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<p>It goes back even farther than that. Our distant ape relatives avoid incest too. Chimps have no form of pair-bonding (i.e. “marriage”) whatsoever. Whenever a female in the troop comes in heat all the males will have sex with her in turn according to their social rank – the big exceptions are that males will not mate with their own mothers or sisters. Even chimps abhor incest.</p>
<p>I’m not sure why the state is in the marriage business at all. I love being
married, but I would prefer to relate to the state as an individual. It’s clear
that the state has a compelling interest in children, but that doesn’t mean
they need to meddle in marriage.</p>
<p>Well, I say if we’re going to redefine marriage, we might as well do it right and make it any union of consenting adults (no limits). Then we should focus making sure all partners are equally protected during the marriage and that in the case of death or other dissolution, we know how to deal with property and most especially offspring.</p>
<p>As for incest, two things. First, it was decided that “it’s icky” is not a valid argument against certain proposed changes to traditional marriage and feeling icky proves someone is ignorant and prejudiced. If that’s the case for one form of the newly proposed marriage, it’s true for all of them. No exceptions.</p>
<p>Second, we’re not chimpanzees. If you don’t accept marriage rules as handed down 3,500 years ago, how can you require others to accept “rules” that evolved 3.5 million years ago? </p>
<p>More seriously, the main objection against incest is the risk to any offspring. The most commonly proposed change to marriage takes biological offspring off the table, at least barring reproduction involving very sophisticated technology. If incestual partners are infertile, naturally or otherwise, is there still a legitimate legal objection? Or if genetic science creates tests that show there’s no genetic risk to a specific set of partners? Or if we able to correct genetic issues, a boon to unrelated partners as well as related ones? Should incestual marriage be barred then? </p>
<p>What about the reverse? If we show unrelated partners have specific genetic risks, should we prohibit their marriage?</p>
<p>As for polygamy, or more properly, plural marriage, it certainly has many more historical precedents than other proposed changes to traditional marriage. It has historical baggage, but I’m not any happier with a male dominating marriage involving one oppressed woman than I am with one involving several. Anyone for changing the laws on that?</p>
<p>Any change toward plural marriage would have to stress both “consenting” and “adults”, and as far as I’m concerned if a woman wants to marry more than one man (and or women), more power to her. Frankly, I can’t see society’s objection, not if a main justification for other changes is that government should not interfere with consenting adults. That wouldn’t legalize bigamy, btw, since all parties in the marriage would have to consent to marrying each other. It doesn’t count if you’re keeping multiple partners who are unaware of each other.</p>
<p>Marrying Poochie? Normally I’d say keep it in the same species, but that’s too narrow and suggests I lean toward “icky”. And after all, Spock’s mother married a Vulcan. 
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<p>I will say that if you can convince me both that Poochie is over 18 and capable of the same informed consent required of a human, I’d consider it.</p>
<p>(YMMV, and even I’m not completely sure how serious I am.)</p>
<p>“Frankly, I can’t see society’s objection, not if a main justification for other changes is that government should not interfere with consenting adults.:”</p>
<p>Re polygamy, I have a question, but no answer (so this is not a judgment, but rather an expression of confusion, ok?) In many polygamous communities, the state ends up footing the bill for the many kids as a matter of choice and, frankly, I don’t want to pay for that. Obviously, it would be almost impossible to fix, but it seems to me that polygamy is inherently a system that encourages the birth of more children than the parents can support.</p>
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<p>My point was that avoidance of incest is very likely something stronger than a simple social taboo. Due to the significant biological advantages it confers, avoiding incest is a behavior that has probably been “hard-wired” into us from way back. The fact that we share this behavioral trait with our nearest primate relatives tends to confirm this notion.</p>
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<p>Don’t have enough experience with polygamy to know much about that. On the other hand, it was an issue in part of the culture that avoided marriage to force the state to foot the bill for the many kids as a matter of choice.<br>
I see the concern, but not necessarily as a matter how many people are or are not participating in a given marriage. </p>
<p>I don’t want to pay for either circumstance,either. How do you deal with anyone that has more kids than they can support? Last I heard there was no perfect answer to the question other than that the kids should come first.</p>
<p>Any couple should be allowed to marry as long as they agree not to reproduce OR they satisfy the following conditions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Opposite sex (male & female)</li>
<li>Not related (second cousins at the very least)</li>
<li>Tolerable health (no genetic defects, diseases which can be passed, etc.)</li>
<li>Good characteristics (IQ > 100, good height, good weight, etc.)</li>
<li>Agree to have as many children as the government requires to maintain proper population levels (with the possibility to give up some for adoption, possibly).</li>
</ol>
<p>A bit harsh, yes, but come on. It’s what everybody’s thinking.</p>
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<p>Oh, I quite see the point. But the “icky” factor is also a natural reaction designed to prevent sex between members of the same gender. It’s “hard-wired” (though more often suppressed) in most individuals, too. For that matter, the rules in Leviticus made sense in an agrarian culture where survival of a family or society depended on having many offspring and anything that interfered with that was inherently wrong.</p>
<p>My point was that we are not bound by nature or agrarian concerns any more. If we understand the issue better than natural or cultural evolution once framed it and can compensate for it through technology, it’s fair to argue the old rules should no longer apply. On either count.</p>
<p>“It goes back even farther than that. Our distant ape relatives avoid incest too. Chimps have no form of pair-bonding (i.e. “marriage”) whatsoever. Whenever a female in the troop comes in heat all the males will have sex with her in turn according to their social rank – the big exceptions are that males will not mate with their own mothers or sisters. Even chimps abhor incest.”</p>
<p>Careful, here. While there are rules against incest, in traditional Indian societies, the preferred marital partner for thousands of years was “father’s sister’s son” or “mother’s brother’s daughter”. Of course, this wasn’t always possible, but the preference was always very clear, and marriages outside of this pattern were always considered “lesser”.</p>
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<p>Ah, the eugenics argument. Breeding is only for the genetically superior. Interesting. ;)</p>
<p>[Marriage</a> Canadian Style](<a href=“http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWU4OTZhZGJhYmJhNzZiNDFjM2U1Mzk1OWVjMzc0NjQ=]Marriage”>http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWU4OTZhZGJhYmJhNzZiNDFjM2U1Mzk1OWVjMzc0NjQ=)</p>
<p>Wow, what weird timing from my point of view. </p>
<p>A Canadian special prosecutor has decided they can’t successfully prosecute polygamists in British Columbia and is asking their courts whether Canadian anti-polygamy laws should be struck down as inconsistent with their Charter.</p>
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<p>I don’t think the consent approach works. If society requires consent from an animal before legalizing sex with it, society should also require consent before legalizing something as obviously painful to animals as spaying and neutering. In fact, if consent is required, pet ownership itself is disallowed, that is, unless we claim certain animals can grant consent by behavioral cues. Unfortunately, if we go here, we obviously lose the debate when it comes to sex.</p>
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<p>I think the obvious reply to that is is is general acceptance that pets are incapable of giving informed consent and are property. Again obviously, it seems important to make sure that any category of prospective spouses can never be considered either incapable of consent or considered property before or after marriage.</p>
<p>(And I assume you were replying in kind to my tongue-in-check comment. BTW, I was talking marriage, not sex, though what you suggest is icky.)</p>
<p>Okay. Two things:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>If we accept that pets can’t give informed consent and are therefore property, it then seems we have a basis for permitting, by law, sex between animals and humans regardless of marriage and the Icky Factor (IF).</p></li>
<li><p>If one has a legal right to have sex with an animal without consent, then one obviously does not need consent to marry the animal. Marriage is no more against the animal’s interest than having sex with it, or spaying it, or neutering it. It is just a relationship between two organisms established by whatever means. The marriage may or may not have anything to do with consent, just as is the case in many countries between humans. I think we insist on consent here only because it helps us avoid the IF. But a consent requirement seems arbitrary.</p></li>
</ol>
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<p>OK, but in that case I’ve got dibbs on Jennifer Aniston.</p>
<p>Sex and marriage are two different things and we’re discussing marriage, here in the US and no where else. That there are arranged marriages else where doesn’t mean that we should base our laws on the fact. </p>
<p>And the whole animal sex thing is a whale of a stretch, no pun intended. We’ve decoupled sex and marriage (my what a Freudian choice of words) on the basis of the consenting adult theory and by definition below a certain level of intelligence, consent is impossible. The theory’s never been applied to the other areas you discuss. Not likely to be, either.</p>
<p>TheOC, you’ve started two threads so far that I’ve seen (one about hipsters and now this). I hope you will contribute positively to the CC community in the future rather than stirring up arguments and showering us with your bigoted opinions.</p>
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<p>And yet at the same time the Bible has multiple instances of incest.</p>
<p>You don’t have dibbs on Aniston because she is not your property. But, as we seem to have accepted, property can serve as the basis of your having sex with Aniston’s dog, provided she should sell it to you. And if you can have sex with the dog, then property can also serve as the basis for marriage with it. Sex and marriage are indeed different things, but I think the difference is what causes the difficulty.</p>
<p>I understand how this might all seem like a stretch to you, but a hundred years ago legalized polygamy and homosexuality were both widely considered stretches, so much so that they were banned, much as sex with animals is today. So we ought not appeal to mere convention as a defense for our beliefs.</p>
<p>I am not advocating approval of sex with animals, by the way. I am trying to explore why it is we have such a problem with it. I do not think we have a problem with it because of anything to do with consent. There is another reason and I think it is possibly related to our difficulty with incest, polygamy, and homosexuality.</p>
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<p>Similar reasoning was used against the idea of interracial marriages.</p>
<p>“Sex and marriage are two different things”</p>
<p>Yeah, and marriage has never had anything to do with sex, right?</p>
<p>BTY, Dross—good to see you!</p>
<p>Just because there are biblical accounts of incest, doesn’t mean they were God approved. In fact, Levitical law prohibits incest.</p>