KevinSim wrote:Darth J wrote:Your question was this: "I'm not sure what "the patriarchal principle" is that Lieber is referring to. Darth J, feel free to explain it to me if it would help, but largely I just want to know why polygamy would inherently lead to "stationary despotism" any more than monogamy would. What is it about polygamy that leads to any kind of despotism at all, in such a way that monogamy does not?" In this article, Marci Hamilton is specifically explaining what was meant by "the patriarchal principle" in Reynolds.
Yes, but neither she nor you explained what it is "about polygamy that leads to any kind of despotism at all, in such a way that monogamy does not."
Just how much do you need to be spoon fed, Kevin?
The Supreme Court also noted that the “patriarchal” principle typically leads to oppression. The Browns and their Stepford Wife-like existence are a perfect example.
Here you have one man who has one family with four subparts and who holds all the power. Typically, he spends his evening with the family he chooses. It is obvious that there is an equation in the family: one man = four women (or five women, or 10 women) and he is the one who will choose how many women are his equal.
Part of the pathos of the Sister Wives show comes when patriarch Kody Brown introduces a new wife and mom to the “sisters.” (Is anyone else as offended by the title of this show as I am, with its overtones of incest? Sisters have brothers; wives have husbands. It is just another marker of the women’s troubling, second-class status.) For those who believe in gender equality, this arrangement should be seen as more than just television entertainment; it is a recipe for oppression, and a foot in the door for the patriarchal principle that unfairly ruled our world not so long ago. Darth J wrote:Well, second off, that was the form of polygamy the Mormons in Utah were supporting in Reynolds.
Why are we even talking about
Reynolds v. United States?
The reason we are talking about
Reynolds v. United States is because of your non sequitur that gay people should have an equal protection right to marriage as soon as some state legislature enacts three-way polygamous marriages, and because of your obliviousness as to why this is a non sequitur
I'll stop short of calling the marriage mentioned in Reynolds v. United States polygamy done the wrong way and the polygamy sanctioned by my hypothetical law polygamy done the right way, but the simple fact is that in the realities of today's political environment the latter stands a much better chance of survival than the former.
That still has nothing to do with same-sex marriage. You are talking about a political question, in which you think it would be a good idea to change existing marriage law. Proponents of same-sex marriage in
Hollingsworth v. Perry are not asking for a change in substantive marriage law. They are asking for the same substantive rights as everyone else. That is a legal question---how the Constitution applies. It is not a political question.
As soon as you articulate the equal protection basis for legally sanctioning a menage-a-trois, then you will have explained why your conclusion follows from your premise (same-sex marriage is okay as long as three-way polygamy is okay). Not only are you not addressing the issue, there is no reason from your posts about this to believe that you even understand what the issue is.
Darth J wrote:The way you should be doing this is "Marriage = Brian + Alice + Cathy." And then you're still illustrating it so that it takes two women to equal one man.
Why do you say that? Why do you say that the way I'm illustrating it "it takes two women to equal one man"? Once again I ask you, why are you dividing the threesome on gender boundaries?
Why am I saying you are illustrating it as taking two women to equal one man? Because your illustration was two women and one man.
Darth J wrote:But you said you weren't advocating the tacit conceit that it takes two women to equal one man, remember? Why can't one woman have two husbands under your schema here? Or one woman have two wives, for that matter?
I've already answered this question, both in this thread and in other threads. I said that if someone were to introduce a bill that would make it legal for two
or three adults
of any gender combination to marry, and were to try to make that bill law,
I would support that bill. Obvioiusly "any gender combination" includes one woman and her two husbands, just as it includes one woman and her two wives.
That is still totally irrelevant to the current issues that actually exist in the real world regarding monogamous same-sex marriage.
Darth J wrote:By the way, given your expressed disdain for arbitrariness, you are aware that limiting marriage to three partners is an arbitrary number, right?
I, too, thought it was an arbitrary number when I first brought it up, but the more I think about it the more I've convinced myself that it isn't arbitrary at all. Four partners would be too many; limiting marriage to two partners is not enough.
You know how you looked up "gestalt" earlier and found out it didn't mean what you thought it meant? Maybe it's time for you to look up "arbitrary."
Darth J wrote:You do not appear to understand the difference between a risk and a certainty, nor the difference between being "screwed" in the sense of harsh practical consequences and the sense of being "screwed" in the sense that substantive law is inherently unfair. It is true that in a divorce, it is possible that one or both parties are going to have some financial readjusting because there is only so much money between the two of them. But in the idea you are proposing, it is inevitable that at least one party is going to be screwed while at least one party is going to be unjustly enriched.
Is that what happens with no-fault divorce, that one party gets screwed while the other party gets "unjustly enriched"? Granted if neither party is to blame, if there are just good reasons for them to split up, then splitting their assets in half and giving half to one party and half to the other, is not going to unjustly screw or enrich either party. But are you saying that if one party is entirely to blame and the other party is completely innocent, then in that case giving half the assets to one and half to the other will unjustly enrich and screw them respectively?
No, I'm saying you don't understand how a marital estate gets divided up in a divorce, but I really don't need to say that, since you're proving the point for me. You need to drop your fixation on "no-fault," because (1) not all states have no-fault divorce, and (2) eliminating the need to have a specific legal ground for a divorce does not fix the problem of how to divide up a marital estate between three parties when 2/3 of the parties want to remain in the marriage.
Darth J wrote:If Wife #1 is divorcing Husband and assets and debts are being divided up, it will inevitably affect the property rights of Wife #2 who is still married to Husband, even though Wife #2 isn't a party to the case because she isn't getting divorced. What it comes down to is you think it's fine to deny due process of law to a non-party (the non-divorcing spouse) just because you would like to have an extra wife.
Ah, but Wife #2
is getting divorced. My law would make the marriage a marriage between
three adults, not some combination of two marriages that happen to include the same husband. If Husband has been grossly unfair to Wife #1, and therefore Wife #1 wants a divorce, then it's possible that Wife #2
might in fact be completely innocent, but that does not mean that Wife #1 is not divorcing her every bit as much as she is divorcing Husband. And because Wife #2
is getting divorced, she
is entitled to "due process of law."
Kevin, you really do need to read up on what you're asserting, because you are making the problem worse when you think you are solving it. Why should just one of the spouses be able to force the other two to divorce each other as well? If Wife #2 and Husband are perfectly happy, why should Wife #1 be able to deprive them of a property interest (marriage)? You're not giving all of the parties due process of law. You're making it so one dissatisfied person can dissolve a bystander's marriage. Even if you call this one marriage with three parties, there are still three legal relationships because there are three people. You are setting this up so that Wife #2 loses her marriage to Husband at the whim of Wife #1, even if Wife #2 has not petitioned for divorce and does not want to end her legal relationship with Husband. What you are suggesting is a little bit like saying that a co-signor on a car loan should be able to force the lender to repossess your car even if you are current on the payments. So the buyer loses the benefit of the bargain even though the buyer is keeping his end of the deal. Same thing with your forced three-way divorce, Kevin. You are unavoidably depriving at least one person of due process, and that's before even getting into dividing up the debts and assets of the marriage.
Darth J wrote:Then you are talking about polyandry. If you have this great idea of how a legally sanctioned menage-a-trois would work, then you need to decide if each spouse is married to both of the other spouses (the wives are just as married to each other as they are to the husband), or if really all you've got is one guy with two separate marriages.
What do you mean by
married? If you're talking about having a domestic partnership, a group of people who cooperate to run a household, then yes, each spouse
is married to both of the other spouses. Or by
married are you referring to a sexual relationship? If so, then why do I "need to decide if each spouse is married to both of the other spouses"? Why can't it be precisely as I said, that "the relationships (sexual or otherwise) between each of the three pairs of adults is
precisely what the trio decide those relationships should be"?
Will this legal scheme you have thought through so well make it so the three-way marriage is voidable for failure to consummate, Kevin?
Darth J wrote:ETA: Kevin, what happens if the wives want to divorce each other but they both want to stay married to the husband?
To be perfectly honest, I never thought of such a situation. As I've said in past posts, I feel strongly that a spouse who wants out of a polygamous marriage has the right to leave, without having to justify herself.
But you are adding another layer to the changes in law you are proposing, because in some states, you DO have to justify yourself to get out of a marriage.
But in this case the wives are not leaving the marriage; by wanting to stay married to the husband they are expressing their desire to stay in the marriage. Are you asking whether Husband and Wife #2 have the right to together divorce Wife #1, or are you talking about Wife #2 wanting to severe her relationship with Wife #1 while Wife #1 is still married to Husband?
Hey, it's your legislation. That's something you have to figure out. And you have to figure out how it will work without depriving a party of either substantive or procedural due process (or both). So far you have not come anywhere near doing that.
Darth J wrote:Then you're talking about re-writing numerous marriage laws, not just the number of people.
Why would the marriage laws needed for this kind of polygamy have to be any different from the no-fault laws currently in force in some states? I don't see how we'd need to do an extensive creation of new laws. Why couldn't states without no-fault divorce just use existing no-fault divorce laws from other states?
Because states that do not have no-fault divorce believe that a contract where a party can opt out at any time, for no reason and without penalty, isn't a contract at all.
Darth J wrote:And what happens when one of these spouses deliberately acts in bad faith and breaks the marriage contract? They're not treated any differently than a spouse who tries his or her best but just can't make it work? Do you also feel that the law should treat a person who accidentally runs into someone's car the same as someone who runs into another person's car on purpose?
An inability to live with someone is not a crime. Or do you think it is a crime? Do you also oppose no-fault divorce in general?
I'm not analogizing it to a crime. I'm analogizing it to a tort. And I'm not talking about a mere inability to live with someone. I'm talking about things like adultery or fraud.
Darth J wrote:The reason you are committing the continuum fallacy is you are saying because there are unspecified problems in monogamy, a monogamous relationship is not meaningfully different from a polygamous relationship.
I am not in the slightest saying that "a monogamous relationship is not meaningfully different from a polygamous relationship." I fully recognize that there are
great, complicating differences between the relationships involved in a polygamous triple and the relationship involved in a monogamous couple. A household governed by a polygamous triple is going to be inherently more complicated than a household governed by a monogomous couple; all I'm saying is that the latter household is
also inherently more complicated than a household governed by a single adult. So if we're going to prefer monogamy to polygamy due to the increased complication of the latter, why should we not prefer the household governed by a single adult to the monogamous household, also due to the increased complication of the latter? This argument doesn't in the
slightest necessitate a meaningful equivalence of a monogamous relationship and a polygamous relationship.
Okay, so your comment about monogamy also having inherent problems was essentially a trivial observation that adds nothing to your unsupported assertion that there is some logical relationship between an equal protection right to same-sex marriage and a hypothetical statute allowing three-way marriages.
