Should polygamy be legal?
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Polygamy is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. Worldwide, different societies variously encourage, accept or outlaw polygamy.
Polygamy should be legalEdit
Arguments forEdit
Argument for — Everyone should be free to do anything that doesn't harm others. Marrying multiple people is a free choice between the parties involved and doesn't harm others, so it should be allowed.
Arguments againstEdit
Argument against — When polygamy is allowed, polygyny (one man, many women) becomes more common than polyandry (one woman, many men), so in practice a polygamous society leads to a polygynous society, which violates the dignity of women.
Objection — Polyandry could also violate the dignity of women through the mechanism of spousal abuse. Monogamy has been shown to violate the dignity of women in some circumstances. Therefore this is an argument against certain kinds of society independent of the parity of unions, not against polygamy in the most general sense.
- Argument against — Polygamy leads to some people having no spouses, which generates resentment and destabilizes society.
- Objection — There's also some people with a lot of money and others with none, which generates resentment and destabilizes society, but we don't forbid people from having a lot of money just because other people can't handle it.
- Objection — There are proposals to do just that, some implemented, so it is an inapt analogy.
- Objection — In a monogamous society, there's some people with a spouse and others without, and that doesn't cause particular resentment or social instability.
- Argument against — Polygamy implies that each spouse gets only a fraction of the time, attention, resources and love of their partner.
- Objection — This is true for all relationships. People have multiple family members, multiple friends, coworkers, etc. that they split time with. In these cases, having more members within a group is typically seen as a positive because it creates diversity.
