Sexual Ethics: Marriage

There’s a great deal of people who are being denied fundamental rights and legal protections because of their sexual preference. Not only are they not allowed to marry (in most countries), but their entire existence is sniggered at and dismissed by people from all walks of life. Our society does not allow such people to express their love for each other in an official and legal manner. So they’re second class citizens. The fact that we don’t grant them equal rights often ends up causing much grief in terms of legal and property disputes.

I am of course talking about polygamists.

There IS a sizeable community of polygamous/polyamorous people, both religious and secular. And they’re most certainly missing out on rights in these supposedly-liberal-democracies many of us live in. However it’s very easy to snigger, trivialise and dismiss these people and experiences — and people do. For instance polyamory might often be dismissed as immature, even by people who normally go by harm arguments (and hence wouldn’t go so far as to call it immoral). It is often objected that this is a fringe issue — most relationships are monogamous, at least in theory. But it’s always bad to have a legal system that pretends to accurately reflect the world (eg. family situations) but doesnt.

One of the main facts that’s been used to poo-poo polygamous marriage is that polygamy has a high correlation with religions where women are oppressed (Islam, Mormonism etc). It’s true that a lot of polygamous marriages involve fundamentalist wife-beaters. BUT:

• Any abuse is a problem society should be looking to fix separately. Whether their marriage is legally recognised or not has nothing to do with it. Plus if we prohibit polygamy for this reason we’re basically saying to consensual polyamorists that they can’t get married because other people have fucked up that right on their behalf.
• Some argue that any legal recognition is wrong because it gives an ideological tolerance of women’s oppression. The reality is that polygamy will happen even if it’s illegal (and does). A formal legal recognition can only give non-primary wives more protection. The argument from ideology puts abstract human dignity above actual harm.
• There’s probably at least as much oppression of women in monogamous marriages. By this logic we should prohibit all marriages.
• Even if we prohibit polygamy as an empty legal tool, we should at least admit it and not trumpet a pompous and useless morality.

Or we could just solve this problem and the problem of gay marriage (mainly that people who oppose it waste so much public discourse speaking against it). Since people form whatever families they like anyway (straight, gay, polygamous, whatever), how about some sanity? Civil unions for all — then everyone can define marriage for themselves however they like. And we can move onto more important things, like supporting people getting out of abusive marriages: whether mono or poly.