Why is it illegal to have multiple spouses?

[Anomalocaris]

So why am I not permitted 1 wife and 5 husbands in any nation?

Social order seems an unlikely motivation against its prohibition given the many things we allow that disturb the social order.

I can cohabit with a thousand men and women and spend all day making pornography and selling alcohol and printing subversive political tracts and blaspheming all religions and all kinds of other order-disturbing stuff.

But I can't marry two people of any gender.

Doesn't add up.  Smells like religious influence.

even religious influence has its roots in the social structure and social problems needing solution.

[FrustratedFool]

Do you think it reasonable for marriage to be so restricted in a modern secular state given what is already permitted?

It seems unreasonable to me.

[Anomalocaris]

Do you think it reasonable for marriage to be so restricted in a modern secular state given what is already permitted?

It seems unreasonable to me.

the question isn’t whether it seems reasonable in the context of it occurring on a small scale.  the question is if it were to become common place would it create predicable conflicts that would stress the society.

i think monogamy was originally conceived to alleviate stressing social issue in patriarchic societies

[FrustratedFool]

Do you think polyamorous marriage would have, in a nation such as the USA,:

a) have a more negative affect on social order than things already permitted (like gay marriage, booze, cannabis, guns, cohabitation, religious freedom, political satire, the internet, pornography, prostitution, etc etc)?

And also

b) be more likely to become commonplace that things already permitted (as above)?

Such that it needs to be illegal?

It seems implausible to me. For the life of me I cannot see a good reason why it is still prohibited except in terms of a religious vestige plus political/social inertia.

[Angrboda]

The danger with polygamy is that certain groups will use it to plausibly deny what is basically human trafficking (e.g. the Mormons).

[FrustratedFool]

That doesn't seem a big enough risk without other ways to counter it so as to have a blanket prohibition on what is effectively a basic human right (to marry who one wants and have a family life of one's choosing).

Surely we don't limit basic human rights without really good justifications and once other solutions to problems have been exhausted.

I mean, if we allow guns and intoxicants and porn and brothels and casinos and cars and etc with all those risks ...

[Anomalocaris]

Do you think polyamorous marriage would have, in a nation such as the USA,:

a) have a more negative affect on social order than things already permitted (like gay marriage, booze, cannabis, guns, cohabitation, religious freedom, political satire, the internet, pornography, prostitution, etc etc)?

And also

b) be more likely to become commonplace that things already permitted (as above)?

Such that it needs to be illegal?

It seems implausible to me.  For the life of me I cannot see a good reason why it is still prohibited except in terms of a religious vestige plus political/social inertia.

it depends on what recognition and obligation is distinguishes “marriage”

[The Grand Nudger]

The us would be one giant neverending property dispute, and who gets the kids, and who gets whose kids?

[arewethereyet]

The us would be one giant neverending property dispute, and who gets the kids, and who gets whose kids?

Agree - marriage can be hard enough - we don't need to make divorce even more miserable.  That would lead to more people staying in toxic relationships than there are now due to the issues with getting out of a marriage.  And we would have more fucked up kids, and more domestic abuse, because of it.

[FrustratedFool]

Is the obvious solution, then, to simply take the state out of marriage entirely, and if people want legal protections for property and kids etc to have that arranged by private contract law?