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By guaranteeing that just about every man is matched with a woman, monogamy brings harmony and social order. Having millions of single men with no prospect of m

By guaranteeing that just about every man is matched with a woman, monogamy brings harmony and social order. Having millions of single men with no prospect of marriage would lead to more crime, resentment, strife, and so forth.

nerdjon 7y ago
Please for the love of god tell me you are missing a "/s". Assuming not.... I forgot about how only single men (ignoring any woman that commit crimes) commit crimes. How you can only be happy if you found "the one". That a single person will give you every single thing you ever need. Which... is bullshit.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  That all men are heterosexual and only want a woman. (In a discussion of an article about gay marriage no less.)
  - nerdjon 7y ago
    Even better... in a comment written by a gay man >.> (myself) That also though :p
Freak_NL 7y ago
Why would polygamy change the balance? Are polyamorous relationships where the women outnumber the men significantly more common?
- marcoperaza 7y ago
  Thanks to dating sites and hookup apps, there is plenty of data on how men and women choose partners when there is no restraint other than the willingness of the other. It’s not symmetric at all.
  - Freak_NL 7y ago
    Implementing a legalised form of polygamous marriage won't change nor exacerbate that. The number of people who have concurrent relationships with more than one partner won't change by denying a formal form of that type of partnership, although it could mean some won't have to be as secretive about it. That is, whether or not the distribution of romantic partners is symmetric or not is completely irrelevant to this topic. Incels have always existed, and will always exist, under varying names (in all genders).
    - marcoperaza 7y ago
      You’re right that if the only aspect of the prohibition left standing is the law, the issue is probably lost. But morality and law feed each other, so I disagree that it’s totally irrelevant.
    - sDlEzAtyoNAz 7y ago
      >Implementing a legalised form of polygamous marriage won't change nor exacerbate that. It's interesting that you're making this claim in a discussion about an article which claims that legalizing homosexual marriage was associated with reduced anti-gay bias. Do you doubt that legalizing polygamous marriage would be associated with reduced anti-polygamous bias? Do you not think that the behavior of wealthy and powerful men is constrained in any way by anti-polygamous bias in our current society? For example, do you think the number of wealthy and powerful men today who choose not to engage in polygamous behavior is identical to the number who would choose to engage in such behavior absent that bias, even though historically it has been the norm for wealthy and powerful men to have many wives and concubines? Do you think the men who engage in it today in secret would not engage it to an even greater degree absent that bias? >Incels have always existed, and will always exist, under varying names (in all genders). Do you think the proportion of incel males to non-incel males has always been the same, or that the proportion does not matter?
- sDlEzAtyoNAz 7y ago
  When women are free to choose who they have sex with, 80% prefer to have sex with the same 20% of men. Even if by some miracle polygamous marriages did not affect the balance of unmarried men and unmarried women, sexual access within those marriages would be hugely uneven for the men, provided the women remained free to choose which of their husbands to have sex with.
DoreenMichele 7y ago
Tolerance of polygamy seems to correspond to regions with a history of tremendous strife where men go off to war and get killed at high rates. It ensures that women can reproduce even if there aren't enough men to go around, thereby helping protect the future of the nation. One man with four wives can produce four babies in a year and everyone will know the parentage of all children. One woman with four husbands can produce one child and no one will ever be certain who the daddy really is. Even if you invent effective inheritance laws to cope with that, it still has potential to cause problems. Inbreeding is known to foster genetic issues. Avoiding that outcome seems to be one of the cornerstones of a lot of human sexual morality policies.
- marcoperaza 7y ago
  Yes, that is a very pragmatic thing. But it is not the case now, where the sentiment seems to just be “freedom”, the kind of freedom you can only ever truly have in the jungle. I think we forget that the fruits of society have a cost, and it’s not just to the pocketbook of the wealthy man.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> By guaranteeing that just about every man is matched with a woman, monogamy brings harmony and social order. Without a patriarchal women-as-property model, monogamy demonstrably does not actually do that[0][1]; in a non-patriarchal, egalitarian system, removing the monogamy restriction might do that better than having it, even though monogamy is clearly better at that among strongly patriarchal women-as-property systems, where removing the restriction just means adopting polygyny where the more wealthy men have more women just like they have more of any other property. [0] In the US only a little over 55% of adults are married, and by race only whites and Asians are over 50%, blacks at less than 30%. [1] In fact, if women opt out of marriage in any significant numbers, and (given same sex marriage as an option) male and female homosexual preference is equally distributed (or female homosexual preference more common), polyandry is necessary to achieve almost-all-men-get-partners.
- marcoperaza 7y ago
  Calling it a “property model” is totally wrong. It is about two people with moral obligations to each other and to society.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > Calling it a “property model” is totally wrong. The historical model in which monogamy achieves the goal claimed of guaranteeing virtually all men a partner (and where polygamy, which on such cases is universally exclusive polygyny, does not do so) is a patriarchal, women-as-property model—this is a historically common model but generally not seen in the modern developed world, and in the modern developed world monogamy generally does not have (and generalized polygamy is not opposed to) that effect.
    - marcoperaza 7y ago
      Moral and legal obligations that restrict your choices don’t make you “property”. Property itself isn’t a single, neat concept, but refers to bundles of rights and obligations. By using the word “property”, you’re invoking the mental image of some of the rights associated with physical property, like the near absolute right to destroy and use for your own purposes. Marriage is no such a thing at all. It’s a kind of relationship with its own peculiar set of moral rights and obligations, like e.g. contracts or torts. Being required to exercise care so as to not be liable in tort doesn’t make you anyone’s “property”, and neither does a contract to sell them goods. Monogamous marriage is no doubt a restriction of freedom, just like all of the other rules that govern our society. The argument is whether such restrictions are justified, not making poorly-founded analogies to “property”.

nerdjon 7y ago

Please for the love of god tell me you are missing a "/s". Assuming not.... I forgot about how only single men (ignoring any woman that commit crimes) commit crimes. How you can only be happy if you found "the one". That a single person will give you every single thing you ever need. Which... is bullshit.

DoreenMichele 7y ago
That all men are heterosexual and only want a woman. (In a discussion of an article about gay marriage no less.)
- nerdjon 7y ago
  Even better... in a comment written by a gay man >.> (myself) That also though :p

Freak_NL 7y ago

Why would polygamy change the balance? Are polyamorous relationships where the women outnumber the men significantly more common?

marcoperaza 7y ago
Thanks to dating sites and hookup apps, there is plenty of data on how men and women choose partners when there is no restraint other than the willingness of the other. It’s not symmetric at all.
- Freak_NL 7y ago
  Implementing a legalised form of polygamous marriage won't change nor exacerbate that. The number of people who have concurrent relationships with more than one partner won't change by denying a formal form of that type of partnership, although it could mean some won't have to be as secretive about it. That is, whether or not the distribution of romantic partners is symmetric or not is completely irrelevant to this topic. Incels have always existed, and will always exist, under varying names (in all genders).
  - marcoperaza 7y ago
    You’re right that if the only aspect of the prohibition left standing is the law, the issue is probably lost. But morality and law feed each other, so I disagree that it’s totally irrelevant.
  - sDlEzAtyoNAz 7y ago
    >Implementing a legalised form of polygamous marriage won't change nor exacerbate that. It's interesting that you're making this claim in a discussion about an article which claims that legalizing homosexual marriage was associated with reduced anti-gay bias. Do you doubt that legalizing polygamous marriage would be associated with reduced anti-polygamous bias? Do you not think that the behavior of wealthy and powerful men is constrained in any way by anti-polygamous bias in our current society? For example, do you think the number of wealthy and powerful men today who choose not to engage in polygamous behavior is identical to the number who would choose to engage in such behavior absent that bias, even though historically it has been the norm for wealthy and powerful men to have many wives and concubines? Do you think the men who engage in it today in secret would not engage it to an even greater degree absent that bias? >Incels have always existed, and will always exist, under varying names (in all genders). Do you think the proportion of incel males to non-incel males has always been the same, or that the proportion does not matter?
sDlEzAtyoNAz 7y ago
When women are free to choose who they have sex with, 80% prefer to have sex with the same 20% of men. Even if by some miracle polygamous marriages did not affect the balance of unmarried men and unmarried women, sexual access within those marriages would be hugely uneven for the men, provided the women remained free to choose which of their husbands to have sex with.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

Tolerance of polygamy seems to correspond to regions with a history of tremendous strife where men go off to war and get killed at high rates. It ensures that women can reproduce even if there aren't enough men to go around, thereby helping protect the future of the nation. One man with four wives can produce four babies in a year and everyone will know the parentage of all children. One woman with four husbands can produce one child and no one will ever be certain who the daddy really is. Even if you invent effective inheritance laws to cope with that, it still has potential to cause problems. Inbreeding is known to foster genetic issues. Avoiding that outcome seems to be one of the cornerstones of a lot of human sexual morality policies.

marcoperaza 7y ago
Yes, that is a very pragmatic thing. But it is not the case now, where the sentiment seems to just be “freedom”, the kind of freedom you can only ever truly have in the jungle. I think we forget that the fruits of society have a cost, and it’s not just to the pocketbook of the wealthy man.

dragonwriter 7y ago

> By guaranteeing that just about every man is matched with a woman, monogamy brings harmony and social order. Without a patriarchal women-as-property model, monogamy demonstrably does not actually do that[0][1]; in a non-patriarchal, egalitarian system, removing the monogamy restriction might do that better than having it, even though monogamy is clearly better at that among strongly patriarchal women-as-property systems, where removing the restriction just means adopting polygyny where the more wealthy men have more women just like they have more of any other property. [0] In the US only a little over 55% of adults are married, and by race only whites and Asians are over 50%, blacks at less than 30%. [1] In fact, if women opt out of marriage in any significant numbers, and (given same sex marriage as an option) male and female homosexual preference is equally distributed (or female homosexual preference more common), polyandry is necessary to achieve almost-all-men-get-partners.

marcoperaza 7y ago
Calling it a “property model” is totally wrong. It is about two people with moral obligations to each other and to society.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > Calling it a “property model” is totally wrong. The historical model in which monogamy achieves the goal claimed of guaranteeing virtually all men a partner (and where polygamy, which on such cases is universally exclusive polygyny, does not do so) is a patriarchal, women-as-property model—this is a historically common model but generally not seen in the modern developed world, and in the modern developed world monogamy generally does not have (and generalized polygamy is not opposed to) that effect.
  - marcoperaza 7y ago
    Moral and legal obligations that restrict your choices don’t make you “property”. Property itself isn’t a single, neat concept, but refers to bundles of rights and obligations. By using the word “property”, you’re invoking the mental image of some of the rights associated with physical property, like the near absolute right to destroy and use for your own purposes. Marriage is no such a thing at all. It’s a kind of relationship with its own peculiar set of moral rights and obligations, like e.g. contracts or torts. Being required to exercise care so as to not be liable in tort doesn’t make you anyone’s “property”, and neither does a contract to sell them goods. Monogamous marriage is no doubt a restriction of freedom, just like all of the other rules that govern our society. The argument is whether such restrictions are justified, not making poorly-founded analogies to “property”.