Posted: Apr 01, 2010 10:38 am
One point that I don't think has been raised yet: There is a difference between polygamy in principle and in practice. For instance, as it is practiced in Islamic societies it is one aspect of a systematic and culturally sanctioned attitude of subjugation and oppression of women, so on that basis it can be argued to be immoral.
And, of course, it has changed significantly already. As I mentioned, it seems the current status of monogamy as the accepted model is only a recent development.
And that's a perfectly good, pragmatic argument. However, it still doesn't justify treating polygamy as a criminal act. In most US states, it is considered a felony.
xrayzed wrote:I don't see marriage disappearing anytime soon, although I can see it changing significantly over time. It's a very complex institution that has a range of social, emotional, legal ramifications, quite apart from whatever supposed interest a god might have in the issue.
And, of course, it has changed significantly already. As I mentioned, it seems the current status of monogamy as the accepted model is only a recent development.
byofrcs wrote:There is a perfectly good reason to limit it to two people (in same species).
Governmental database schemas.
It's probably cost hundreds of millions to allow the databases to have one party as male and one as female but to allow any arbitrary number of people and certainly to allow non-human species would be a coding nightmare.
Worse than Y2k, worse than Web2.0, worse than Client-Server, worse than the day someone mentioned there is 29 days in February and we had to shift the trilithons one virgin width to the right, worse than the day Khufu, on a bender, thought it would be fun to have something really really big.
And that's a perfectly good, pragmatic argument. However, it still doesn't justify treating polygamy as a criminal act. In most US states, it is considered a felony.