In a recent court ruling in Utah, a Federal judge ruled that the ban on marriage co-habitation is un-constitutional. The plaintiff in this case was a Mormon and asked the court to rule the ban on co-habitation un-constitutional because the existing law uses the language of co-habitation and not polygamy, but the law was applied to polygamy also. The Judge ruled that marriage license, for legal purposes, can be with only one wife but others can be only co-habitants. Following are some thoughts by experts in NYT. Dr, Aziz Amin gave a wonderful talk on this subject at Thinkers Forum some time ago. Although it has religious dimension also, but If you like to comment, please comment only from social and legal point of view and not religious aspect. Thanks. ( F. Sheikh)
Legally, No Different From Same-Sex Unions
Ron Den Otter is an associate professor of political science at Cal Poly San Luis Opisbo.
DECEMBER 17, 2013
Americans are becoming more accustomed to the idea that it may not be wrong for people to have unconventional intimate relationships, provided that all of those involved are consenting adults. Television programs, like HBO’s “Big Love,” TLC’s “Sister Wives” and the National Geographic Channel’s “Polygamy USA” have illuminated the unique challenges of multipartner relationships. The more charitable media portrayal of polygamy, coupled with the debate over same-sex marriage, has encouraged a few academics to think more deeply about the meaning of marriage in a morally pluralistic society like our own. Limiting the size of a marriage may soon be seen as no more justified (or constitutional) than restricting marriage to same-race or opposite-sex couples.
Enough With the Scare Tactics
John Corvino, chairman of the philosophy department at Wayne State University, is the author of “What’s Wrong With Homosexuality?”
UPDATED DECEMBER 17, 2013, 6:30 PM
Conservative fearmongers have long warned that same-sex marriage will send the nation down a slippery slope to polygamy, and they’re pointing to the recent Utah decision as evidence. The marriage-equality movement does indeed have a connection with recent challenges to polygamy bans — just not the connection that fearmongers contend.
There are two versions of the slippery-slope argument from gay marriage to polygamy, and as I’ve argued at length elsewhere, they’re both bad. One version claims that because procreation requires one man and one woman, that’s the only logical arrangement for marriage, and once you reject that standard, anything goes. But whatever its merits as an argument against same-sex marriage, the physical complementarity of the sexes makes a terrible argument against polygamy: Human biology makes it quite possible — which is not to say desirable — for a man to impregnate multiple women or for a woman to bear the children of multiple men.
We Are a Nation of Boundary Breakers
Melynda Price is an associate professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law and blogs at Thoughts of an Ivory Tower Interloper.
DECEMBER 17, 2013
We tend to forget this nation began with the pushing, then breaking, of boundaries. We have moved in slow, plodding steps from a nation that practiced widespread exclusion to a more expansive democracy. It may be hard for some to swallow polygamy as a democratic practice, but perhaps it is.
Polygamy Is Bad for Women
Shoshana Grossbard is a professor of economics emerita at San Diego State University and a visiting professor of economics at the University of Zaragoza. In 2010, she testified as an expert witness at a constitutional reference case in British Columbia aimed at determining the validity of Canada’s polygamy law.
UPDATED DECEMBER 17, 2013, 6:39 PM
According to Pierre Trudeau, late prime minister of Canada, “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” In that spirit Adam Winkler favors lifting the ban on plural marriage.
I used to agree with him, but now I think differently. Under polygyny, markets for wives are sellers’ markets, where men can participate multiple times but women can only do so once at a time. Assuming a free market, women will pick their marriage partners and capture the entire value added of marriage.
A Step in the Wrong Direction
W. Bradford Wilcox, the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and a senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, is the author of “Gender and Parenthood: Biological and Social Scientific Perspectives.” He is onTwitter.
DECEMBER 17, 2013
In their embrace of a laissez faire approach to family life, some liberals andlibertarians seem blind to a basic truth: namely, the success of liberalism depends in part on thriving two-parent families. Not so for William Galston, who recognized in his book “Liberal Purposes” that American liberalism depends upon virtues most likely to be cultivated in a particular family type. He wrote: “From the standpoint of economic well-being and sound psychological development, the evidence indicates that the intact, two-parent family is generally preferable to the available alternatives.”
Understanding Who ‘They’ Are
Ralph Richard Banks, the Jackson Eli Reynolds professor of law at Stanford Law School, is the author of “Is Marriage for White People? How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone.”
DECEMBER 17, 2013
Will the advent of same-sex marriage portend the demise of laws that prohibit polygamous marriage? Maybe. The legal arguments for the continued prohibition of polygamous marriage are not nearly as weighty as commonly thought. Rather, what undergirds the continued rejection of polygamy are social understandings that inform moral and legal reasoning about marriage laws.
