Your views on MARRIAGE

[Mr.wizard]

The risk of you getting an std, if one out of ten cheats, is the same as if one out of one cheats. The other nine in the equation do not add to the risk pool if they are faithful. I see your point if 2 or more are cheating because now you would have two cheating partners as opposed to one.

But it would increase the rate of STDs overall. If you got an STD and you were sexually active with 6 other people on a regular basis, there is a big chance all 7 of you will eventually get infected. If you were married to just one person, only 2 people will contract STDs as opposed to 7. Let's keep the STD rates down!

Right but the risk of an std entering your circle is the same if one person out of the ten cheats or one person out of a monogamous marriage cheats. In both cases you have one cheating spouse.

[Catholic_Lady]

CL, are you sure you're not writing a thesis and using us to get your answers!
Now, that's just cheating! That would explain all the questions!
Especially the one about the public dunnies!

Hahaha! No, no thesis. I just like online discussions.

[Pyrrho]

If you have more spouses, it is more likely that one of them will cheat on you than if you only have one spouse.  

If you have one spouse, if that one is trustworthy, you have no worries.  But if you marry yet another person, that person must ALSO be trustworthy, or you are at risk of STDs.  And if you marry yet another person, that person must ALSO be trustworthy, or you are at risk of STDs.

Basically, all it takes is one person to bring STDs into the relationship.  So if there are two people in it, there only need to be two trustworthy people.  If there are 10 people in it, ALL 10 must be trustworthy or ALL of you are at risk of STDs.

The risk of you getting an std, if one out of ten cheats, is the same as if one out of one cheats. The other nine in the equation do not add to the risk pool if they are faithful. I see your point if 2 or more are cheating because now you would have two cheating partners as opposed to one.

That is irrelevant to my posts.  Of course if you have a cheating spouse, you are at risk of getting an STD.  That is not the issue.  The issue is, the more spouses you have, the more likely it is that one (or more) of them will cheat.  You are not guaranteed to have a cheating spouse, so you may not have any cheating spouses at all.  But the more spouses you have, the more likely that at least one of your spouses will cheat on you.  Consequently, the more spouses you have, the more likely you will get an STD.

[Catholic_Lady]

Seriously though, the STD thing seems like at least one decent reason to not encourage anything other than monogamy. And the whole thing with children. I feel like if polygamous relationships were recognized by the law, we wouldn't be encouraging monogamy.

[Mr.wizard]

I don't understand the std argument, If everyone in a polygamous relationship is faithful, your not any greater risk. Its exactly the same for a monogamous marriage. I don't have any moral objections to polygamy assuming all parties are consenting, I think the problems are with child custody and division of assets.

[Catholic_Lady]

When you're washin in the shower,
And you feel a cauliflower,
Gonorrhea,
Cha cha cha, GONORRHEA!

---

^Btw, I just made that up.

Ba dum bump!

Thank you, thank you. I'm here 7 days a week.

[Minimalist]

However, in that particular case, Lee Marvin won and did not have to pay her,

Correct but he won because of lack of evidence.  One unguarded conversation in which he said he would "take care of her" and his whole argument would have gone down the drain.
Most men can't remember where they put their socks.  You think they are going to be able to recall and refute everything they ever said?

[Pyrrho]

I don't understand the std argument, If everyone in a polygamous relationship is faithful, your not any greater risk. Its exactly the same for a monogamous marriage. I don't have any moral objections to polygamy assuming all parties are consenting, I think the problems are with child custody and division of assets.

Yes, IF everyone is faithful, then no STDs will be added to the group (let us ignore things like sharing needles that can also get one STDs).  However, in the real world, some people cheat, and some do not.  The larger the group of people you collect together, the more likely there will be at least one of them who will cheat.

Now, it may be that with your large group, you will be very, very lucky and no one will cheat.  But cheating is a common problem, so that one should expect that someone probably will cheat if there is a large group of people involved.



We can try to approach this from another angle.  We can divide everyone in the world between those who would cheat, and those who would not cheat.  This is an abstract division, and we are not going to be able to tell by looking at them which ones are the cheaters and which are not.  It isn't as if cheaters had "CHEATER" tattooed on their foreheads.

So, if we select two of the people, it might be that we have not selected any of the cheaters in the world.  If that is the case, and they do not add anyone to their group, then they don't add STDs to their group.  But, if they add a person from the world to the group, it may be that that third person is a cheater, and if that is the case, then they may add STDs to the group.  The odds are greater than zero (that is to say, it is possible) that the third person is a cheater, and so they increase the likelihood of getting STDs by adding that third person to the group.  The same idea applies to adding additional people, with each new addition.


Of course, if the first two already involves a cheater, then they already have a chance of adding STDs to the group.  But we do not know that one of the first two is a cheater; they may or may not be.  That is, there is a chance that neither is a cheater.

With each individual person, there is a chance that the person is a cheater, and there is a chance that the person is not a cheater.  The more people you select, the more likely it is that at least one of them is a cheater.

[Minimalist]

we wouldn't be encouraging monogamy.

One wife is more than sufficient.  Whatever would I do with two 'honey-do' lists?

[ignoramus]

Boy o boy, you are suffering from bored housewife syndrome! Aren't you?
Remember, we all love you, even with your wacky ideas, but that comedy routine is stretching the friendship!
It was so bad, I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't get a warning!  Hehe