you want them to would be totally sweet.</p>
<p>^isn’t most polygamy due to religious reasons that include women needing have 2904 children by their husband? so basically he gets all the sex he wants. eh, who cares.</p>
<p>i agree on the domestic violence. and rape and molestation. but according to the OP we can’t bring that up. haha. i saw this special on amish people yesterday. some girl was raped by her 3 brothers and father and she told her mom but the mom ignored her. so she left the town and came back wired for the police and got them to confess. and then when they arrested the guys they all plead guilty and didn’t lie b/c it’s against thier beliefs. haha. so they can rape people but they can’t lie. anyway, the whole amish town went to their trials and cried for the brothers, not for the raped girl. it was pretty weird, and interesting. this was a special that included the mormon guy who just got caught too.</p>
<p>^yeah i had never heard of that either. but i don’t have that good of knowledge in the judaism dept. so i wait for people who do (ie you) to confirm this and then i say i agree.</p>
<p>Polygamy is very much accepted in Judaism. Abraham had more than 1 wife, so did Isaac and so did Jacob. For Ashkanazi Jews (that’s French, German and Eastern European Jews) it was officially banned by a certain Rabbi Gershom – he did this, as far as I remember, to keep the non-Jewish neighbors from accusing jews of being polygamists, eventhough by that point the jews didn’t participate in polygamy but it was still technically not forbidden. I also believe his ban was supposed to last 1,000 years. (I believe it has since expired but has been unofficially but unanimously upheld by most modern Rabbis.) There is also the requriment to follow the laws of the land that you’re living in (in our case the USA and etc…) which band polygamy.</p>
<p>Even up until recently certain Jews from the middle east were allowed to move to Israel and stay married to multiple wives (you’re not allowed to marry multiple wifes in Israel.)</p>
<p>So while polygamy in Judaism, especially modern Judaism polygamy is essentially banned. Original Jewish sources themselves do not officially forbid it (such as the bible or as talmud) and any bans have been by recent authoraties.</p>
<p>This is not to say that the Bible and Judaism encourage polygamy, they merely tolerate it.</p>
<p>I say that with a good bit knowledge too.</p>
<p>EDIT: I also meant to say that most bans of polygamy in Judaism seem to originate with the idea that’s it’s not acceptable to do it in the lands they live in and so the Jews have banned it aswell – neither the bible nor the talmud say you have to be a polygamist, they merely allow it – thus the later rabbis, through a well established structure that allows for such laws, had the authority to limit it.</p>
<p>My question is: why is it unacceptable in this very specific land, the USA?</p>
<p>katho11, true but in each of those cases someone is abusing someone else, or someone’s life is being taken against their will for the ends of others.</p>
<p>Here a group of consenting adults makes a decision to get married, live together, grow old together. No one is killed, no one is hurt – any more so than any regular marriage. Everyone is in on this willingly and they can always leave by means of divorce – as much as they can leave any other marriage. Why is this arguement acceptable for gay marriage but not polygamy?</p>
<p>I know they’re totally different issues, but I’m only using your logic. </p>
<p>You can’t just say “this religion isn’t necessarily against this” to prove your point. Just because something was done regularly a couple thousand years ago (or even 400 years ago) doesn’t mean it’s right. It’s important to realize why something done a long time ago isn’t done anymore.</p>