Keep in mind that I am in favor of gay marriage. But let’s go for a little debate, though…
What IS the difference between gay marriage and polygamy, in terms of values? If it’s okay for two men or two women to get married, then what’s so wrong about two men and one woman, or one man and two women?
Polyamory is the love of more than one person. This does not mean the multiple people that you love necessarily love eachother, in fact the most prime example of a polyamorous relationship I know in my life falls into that category.
A bisexual man and a bisexual woman got married, and they have their respective partners outside of the relationship they share with each other.
A lot of people find that sort of situation acceptable and thrive in it. Personally, I think it would be a distructive situation for me, like most people in the world. However, the reason gay marriage is such a hot topic now is because for a long time, many people thought that type of relationship was distructive – and, indeed, for them it would be – but the mistake was made of assuming it’s distructive for everybody.
I believe if all parties honestly feel it’s a constructive environment, then they should be allowed to carry it out, even legally. I really doubt there are many honestly constructive polyamorous relationships; I think a lot of people involved in them fool themselves into thinking it’s okay and deny themselves the emotion of jealousy out of deep love for one of the participants. Only the person involved could know if that was the case, though, and society should not assume it.
destructive, too.
Of course we’re talking about a vast difference in the percentage of seriously homosexual people and the percentage of seriously polyamorous people, but does that truly make a difference? One must consider equal representation, which is also a key argument behind homosexual marriage.
I do agree, though, that there are a number of these relationships that are destructive. I’ve heard about many of the type in the news – there’s always a controlling male figure and then his female slaves, and then there are the uncared-for offspring that result from these unhealthy situations. But, discarding the percentages, one must consider that there are healthy polyamorous relationships, just as there are healthy homosexual and heterosexual ones.
I did hear about a man and a woman marrying just for the sake of marital benefits and then each sharing them with their same-sex partners. I wouldn’t call that polygamy, but we might be talking about different cases.
(On a side note, as you probably realize, this isn’t necessarily my own opinion – I’m only debating for the sake of provoking thought within me and others. So uh, other people chime in too. :P)
Regular marriage between a man and a woman seems pretty immoral to me!
I think the difference is less philosophical than practical. Especially in fundamentalist Mormon communities in Utah, polygamy is often linked to pretty extreme cases of incest, rape, and domestic abuse. Even now there are still lots of crazy arranged marriages of 15 year old daughters to like 70 year old men and fathers marrying their daughters and granddaughters and raping them a lot and all kinds of other fucked up stuff that slips under the radar because entire towns are pretty much owned by the fundie Mormon clergy.
That being said, I don’t think there’s anything fundamentally philosophically flawed about the idea of polyamory or polygamy, although it’s worth mentioning that its extreme impracticality and complexity in most contexts may be the source of the moral taboo against it.
In some cultures, a marriage between one man and two women or one woman and two men is normal.
I heard that the latter is used sometimes around Tibet. One man goes out and hunts for days at a time while the other man stays at the village.