(April 5, 2013 at 6:31 pm)Mr Infidel Wrote: From what I can understand, there is no valid reason for polygamy to be illegal, just as their is no valid reason for same-sex marriage to be illegal. Skimming some articles, polygamy is illegal simply because people don't like it.
No, it is illegal because it is religious and sexist. In a utopia which does not exist it "should be" legal. But because no one can agree on who the alpha male is in a given context, one on one seems to be the path of least conflict. You are not going to get religious men to agree to one woman having 5 husbands. If "polygamy" were secular and not religious based, it IN THEORY, should not be a problem because it would also apply to women, if they were treated equal, which they are not.
Even without the argument of equality, it is more manageable to deal with less than more. Ask any male or female who has had an affair outside the assumed one on one relationship how hard that is to manage, more people in a contract, or violate an assumed contract creates more problems because you have to deal with more people.
And from an evolutionary scale men have more they can waste as far as genetic resources, sperm, than women do, eggs. So polygamy appeals to our male evolution.
Now, don't get me wrong, when I say "should be" I am not dealing with religious context at all. Religious polygamy is vile and sexist and should be outlawed.
On average, even with our range of people who can deal with multiple partners sanely and on a secular basis, we did not evolve to deal well with competition to our potential creation of offspring, male or female.
So "should be" will never match the reality that we tend to want exclusivity in a relationship because becomes a sense of security of future in making offspring. Even in polygamy which is religious based, that still is an "exclusive" attitude, because the women are religiously obligated to be the resource to the men.
Bottom line, polygamy is a relic of the past and male insecurity. The societies that still partake in it, are stuck in an ignorant past. There is no way these same assholes would allow women to do the same.
So "should be" is mute and pointless.